Log in to your Account

Elizabeth's Story

Elizabeth Ballinger grew up in Beijing, the daughter of cross-cultural workers. She loved her childhood, but she also learned early what it meant to live between worlds. During a visit to the U.S. when she was eleven, Elizabeth sat in a van listening to other girls trade jokes about pop stars she’d never heard of and TV shows she had never seen.

“I remember thinking, I’m always going to feel different,” she said. Like many TCKs, Elizabeth carried invisible questions: Where do I fit? Whose world is mine? Am I allowed to belong here?

Over the years, people came alongside Elizabeth—teachers who listened, mentors who understood, families who opened their homes. They didn’t erase the tension of growing up between cultures, but they helped her see it clearly and integrate it with grace.

Through college and early adulthood, she found language for her story. When she and her brother spoke in chapel about being TCKs, several students approached them afterward with their own experiences of not quite fitting in. That moment reframed her calling: Everyone carries an in-between place. Some people just learn to name it sooner.

Today, Elizabeth and her husband serve with TMS Global as cross-cultural workers in Spain. Their ministry revolves around a table—open doors, shared meals, and quiet listening.

“We’ve spent so much of our lives on the receiving end of hospitality,” she said. “It made us see how vital it is.”