Letters Never Sent, a global nomad's journey from hurt to healing

By Ruth E. van Reken

Book Overview

Fully updated and revised, with additional 30 pages of photographs and epilogue. Ruth van Reken describes herself as 'a person in process' - someone whose life is made up of the continuous interplay between her inner and outer journey. For more than twenty-five years, Ruth has traveled to over 45 countries sharing what she has learned while 'listening to life' about the often paradoxical nature of growing up globally. What she has learned resonates with expatriate children and adults from all sectors - corporate, diplomatic, military, missionary, immigrant and refugees. Born and raised in Nigeria as the daughter of American missionaries, at age 39 Ruth needed to understand why, despite a life filled with rich experiences, a meaningful spiritual component, and family and friends who loved her, she often battled a secret depression. Through the journaling that became this book, she discovered that the very goodness of her life kept her from dealing with some of the challenges that also come with a global lifestyle - the realities of chronic cycles of separation and loss, reentry, and questions of identity. How could there be any struggles when she loved her childhood world so much? As a way of examining this 'other side' of her story, Ruth's began to write many letters home such as the girl known as Miss Question Box might have written. This book contains her story from ages six to thirty-nine. Today, in her mid-sixties, renowned internationally for her compassion, knowledge and insight into what it means to be a child growing up among worlds, van Reken, looks back over her life and adds a fascinating and reflective epilogue to a memoir that has already sold 32,000 copies and has helped and inspired its readers. Journaling has always been Ruth's first port in a storm. Writing her memoir this way is a natural part of her process. That she would also turn to her journal as a way of making sense of the cancer that knocked her 'out of line' for a couple of years, is no surprise. As she writes: "This is the power of journaling - to see the obvious but not yet named places in life." "Others who have experienced the many separations and losses in a childhood lived abroad will find Ruth's hurts their hurts, just as her healing becomes the beginning of their own." Norma M McCaig, Executive Director, Global Nomad's Society "Ruth Van Reken takes off all the spiritual masks and lets you look down into the deepest struggles of her soul." Phil Troyer, HCJB, Quito, Ecuador

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1904881483
• ISBN13: 9781904881483
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Summertime Publishing
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Pain of Separation

I grew up global. Internationally mobile. Moving every year or two. Leaving friends behind, or having friends leave us behind. Letters were the threads that kept friendships in our internationally mobile community. Everything was fleeting. Now I see you. Now I don't. Then there was boarding school - chosen. Family across an ocean in a time when long distance calls were done as rarely as telegrams. Each minute was expensive. I'd known about the phenomenon of Third Culture Kids and Global Nomads about a year at the time I met Ruth and bought her book at a conference. Unlike another reader, I couldn't put it down. Like others, I cried my way through the book. It was the kind of tears that come like a torrential downpour in a summer's afternoon, powerful, overwhelming. After the downpour came the cleansing, the clearing and a bright fresh world. If you're cynical or numb, bored or hyped up on our adrenaline culture, this book might seem sappy. But if your heart is open, the depth of feeling expressed in the letters in the book, will stretch your heart wider and remind you of the preciousness of time together with those we love. So many feelings I felt as a young girl were mirrored in this book, many of the feelings, wordless until this reading. If you didn't believe in heart strings, threads between hearts and within our own hearts, you might after you read this.

Interesting Book

The format of this book is fascinating: a series of letters the author never wrote but wishes she had. As the child of missionaries, the author faces unique situations. It is interesting to read about those parts of her childhood that were so different from what one thinks of as "normal". For instance, her stories of being sent away to boarding school as a small child are heart wrenching. Yet, there are also many parts of the book that explore universal feelings, doubts, and questions. This is definitely a book that will break your heart and lift your spirit at the same time.

Letters to the Soul

This is not a book you can read in one sitting. Take a box of Kleenex and a weekend; the thought written here is stacked like bricks, and each one weighs on the soul of anyone who has travelled among cultures and left their hearts in many places. Such introspection is by all means good for the soul. The letters written reflect in a child-like way many of the questions that we have all asked, whether they were ever answered or not. For MKs (missionsry kids) it is a relief in itself that someone else has asked these questions, too.It is not lightly that I recommend this book; for the MK seeking to make sense of the lives they lived growing up, it is an immense flood of power and emotion as their life experience is all at once confirmed and validated after so many years of feeling entirely different. It is a road to healing. It is a trip worth taking.

A MUST read for MK's, TCK's, and those going overseas.

I found this book to be very insightful. It reveals the inner struggles that many missionary kids deal with in silence because they cannot tell anyone how they really feel. I feel this book can help Third-Culture Kids (and adults) find healing from their silent pain. Ruth writes very openly about her own emotions and confusion growing up on the mission field and later returning to it. I also feel that anyone who wants to understand Third-Culture Kids/adults or plan on raising children/youth in another country would benefit from reading this book.

I was overwhelmed when I heard the broadcast

I heard you speak on the radio on my way home. KJNP North Pole,AK I felt deeply moved by the conversation and the callers who called in.