Phillip and Rebecca Mefford

What makes Antepli Baklava so delicious are the home grown pistachios. Some of our earliest friends in Turkey, while living in Istanbul, hailed from a southern province in Turkey called Gaziantep. Everything about this family exuded the wonders of Gaziantep cuisine. They gave us our first taste of homemade çiğ köfte , raw meatballs—meatballs that are kneaded to eternity with such potent spices that they are cooked without fire. Though we ate them with fear and trembling, they were actually quite delicious. Even after trying the tasty food this Antepli (from Antep) family treated us to, we still were still skeptical that Gaziantep cuisine was really the best in Turkey. Surely they had to be exaggerating. Then we went to Gaziantep. We were just passing through, really, on our way to another destination, but we knew that it would be a travesty not to at least make time for a nice long lunch. The soups, the salads, the meats…it was all perfectly scrumptious. Their ovations were

  My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.    -Mark Twain   When we were engaged Phillip expressed concerns about raising a family overseas.  What if our kids turn out...you know... weird ?  I (Rebecca) naturally took offense to this, because I grew up as a Third Culture Kid...and I don't think I'm  that  weird. Right?    Fast forward 11 years later and here we are with three healthy children who are in the process of being raised  outside of their Passport-country. Hoping, praying, and doing our best to make sure they are well-adjusted and adaptable.   The thing  is , parenting is a  terrifying  venture—no matter where you are. Each context has  its  own helps and  hindrances  in shaping your children into the individuals you hope they become. When you are not familiar with a context, you don't know what those  helps  and  hindrances  are going to be. It is this fear of what is  unknown  that is more unnerving than