A Meme about Missionary Stress
I recently discovered a meme about stress and then modified to be about cross-cultural missionaries. I took this new meme (which you'll find at the end of this post) and shared on social media because I thought that many of my fellow missionaries could relate to it. Many could. No matter where you live, life can be difficult. But there are numerous additional stress factors in the lives of cross-cultural missionaries that people rarely experience unless they live outside their home country for an extended period of time.
What particular stresses do missionaries experience? Imagine the following:
- Doing everything you already do in your everyday life, but do it in a second language that you had to learn as an adult, starting in maybe your 20s or 30s. Even though you may now understand that language fairly well, you often don’t understand 100% of what people are saying and you don’t know how to say 100% of what you want to express.
- Next, you’re doing your normal life in a culture where people have different ideas than you (and the people who grew up with) about what it means to be on time, how to solve relational issues, ideas of how or what should have authority, and whether communication should direct or indirect, verbal or not verbal. Oh, and the values and expectations of the community at large are different from where you grew up.
- More than 50% of the stores and products you are familiar with are not available. There are other similar shops and products but they are not quite the same.
- You are always viewed as an outsider and transient.
- To simply remain living where you are and doing what you do, you have to annually (or more often) submit a ream of paperwork (with official stamps from multiple branches of bureaucracy) together with fees for you and all members of your family in order to have permission to stay where you are and do what you do. And don’t be too quick to think about quitting your job and getting another one because your permission to stay in the country is tied to that particular job.
The above list of stress factors particular to the mission life could be expanded to include a lot more, but the above list gives you an idea.
If you know a missionary, pray for them today to be able to
- manage stress,
- find outlets for relaxation and refreshment
- always look to God for all that they need to get through the day and also do effective ministry.
And if you had the discipline and interest to read the introductory paragraphs, congratulations. You are a highly literate learner. Most people just scroll down for the funny meme. I love reading but I confess, if I was reading this post instead of writing it, I probably would have gone for the meme first.
