Understanding the Missionary Life Cycle - Part 2
by Mark Brazle
MRN Missionary Care Specialist
While the missionary is called to go, the sending church is called to care for those sent. For the sake of the mission, it is vital that senders understand what their global worker faces in each stage of their life cycle. Last month we looked at what it takes to get to the field and prepare for service. This month, Mark Brazle helps us consider the rest of the missionary journey.
Productive work in the field
It’s difficult to forget the day when I came home and triumphantly declared to my wife, Jill, “I think we are finally doing what we came to the field to do!” I felt productive. Three church plants were healthy. Several Bible Study groups were going quite well and growing. Language was no longer a stumbling block. Cultural stress was on-going but not a huge concern.
That was five years in.
Five!
For our team of three families, it didn’t take long to move from Plan A to C or X on what we were going to accomplish in those first 5 years. One big part of this was simply managing expectations. Good communication between the senders and those sent will help with the fear or guilt new workers experience when reality forces them to adapt their pre-field plan. That’s a part of why MRN encourages new workers to consider learning and praying The Plan for the first season on the field, trusting that God will reveal what’s next once on site.
In the midst of all this, the liaison and care teams should have powerful coaching & accountability questions close at hand to ask in regular (at least monthly) calls. Examples include:
What is your greatest challenge/cause of stress this week?
What have you been reading in Scripture that has encouraged you lately?
What are you reading, watching or listening to that is keeping you fresh for the journey?
Tell me about the spiritual/emotional well-being of your family. How would you describe it?
What have you done for fun this week? When did you last laugh out loud?
Tell about spiritual conversations you have had with a neighbor or friend this week.
Share about team dynamics. How are planning and team meetings going?
Bear in mind that anyone asking such questions must have a relationship of trust with the missionary. If their relationship with the worker is surface-level, they should anticipate surface-level answers. Build trust by respecting confidentiality and following through on commitments made during calls. Model transparency by trusting the worker to pray for you as well. Pursue relationship when times are calm in preparation for that day when times are not! As one of our favorite resources for member care states, “When you are alone and in a dark place, the voice of someone you trust is especially empowering!” (https://www.barnabas.org/resources/tender-care-book )
One encouragement for the worker can come in the form of care packages. Attention must be paid to ensure that what is sent is not more of a burden than a joy. Something as simple as checking the right box on a customs declaration at the post office can save paying twice for that wonderful taste of home. Ask your workers how to send packages in the best way for them, as well as what they would appreciate in it. And, please, be okay with their answer. Shopping for little guys might be more fun, but sometimes an electronic gift card is really all they want!
Regular times of home assignment (or furlough) should be pre-scheduled for your global workers. The frequency and duration of the furlough is something that should be decided together prior to launching and made part of the working agreement. Your worker will likely be busier during home assignment than they are on the field. It’s a time for family, friends, fund raising, connecting, shopping…You can serve them by making certain that they also schedule times of rest and fun.
Take advantage of home assignments to involve more of your church in caring for your worker. Offer to schedule times for your workers with key people at your church. Empower your members to provide things like:
Housing
Food or restaurant gift cards
Fun activities for their kids
A vehicle (that runs, preferably)
Doctor/Dentist appointments
Financial or legal advisors
Marriage (or other) counseling
A little planning ahead can wind up involving a much larger portion of your congregation in care than usual, as members can apply their particular gifts and blessings to serving your workers.
Parenting TCKs
Realizing that third culture kids (TCKs) are generally misunderstood and that the sending church is responsible for the care of the whole family, the missions care team needs to make it a point to learn about these unique kids. Ruth Van Reken (an important voice in understanding TCKs) helps with this definition: children who grow up outside the parent’s passport country for a significant portion of their first 18 years of life, usually due to a parent’s career choice. Become aware of their identity struggles, rootlessness, unresolved grief, and unique worldview. You should not only grow in your own understanding but also suggest (and provide!) resources for your global worker so they can grow in their understanding of their own children. Our new favorite book to help with this, chock full of activities and resources, is Ulrika Ernvik’s Third Culture Kids: A Gift to Care For.
This is such an important part of understanding global workers that we’ll be devoting the next two issues of the Messenger to these amazing children!
Reentry
One day, whether they choose it or it is forced upon them, your missionaries will make the decision to return to their passport country. Sending church, please hear this: reentry can be (and likely will be) twice as difficult as the initial deployment! Doing it well doesn’t come cheaply; make adequate provision for a re-settlement fund (our suggestion is to start planning financially for resettlement as you launch them). Give your workers space to discern what it means to empower local leadership on the field. While many of his examples are now a bit dated, Pirolo’s work, The Reentry Team, remains a great resource for your church to prepare to serve returning workers well.
That said, you should not expect to be able to provide all that your workers need on reentry. They will need specific, specialized help to reenter well. Please make it possible for your workers to attend some kind of reentry debriefing. Thankfully, there are a number of options available these days; contact us at MRN for suggestions on which one might be best for your returning servant.
Productive work at home
Your work as senders does not end with a ‘Welcome Back!’ banner at the airport or even when you pay for your workers to attend their reentry debriefing. You have a responsibility to continue walking with your workers as they discover what God has next for them. These will be hard times for them. They will be grieving, they will feel out-of-touch, they will feel lonely in crowds, and they will wonder why they left their home for this oddly-strange place of America. Just as you have throughout their life cycle, give them room to process their disenchantments, their disorientations, their disappointments, and eventually their discoveries!
The goal is that you will be able to serve your global worker well throughout all the stages of their life cycle as they proclaim the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. May the Father bless us as we partner in the mission of God, committed to the care of those we send.