Whether you’re married or single, widowed or divorced, with or without children – life goes on, on the mission field. The same challenges of being in a relationship, living as a single person, bringing up children or whatever your situation is, are still with you on the mission field. Yet one of the things, that does change is how you are able to talk about your ‘life’.
We talk about life so naturally when we’re back in our passport countries: a casual conversation at work; at the school gate; with the neighbour over the fence; over coffee with a friend or after church on a Sunday. We share child rearing challenges at ‘parent and toddler group’, talk about money matters, mortgages, rental prices and interest rates; discuss our relationships whether we are single, dating or married, we let off steam when life is stressful or ask a friends view on issues we’re facing. It all happens so easily, there are many opportunities to talk and all these conversations whether big or small contribute to our well-being and ability to cope with the ups and downs of life.
On the mission field those conversations change, they don’t happen so often or so easily. As a mission worker you can find yourself carrying a lot of thoughts and feelings around with you. Small irritations and even significant concerns are held internally without any means of relief. It is surprising but often over time, you can just get used to carrying your concerns and anxieties alone. Life can be particularly isolating if you’re in a remote area, you don’t yet know the local language or there isn’t someone from your own culture that understands you. That’s not to say relationships on the field aren’t supportive but they are different and relationships where we can share openly take time to develop, so early days in a new culture can be particularly difficult.
It’s important to develop a good support team back home, those who you can freely communicate with. Communication is vital not only in reporting back what you are doing but how life is on the mission field. Often we want to write positive upbeat prayer letters but it’s important to keep it real too. That’s not to say we have to outpour all our worries but it’s helpful to have someone we can tell how it really is. Bottling up feelings can create a potential explosion, so it’s good to acknowledge in some way the things we are struggling with. Also, often the more we keep something to ourselves, the bigger the problem seems to get - talking (phone or Skype) or writing (email or snail mail) gives an outlet for those thoughts and feelings.
Today as ‘Life Goes On’ ensure your communication support is in place (read more in Neal Pirolo’s ‘Serving as Senders’) and think about who you can talk to about life’s ups and downs on the mission field.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure…’ 2 Corinthians 1:8
