One problem I have with missionary kids coming back to the United States after growing up elsewhere is their competitive missionary parents sometimes want them to be in college and then get a job in the United States and immediately be accepted into the local culture ...but these kids have missed out on a huge chunk of the socialization process that's important for American children ....take an example such as Steve Brinks who I knew from Calvin ...his parents were missionaries and he suddenly appeared at Calvin & lived in my dorm across the hall but he spoke broken English, and I got the feeling he had never played any team sports before... he didn't know many people and then later on actually he became more of a highbrow because he had never been to any of this socialization process that comes with growing up in the American schools: sports, in the classroom, various social functions etc, and so his parents actually sort of raise him in a bubble trying to give him the best advantages ... but he didn't really come out as a well-rounded person even though I think he's working as a teacher now today still in Grand Rapids near Calvin College and I think maybe his friend Rick Devries kind of worked on his mind in a negative way spreading rumors about people unfortunately...
Ironically Steve's roommate in the dorms, Todd Martinez , I thought they came from Argentina together ...there's kind of a mystery about Todd Martinez and I mean he turned out to be very very smart in terms of computers and chemistry he went on to UCLA and then Stanford and he's actually teaching at Stanford now, and I noticed his bio says that is hometown where he grew up is New York City and I'm wondering if that's actually true ...not that I really care that much whether he's gaming the system but if he is gaming the system it's just still another example of problem we have here in America ...I agree that it's great we have people from all over the world adding to the intelligence of the academic communities, but also Calvin is a Christian College & we want we want people to come to Calvin with sincere commitment to Chriatian Faith, not just doing a fake commitment in order to be accepted into the college and then moving on and stabbing those who do believe in the back, cuz we try to be accepting and to be welcoming to these people from all over so I don't know where Todd Martinez actually came from but he claims he's from New York City ...believe it or not.
