A Life of Goodbyes (on the hidden grief of living between worlds)

by Patricia Paulichen

As I sit down to write this 2,836 kilometres from home, I find myself reflecting on the weight of missionary life. In the past few years, I have said goodbye more times than I can count. Some I saw coming, some I didn’t, and some were for the last time.

In 2023, while I was on the field, my father suddenly passed away at the age of sixty-three. In 2024, we returned on furlough because my husband’s father was in palliative care. Several weeks later, I unexpectedly found myself at my own mother’s bedside as she took her last breath in my arms, also at the age of sixty-three.

I was with her in the hospital a few days before she passed. For the first time in my life, she allowed me to fully show her love without hesitation. After decades of pushing away both me and my God, she was finally open to placing her faith and trust in Christ mere hours before her passing. It was a gift of two and a half days, a blessing I never thought I would receive.

As I sit here reflecting on those losses, I find myself returning to a sentence I first heard at our missionary training graduation — a sentence that has echoed in my mind ever since: “Missionary life is a life of goodbyes.”

At the time, I understood the words intellectually. Years later, I understand them differently.

Every goodbye — to family, friends, fellow missionaries, churches, and even the people we serve — leaves its mark. Whether we are on the field or in our passport country, it often feels as though we are always saying farewell to someone or something we care for deeply.

The commencement speaker who explained that missionary life is a life of goodbyes was a pastor from Oregon who had several children in our graduating class. His message was not just theoretical; it was deeply personal. He was about to watch his three grown children leave for vastly different and dangerous foreign fields. As a father, he understood the weight of separation, the reality of sacrifice, and the pain of watching those he loved answer God’s call.

A short while later, this beloved father and pastor passed away while his children were serving overseas. While his words carried weight when I first heard them, they took on an even deeper meaning after that. Eight years later, those words still remind me of the reality of serving God across cultures: Love and loss often walk hand in hand. Following God’s call means learning to carry both deep joy and deep grief at the same time.

Will We Ever Meet Again?

Before I became a missionary, the Lord had already begun preparing me for a life of change. As a child, my family moved frequently. Through those transitions, I learned that saying goodbye is a normal part of life. Relationships are seasonal.

Years later, close friends spent a week with us before leaving to serve full-time in a hostile country. Throughout their visit, one question kept running through my mind: Will I ever see you again?

By God’s grace, I did. Several years later, while home on furlough, they spent another week with us. We cherished every moment together. But when it was time for them to leave again, neither of us could speak. We simply held each other for several long minutes. The look on our faces said everything.

Will we ever meet again? And if so, when?

By the time they returned for their next furlough, we would already be serving on our own mission field, separated by even more distance.

The First Goodbye Is Only the Beginning

When preparing to leave, most of us expect the first goodbye. We sell our homes, reduce possessions to a handful of boxes and suitcases, visit relatives one last time, and say farewell to our church family before boarding a plane for a new country.

Once we set foot overseas, our hearts become divided between two worlds — the family and culture we come from and the people God has called us to serve. We begin carrying the joys and sorrows of both places.

My siblings now live on two different continents while I minister on a third. I have nieces and nephews growing up far too quickly. I long to spend time with them, spoil them, and, as the only Christian in my family, teach them about the things of the Lord. Yet oceans separate us.

At the same time, I love the people God has called us to minister to. Some are our spiritual children—people who came to Christ after we arrived. Having to bid them farewell when we leave for furlough brings its own ache. We wonder how they are doing, what struggles they are facing, and what moments we have missed while we were away.

Our children carry their own burden of goodbyes. They leave friends, church family, and the only home many have known. Eventually, many missionary children leave the field as adults because of immigration requirements, education, or employment opportunities. Ours settled in a fourth country on yet another continent, adding one more farewell to the list.

The goodbyes keep coming. Just when you think you’ve made peace with one, another arrives. The cycle never really ends.

Finding the Hidden Gift in Every Season 

Over the years, I’ve realized that goodbyes have taught me something unexpected: Time with the people we love is never guaranteed. Every relationship is a gift for a season, whether it lasts a few months or a few decades.

Because of that, I’ve stopped asking, How long will this person be in my life? Instead, I ask, Am I loving them well while they are? Am I investing in them? Pointing them toward Christ? Being faithful with the relationship God has entrusted to me?

Missionary life is indeed filled with goodbyes. We miss birthdays, weddings, holidays, graduations, and funerals. We leave behind people we care about on both sides of the ocean. The distance never becomes easy. If anything, it grows heavier with time.

Perhaps that’s what years of missionary life have taught me most: Each goodbye reminds me that every relationship is a gift. None of us knows how many conversations, hugs, or shared meals remain. We only know that while God gives us people for a season, we should love them well during the time He gives us together.

~~~~~~~

Patricia Paulichen is a Canadian-born Bible-centred life coach who helps women in ministry and missions find clarity, peace, and joy in Christ. She and her husband serve in Uruguay and are parents to two homeschooled adult TCKs and TCK kids-in-law in Europe. When she’s not writing or coaching, you’ll find her with a book and a cup of tea, exploring languages, neuroscience, and faith, wandering in nature, or lost in a K-drama. You can find out more at patriciamyralee.com and follow her ramblings at behindtheletter.substack.com. 

Prayers feeling stale? Mine, too.


I’ve been on a mission to revitalize my prayer life. It’s not that I had stopped praying, it’s just that my prayers had started sounding rote. I’d confessed to a friend that my words and prayers were coming from the shallow surface of my mind—whatever I could scrape together there that sounded decent—rather than the depths of my heart in authentic conversation with my Father.

To be honest, I felt a bit like a fraud. Have you ever had anyone look at you in your position of leadership and thank you for praying for them because they just knew you were someone who really prayed? Except you weren’t. At least not the way they thought you were. Yeah, that was me.

And I had a choice: either carry on with what I knew to be a shallow, mediocre prayer life or dig in, change some habits, and plead with Jesus to give me a heart for prayer.

I’ve never been one to settle for mediocrity, so I’m digging in, friends, and it’s been oh so worth it.

I’m still very much in the middle of my journey, and I honestly hope I never stop growing in the depth and conviction of my prayer life, but I am learning. So I want to offer a couple of suggestions in case your prayers could use a wake-up, too.

  1. It’s okay not to pray. I know that sounds terrible, but there’s nothing more deadly to an authentic prayer life than offering forced, performed words during a group prayer just because you think you should. Instead, just be silent. Listen for the Lord. Be humble. You don’t have to lead out in prayer even if you’re the leader in the group. Forcing it and faking it will be a poison to your prayers.

  2. Find prayer inspiration. What moves you to pray? Nature, music, photos of loved ones? Start there. Read good books, listen to sermons on prayer, study Jesus’s prayer life. I’m currently inspired and challenged by Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders by Ryan Skoog, Peter Greer, and Cameron Doolittle. In the introduction they quote pastor Christian Dawson who reminds us:

The people who followed Jesus first were all taken aback by Jesus’ prayer life. They were fascinated by it. Jesus woke up early to pray. When He was exhausted, He’d get alone to pray. When He was successful, He’d get away to pray. When He was in trial, He stayed up all night to pray. It’s as if the first work and the last work that Jesus was up to was always prayer. Our Rabbi lived something that’s so easy to forget: Prayer, more than anything else, fuels our love for God, His people, and His mission to the world.

  1. Use prayer tools. If you want to strengthen your body, you might need some exercise equipment to get you going; if you want to strengthen your prayer life, you might need some prayer equipment to challenge and motivate you. There are currently quite a few prayer apps available if you don’t mind using your phone to help you pray. Walking, worshiping, and journaling are classic prayer tools. For many, having some sort of sensory reminder like a smooth cross or stone to hold while praying can aid their focus. 

One tool that I’m finding particularly helpful in this season is the practice of praying Scripture, and not just scriptural prayers like the Psalms or Paul’s prayers (although those are great, too), but any Bible verse. I’m currently praying through the Sermon on the Mount, and turning Jesus’s words, like “don’t worry about tomorrow,” into personal repentance and petition has been powerful.

  1. Share your desire to grow. I can almost guarantee that even your most on-fire, Jesus-loving friend is still growing in their prayer life. Tell them you want to grow, too. Tell any of your friends that you’re convicted about developing stronger prayer habits, and I bet they’ll be happy to join you in the challenge to grow. Satan loves to make us think we’re alone in our struggles—break his power over you by simply sharing with someone you trust.

  2. Pray for your prayer life. Guess who would absolutely love to help you develop stronger prayer habits? Yep, the same Person who invented prayer, who designed you to converse with Him, who for some unfathomable reason chooses to listen to and answer our prayers. Ask Him for faith to pray, really pray, like you’ve never prayed before. He is always waiting, always eager to spend time with you. 

Prayer isn’t just one of the spiritual practices we should be engaging in to be healthy; prayer is the lifeblood of everything we do. We can’t neglect it. We can’t settle. We can’t rely on our own strength, our amazing team or program, or what has always worked. We need Jesus—in our families, our missions context, our churches, our outreach programs, our schools, our businesses, our daily lives. Being with Him should be our first mission.

So, in light of that conviction, it seems fitting that I end with a prayer for you—for all of us:

Heavenly Father, our king and friend, please teach us to pray.
Teach us to be watchful in prayer, standing guard against temptation.
To be desperate, knowing nothing is accomplished apart from You.
To be hopeful, finding a mustard seed of faith for every request.
To be present, leaning on Your nearness.

Give us hearts that long to fellowship with You, 
minds that turn quickly to conversation with YYu, 
and bodies that respond in obedience to you.

As we learn to pray, may Your will become our will and Your ways become our ways. 
May forgiveness come just a bit quicker and compassion rise from somewhere deeper. 

Teach us to kneel in prayer, 
to walk in prayer, 
to rest in prayer, 
and to battle in prayer.

May we see awakenings 
and revivals 
and Your kingdom come 
in our day as we pray!

In the name of Jesus and for the name of Jesus, 
teach us to pray. 

Amen.

 

How to Walk Your Family Through the Re-entry Journey

by Shonna Ingram

My husband and I brought our four kids home from Africa at the ages of 9 to 15. They all walked straight into school in a country that was supposed to feel like home.

I remember thinking we’d survived the hard part: the original move, the goodbyes, the adjusting to a new culture, the years of figuring out how to raise kids between worlds. Coming home was supposed to be simple. We knew the language, the grocery stores, and we knew in theory how things worked.

Except we didn’t. Not really. Not anymore.

What I didn’t expect was how differently each of us would carry it. My husband and I were grieving different things, on different timelines, and neither of us really had the words for what we were feeling. So we didn’t say much of anything.

My kids were grieving too, but their losses were quieter and harder to name: a best friend, a bedroom, a favorite place to eat, the people who knew them without explanation. They were grieving a version of themselves that only existed in that other place.

Nobody handed us a way to talk about any of it. We were just supposed to be home now, and glad about it.

Here’s what I’ve learned since we walked this journey called re-entry: It doesn’t affect just one person in the family. It affects the whole family system.

A husband and wife can go through the exact same move and land in completely different emotional places. One spouse might be relieved to be home, while the other might be quietly mourning a life and identity that no longer fits anywhere.

Kids grieve losses in ways that don’t always look like grief. Instead, it can show up as a change in mood, withdrawal, anger, anxiety, or a child who suddenly seems harder to reach. And since our Third Culture Kids carry something even more layered — a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once — they may have a home that isn’t quite a place anymore.

Over time we noticed that different seasons of the re-entry journey required different things from us.

For example, when we left, we tried to make sure that our kids said their goodbyes well. We also gave each of them one trunk to fill with personal things to take back. Some of what they packed surprised us. There were things we thought they might want to bring back but didn’t. There were other things they brought back from our host culture that we didn’t expect. I had to figure out what each of them needed there but not here. Then the opposite, here but not there.

When we landed in our home culture, our first stop was my parents’ house, which was fun for the kids and a safe place to land. But then we had to figure out how to buy a house with no credit, and rice and beans did not taste the same. 

We went through another phase that I was not expecting. A phase where it felt like we were wandering in the desert. Later, I learned that it was grief, and we found places we really needed to forgive each other, and we even found places we needed to forgive ourselves. This was necessary for us to thrive as we re-engaged with our new normal.

I know that this is our story, and your story is different. But there will probably be similarities to the seasons.

At Re-entry Experts, we have found that the families we serve aren’t usually lacking love or effort. They’re usually lacking a shared language. They need a structure, and they need to have an opportunity to sit down together and actually talk about what’s happening instead of everyone processing it alone in their own corner of the house.

That’s the gap we hope the Family Companion Workbook can fill. This workbook isn’t a book you read once and put on a shelf. It’s a workbook you can pick up while you’re preparing to return and walking through the first six months (Part 1). Or you can open Part 2 when, a few months or years later, something new surfaces.

The important thing is that you walk through it together as a family, either around the kitchen table, at bedtime, or wherever your family naturally gathers. You will create your re-entry story as you walk with a family in the workbook who has walked this road. You’ll also be given words, space, and activities to help your family process what you’re experiencing. You’ll find prompts for the conversations that are hardest to start on your own, with questions designed for different age ranges. For example:

  • Question for 5-8-year-olds: What was your favorite part?
  • Question for 9-12-year-olds: What did you leave behind that no one else seems to notice?
  • Question for 13-17-year-olds: What does home even mean to you right now?

We have seen that sometimes the hardest part isn’t knowing that something is wrong. It’s knowing how to talk about it. This resource was built this way because as someone who lived it, and as someone who has now spent hundreds of hours with families in the middle of it, I’ve seen what happens when families finally have words for what they’ve been carrying. 

Re-entry doesn’t heal through willpower or simply waiting it out. It heals through being known. Through someone naming the thing you didn’t have words for. Through realizing you’re not the only one in your house who feels out of place. That’s also why this workbook doesn’t stand alone. It’s the anchor for something bigger: our new monthly Family Re-entry Conversations. These small groups let you talk with others who are in the same season as you. Because sometimes what a family needs most is to realize we’re not the only ones.

If your family is in this season, come join us. We’d love to walk with you. 

And if you’re in the member care space, we have something for you too.

Our Family Debriefing Program gives you a framework to walk alongside families through a 5-day, 3-day, or 1-day debrief. You can use it with a single family or with multiple families, creating intentional space for them to process what they’ve experienced, name what they’re carrying, and begin to move forward together.

Because after ten years of walking with families through re-entry, this is what I know: Families don’t need to be told to just be grateful they’re home. They need someone to help them make sense of what home means now.

That’s what we want to offer.

Find the Family Companion here.

Sign up for Family Re-entry Conversations here.

Access the digital Family Debriefing Program here.

~~~~~~~

Shonna M. Ingram, PhD, is the founder and director of Re-entry Experts, a training and resource organization dedicated to helping families and professionals navigate the complexities of re-entry. Drawing from her research, lived experience, and years of walking alongside globally mobile families, Shonna uses her writing and time to advocate for better re-entry care in an increasingly global world. You can find out more at her Substack and re-entryexperts.com, as well as Facebook and Instagram.

Don’t Lose the Lessons: Processing Travel Moments Overseas

A year ago I shared a story with you about my experience in Vietnam and the beautiful moment I had with Jesus during a drive along the South China Sea. It was a way of processing and debriefing through writing. In fact, putting that moment into words helped me uncover the way my travels through Vietnam had impacted my heart.

I’ve been life coaching for three years now—representing hundreds of hours of sitting with clients. In sessions I often hear about a trip or vacation or place or moment, whether from years ago or a more recent time, that was integral in someone’s healing or recovery. I hear stories of faraway places, unknown destinations, and hidden secrets in countries around the world. I even hear sweet, healing moments from sitting on a park bench or visiting a coffee shop or finding a cute bookstore in the town where you live.

As a coach, I’ve been able to speak at conferences and hear face-to-face about how impactful it was to learn something through people, cultures, and the history of a certain place. I’ve participated in online webinars, courses, and retreats, knowing that everyone who attends is pulling out unique insights, highlighting growth points, or even forging hopes for the future. 

But what happens when the trip ends or a term closes or a conference is over? What does everyone do to let it sink in or make a difference?

I’ve always thought there might be a gap between the work we do, the things we participate in, the places we live, and the very real, very important lessons we are learning along the way. Many of us have:

  • Piles of forgotten conference notes
  • Book never read
  • Workshops never applied
  • Journaled prayers with hopes and dreams undefined
  • Moments with Jesus that lose momentum in the pace of a busy life
  • Stories that don’t make the newsletter
  • Personal growth that lags or fades without marking the experience in some way
  • Places traveled that we can’t always share about

I’m learning that having a process for verbalizing or remembering or intentionally going back through the travels, places, and moments is extremely needed and helpful for personal growth, healing, recovery, self-awareness, and spiritual health. 

This is even more needed in global work. We get to see amazing things, visit incredible sights, and drive unbelievable roads with the most beautiful views. We also see the hardest, poorest, unsafe, and truly difficult places. As workers, we have opportunities to meet, have tea, and talk with precious, unique people.

We need to remember, to be challenged in our professional and spiritual and personal growth. We need accountability to be purposeful and intentional with the things we see and the lessons we learn so we don’t forget the impact of it all.

God speaks to us through these experiences. He’s using this global life to work in our hearts, show us more of who He is, and become real to us in powerful ways. 

Are you paying attention? Are you allowing it to grow and change you? Have you forgotten the wonder of this global life? Has it all become so normal that you’re missing what He’s showing you?

Personal growth can happen in the moment but more often, it’s after, sometimes long after the trip or the journey that we experience something that our mind, body, or nervous system remembers.

I can think of a specific moment in Honduras a couple years ago. I was talking with someone and turned to look at a garden at the same time my nose smelled the flowers. My eyes welled up with tears, and I immediately felt the impact of missing a home I’ll probably never see again. I’d moved quickly and my time in that home ended without a healthy goodbye. This moment in Honduras was grief, nostalgia, hope, and longing to explore and process. The tears were saying something important that I needed to journal and pray about.

There was another moment in Texas, seeing a store that I recognized from South Africa. I felt memories and feelings in that store that I didn’t know I still felt. I needed to mark that moment somehow and give myself permission to feel it. I stepped into the store and felt transported back to another mall in another place across the world. I could see a pencil bag that I’d had overseas. I could read phrases that meant funny things in British or South African English. My heart remembered so many things in that small store.

I’m guessing that you’re feeling some of this as you’re reading this post. There might be a trip you remember, a place that still hurts to think about, a smell that instantly reminds you of a specific moment in time. 

Purposeful coaching, centered around these things, can be a healthy part of processing. From being new to the field to re-entry back into your passport country, reviewing your travels can reveal such valuable information and personal growth points.

All of this is why I love the idea and practice of a life coaching session or season of sessions to intentionally break down the travels, go over the notes, look for the lessons, and plan for purposeful future trips. Travel coaching can be specific to things you’d like to process or trips you’d like to debrief.

Having a coaching session scheduled can help give you space to process, debrief, and give opportunity for God to meet you in this global life. There are multiple ways that this can help solidify the daily lessons of living abroad. It can be helpful for men, women, and even couples together.

Travel coaching is for those needing:

  • Recovery and Rest
  • Healing and Renewal
  • Personal Growth
  • Spiritual Growth
  • To Mark a Life Milestone
  • Sabbath Practice
  • Debrief of Travels or Journeys
  • Discernment

Now that your mind is thinking back through flights, long bus rides, broken down carts, bumpy taxi rides, and questionable hotel or hostel stays, let’s do a little practice of processing what you’re remembering.

A Few Questions for Reflection or Journaling:

Before you move on to the next trip, team meeting, language lesson, ministry responsibility, or travel plan, take a few moments to consider:

  • What place or experience comes to mind immediately as you read this?
  • What emotions surface when you think about it?
  • What did God show you there that you haven’t wanted to forget?
  • What lesson did you learn that deserves more attention, thought, or prayer?
  • Is there a conversation, prayer, grief, joy, or celebration that still feels unfinished?
  • What part of your global life are you taking for granted because it has become normal?
  • What memory keeps returning to you, and what might it be asking you to pay attention to?
  • If you were to journal about that experience today, what would you write?
  • If you could share the memories, lessons, experiences, and trials with someone, how would it feel to say it out loud?

You might even set aside fifteen minutes this week to revisit an old journal entry, scroll through photos from a trip, reread your newsletters, or simply sit quietly with the Lord and ask, “What was happening in me during that season?”

The places we’ve lived, the people we’ve loved, the roads we’ve traveled, and the experiences we’ve had are not insignificant. They are part of the story God is writing in us.

Don’t rush past them.

Pause. Remember. Reflect.

And pay attention to what He might still be saying.

Honestly, it’s one of the biggest gifts of this global life. So take the opportunity to dive deeper into what you’re learning, where you’re growing, and what feels like it might be missing.

Missions and the Single Girl

by Rachel B.

We don’t talk about it. We’re trying to be content, to avoid comparison, or jealousy, or even covetousness. We’re trying to dodge comparison that dogs our steps, to avoid the ache that accompanies what can feel like a gaping hole.

We’re single women, serving the Lord.

We don’t want another sermon on singleness by someone who met their spouse before they even hit 25 years old. We don’t want platitudes about waiting on God, or how His plan is best, or how He’s getting us ready. I had the “letter from God” about how He would hold off marriage until I was ready to trust Him completely — and it stinks of fairytales. We’ve watched plenty of others get married who weren’t following God, who weren’t  “Proverbs 31 women,” who weren’t even trying to do things God’s way.

We’ve watched single Christian men, who say they feel called to missions, make marriage decisions that block that path. And we wonder, “Why didn’t you look at us??” There are HUNDREDS of Christian women already serving, already going.

We’ve prayed for an as-yet-unknown husband — both to find him and also for his life and health and relationships. We’ve questioned a hundred times, “Is this the one??” . . . only to be disappointed again. The enemy whispers that we aren’t enough, or are too much, or intimidating, or in the wrong place. He whispers that there must be something wrong with us, else we too would have been chosen.

We joke that “our husbands died at birth” or that he must have “gotten lost.” We drag our focus and our minds and our hearts back to God’s faithfulness, to how He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. We remind ourselves that marriage is hard (in a way we just can’t understand) and that God has good plans for us and for those whose marriages we surely don’t envy. That things aren’t as glamourous as they look from the outside.

But our hearts ache to be held. Our arms ache for a baby to call our own. We see seemingly everyone sharing pictures of days and adventures with husbands and children, and we often feel left behind.

Because there might not be a “someday.” And while the loneliness of this moment will surely not be forever, just because we wrestle our hearts to be content doesn’t mean that we don’t still yearn.

So please don’t write us off. Please don’t forget us. We have no one to bring us flowers. No reason to save and spend a kind-of-ridiculous amount for a birthday surprise. Or have that done for us. Too often, our holidays either slip through the cracks or are land-mined with well-intentioned but oh-so-painful questions — “When are you going to get married? Aren’t there any men there?” No, there aren’t.

“Well, you’re young,” changes to “Well, there’s still time.” The US culture is obsessed with relationships. We want someone to grow old with — the right one. We’ve seen the devastation of others who were desperate to get married.

We want someone to serve alongside. Someone to process with and laugh with and serve our great God with.

But more than all this, we want to please our Lord. So we stay, and we serve, and we desperately try to trust Him with it all.

~~~~~~~

Rachel B. is a cross-cultural ministry worker and medical professional currently serving in West Africa. With experience in ministry, healthcare, and team life, she is passionate about member care and helping missionaries and ministry leaders remain healthy and resilient as they follow God’s calling. She loves listening to people’s stories and finding practical ways to encourage and care for those serving Christ around the world

You Are Not Alone in This Estrangement

My aunt, my dad’s sister and most favorite adult outside of my parents growing up, turned on me a few years after I went to the field. I didn’t see it coming. 

She died last month and that’s why I can now share this with you. This is a story about estrangement, about a relationship that wasn’t fixed, and about God’s faithfulness.

Let me back up. With no first cousins and only one aunt—my mom’s brother died when he was 19—she played a special role in my life and the lives of my sisters. What complicates the story is that I come from a family where my mom and dad did not have favorites between my sisters and me; my aunt, however, was the kind of person to have favorites. It was never spoken of, but I knew I was her favorite niece. If you’ve been in that situation as a kid, it feels confusing (why not love all of us equally?) and special to be the favorite (I am the chosen one!).

When I went to China for my first summer program, she sent a check in an amount that was so large it stunned me. It came with a note about how she sat in many “missionary circles” with her mom (my grandma) and heard about China for years; and now her niece was going. It meant the world to me.

That was the first and only financial donation in what became my life of support raising; it should have been a clue. But like many of you have experienced, who gives financially and who doesn’t isn’t always predictable. I moved full time to the field in my mid-twenties and planned to only stay for two years. I don’t think my aunt was thrilled with the faith part of my life, but the living abroad was a great resume builder, so at that point I didn’t know trouble was brewing.

What had once been “three girls” turned into “five kids,” with each of my sisters finding their person—a detail that mattered more than I realized once the math of the family started working against me (more on that later). The two years on the field turned into nine years with me stepping into more and more leadership in my organization. I was thriving, loved my life, and was part of an amazing team. 

God threw a tiny curveball. The curveball involved a three-year study leave while still on full-time support to earn a master’s in counseling. On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks after I’d returned “home” but before my studies started, my aunt called to talk to my dad. He wasn’t home, and I was delighted to talk with her. That phone call fundamentally changed our relationship. I remember hanging up and shaking. What had just happened? I called one of my sisters. Later when my parents returned home, I told them about the phone call. Though everyone was shocked and confused, no one doubted my account of the call.

A few weeks later it was like Groundhog Day. Mom and Dad were out when the phone rang. I answered, and after that call I couldn’t imagine ever picking up the phone from her again. My family is a normal family with normal frustrations and fights with each other, but we are not abusive. This was new territory for all of us. Oversimplifying for the sake of space, while my immediate family supported me, no one called her out on her behavior, and I felt left alone to figure out what to do. “Abandoned” is too strong of a word for the situation, but I felt exposed, hurt, confused, and alone in navigating this terrain.

How could one of my favorite people attack me and have no remorse or consequences? How could my family support me, but from my point of view not take a stand and instead choose not to get involved? No one told her, “You may not like the choices Amy is making with her life, but you may not shred her verbally.”

Continuing with the simplifying of what had turned into a complex relational web, to protect myself I decided to not initiate with my aunt. She could have access to my “public” self. I did not remove her from my newsletter list (which, I admit, I thought was big of me) and years later I did not block her from subscribing to my blog or befriending me on social media.

I’d joke over the years that it takes a special skill set to fall from being number one out of three to being number five out of three, but it was true. And we all knew it. One of my sisters moved into number one and over the years reported how our aunt tried to triangulate between the three of us. Later she too fell from number one, but I am grateful that at that time and over the years my sister wouldn’t be played by our aunt’s manipulation. While our aunt has been difficult with each of us, there is something unique about me. Something personal. I am the lightning rod. Of course, I could offer my armchair analysis, but in the end, does it matter? I was the chosen one for abuse, in part, because I was a missionary. 

I knew of colleagues who had family members that weren’t thrilled with or supportive of their choice to follow the call from God to a life on the field. But I didn’t know of anyone on the field who cut off contact with a family member because of how they were treated. And it’s not just “how I was treated,” but a fundamental question of “is part of the cost to accept abusive behavior?” What would Jesus do? Cutting my aunt out of my life felt unchristian and Christian. But it also felt like my best option.

Time passed. I didn’t speak to my aunt for ten years.

Fast forward to a hospital room. It seemed likely my dad might die in surgery, and I thought his sister should know. I mentioned this to my exhausted mom, the only other person in the ICU room, meaning, “You call Aunt.” Her response to my volley? “You call her.” And just like that I had a choice. I couldn’t picture one of my sisters dying in surgery and no one having told me; I called my aunt. I called her every day for the next seven days until her brother, my dad, died. 

While the silence had been broken, the relationship wasn’t healed. A number of years later, the five of us “kids” flew to Arizona for my aunt’s ninetieth birthday. We all went because she was our beloved aunt in childhood. We went because our dad couldn’t and she was his only sister. We went because in our family, we show up for each other. Nineteen years had passed since I had last seen my aunt, and within five minutes the verbal jabs at me started. They continued for two days.

For the first time however, I had witnesses. The way she treated me wasn’t “in my head” or “blown out of proportion.” It was constant and involved everything about me as a person. The treatment was so egregious that my sister-in-law said upon leaving, “I am never going back. How Amy was treated was awful and I’m done.”

More time passed, and as she became housebound, I’d FaceTime her so she could experience nature, a museum exhibit, or a family gathering. Recently, in mid-August we got the call that she was dying. As I flew to see her one last time, I thought of her birth and of how she was held as a newborn by her mom. Much of our family’s spiritual heritage is because of my grandma. My aunt was held when she entered this world; for my grandma, I wanted my aunt’s passing from this world to be the same. So I went to hold her hand.

Looking back, I can see that part of why the pain has been deep is because what I thought our relationship would look like when I was an adult is nothing like what it ended up looking like. I knew others like me existed, but also like me, they couldn’t share their stories yet, if ever. This is for you. This isn’t a story with a nice tidy end, and it’s ongoing as now we have all of the details that come after a death. Her manipulative tendencies can still be felt, even in her death. Mostly I share so that you know you are not alone. 

Do I wish things had turned out differently? A thousand yeses. They didn’t. But the truth in my story is that God saw how I was treated and knew my hurt and confusion and He walked with me all these many years. I trust He is doing the same for you.

Is a Call to Mission a Call to Abandon Our Families?

When we as missionaries visit our partnering churches on “home” assignment, people are enthralled by our stories, and we’re often lauded for all we’ve given up. But there’s a potential dark side to our sacrifice — one that we must talk about openly if we hope to avoid the mistakes of those who’ve gone before us.

The problems were there right from the beginning. As William Carey, the “father of modern missions” prepared to set out for India, he promised his wife that if she refused to accompany him, he would rip their eight-year-old firstborn son from her care and take him along, alone. Dorothy capitulated. After one of her younger sons died in India a year later, Dorothy began to suffer from paranoid delusions.[1]

Although a colleague sought medical help for his struggle with depression, William avoided seeking medical advice for his wife and instead confined her during her outbursts. Not surprisingly, this only seemed to aggravate her condition. She would die of a fever fourteen years after first arriving in India.[2]

More than two hundred years later, we’re still struggling to understand how to care for both our ministries and our families. Not long ago, I spoke with an elderly man who had been a missionary. He told wistful stories of how he brought his wife and children to the mission field, and then neglected them “for the sake of the gospel.”

“Did I do the right thing?” he asked. “I wonder sometimes. I told myself that I was doing it for God’s kingdom, but now I’m divorced and one of my daughters detests Jesus.”

I’m sure you, like me, have heard similar stories many times. Are we missionaries doomed to have bad relationships with our families? Is that the price of following Jesus?

THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Our human relationships impact our relationship with God more than we realize. We tend to project a variety of traits onto God — traits outside of the ones He shares in His word — based on our relationships with other people, especially our fathers. We may project our parent-child experiences onto God the Father, both the good and the bad. The results can be devastating. If our fathers have abused, manipulated, or abandoned us, we find it easier to read manipulation and abandonment into our experience with God.

This also impacts how we interpret our calling. Abandoning and neglecting our families becomes part of the “sacrifice” of becoming missionaries. We don’t like it, but we do it in the name of obedience, while misguided missionaries and churches cheer us on.

Soon, cognitive biases come into play.

  • Sunk cost. We have spent so long believing something is true that the cost of rejecting it (and potentially rejecting our own past decisions and behaviours) becomes too high to consider.
  • Confirmation bias. We most notice verses that appear to substantiate our beliefs while overlooking those that disprove them.

This isn’t intentional; these are natural biases we all possess, but we must combat them if we want to live in the fulness of grace and truth.

BIBLE VERSES THAT APPEAR TO JUSTIFY ABANDONMENT AND NEGLECT

We may use a few Bible verses to justify abandonment and neglect. And yet — is there more going on here than meets the eye?

1. Leaving Everything Behind

Peter exclaimed, “See, we have left everything and followed you!”

Jesus responded, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

But what did Peter mean when he said he’d left everything? Peter had given up everything, and yet he went back home. He went back to his mother-in-law’s house when she was sick, and asked Jesus to heal her — and Jesus did (see Luke 4:38-39).

Incidentally, tradition holds that Peter lived in Capernaum. Jesus visited and stayed in Capernaum frequently. Could it be possible that He stayed at the houses of Peter and his relatives? In any case, Jesus frequently passed through Capernaum; Peter likely saw his family often.

2. Leaving the Dead

When a prospective disciple came to Jesus asking for deferred discipleship so he could bury his father, Jesus responded, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60, NIV).

What if Jesus’ statement was not about skipping a funeral, but about challenging us to not delay following Him in favour of some abstract eventuality? If we’ve done any sort of fundraising, chances are good that we’ve encountered people who decline to donate because they’re saving up money, or perhaps they’re hoping to have a baby sometime soon.

Of course, it’s their prerogative whether they want to give or save their money. However, our futures have no guarantees. What if Jesus’ statement is really asking us not to put our potential usefulness for the kingdom of God on hold while we wait for an abstract possibility that may not happen for many years?

3. Hating our Families

Later on, Jesus turned to the crowds following Him and said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Let’s keep in mind that this passage is directed not only to missionaries but to all people who call themselves followers of Christ. It’s a call to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, not just out of idle curiosity. It’s explaining the requirement to love Jesus above every other person.

This has nothing to do with hate. After all, the Bible tells us the second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Instead, this has everything to do with the magnitude of love we have for Jesus. This does not mean that we are indifferent to our families; this does not mean that we are indifferent to their suffering or their pain. This does not mean that we abandon or neglect them. This means that we subject our love and care of our families to our love of Christ.

We obey Christ, yes, but we make sure we provide for our families as well. We may have to get creative in how we go about it. Providing for our families may require us to give up some of our dreams or forgo some of the ministries we would have engaged in if we were single. But we trust that God will use our limitations to showcase His glory, and we don’t treat our families as an impediment or a grudging afterthought.

BIBLE VERSES THAT EXPLICITLY TEACH AGAINST ABANDONMENT AND NEGLECT

There are also quite a few areas of the Bible that actively disprove the idea that we should abandon or neglect our families.

1. Jesus’s Behaviour

When Jesus was on the cross, dying, He gave His apostle John the responsibility of taking care of His mother (John 19:26-27). This was the oldest son’s job in Jewish culture, and Jesus had passed it on to John. The implication is that Jesus had been fulfilling His familial duty up until that point.[3] No one can take care of our spouses and children the way we can. They still depend on us, not just financially but emotionally and spiritually. Following in Jesus’ footsteps, we cannot ignore or dismiss their needs.

2. Paul’s Admonitions

In the act of becoming spouses and parents, we sign on to a set of obligations: the obligation to care for, to cherish, to protect, and to nurture our loved ones. These precious people have been entrusted to us—by God. We are their family. No one else can care for them the way we can.

The apostle Paul remarked on this in one of his letters to the Corinthian church:

I want you to walk free from worry about these things. A man who is not married can give all his time to please our [Lord]. But a man who is married will have to give more of his time to the things of this world in order to please his wife. It is the same for a woman who is not married, or for a young maiden. They are able to give all their time to our [Lord], to keep their body and spirit holy and pleasing to him. But a married woman will have to give more of her time to the things of this world in order to please her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:33-34, First Nations Version)

The Bible does not make these responsibilities optional. It takes for granted as a foundational assumption that once we are married, we are obligated to please our spouses.

Paul later goes on to say, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Dare we go out to proclaim the gospel as missionaries while simultaneously denying our faith and embracing a status “worse than an unbeliever”?

3. Teaching on Corban

Looking at the apostle Paul’s biblical teachings on marriage and family, it’s clear that God expects us to attend to our families and spouses with great care. If we use our calling as missionaries to avoid doing this, we are engaging in the practice of Corban: treating our obligations to our family as having instead been donated to God. The Pharisees engaged in this practice, and Jesus castigated them for “invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down” (Mark 7:11-13). Jesus would castigate us, too.

MESSENGER AND MESSAGE

In the West, we’ve grown accustomed to our mentalities of taxidermy and classification. We feel that we can separate and categorize different actions and behaviours. For example: how I treat the church is different than how I treat my family.

In the Majority World, however, this does not hold. The Majority World sees people and relationships much more holistically. The people we’re witnessing to watch our interactions with our family, and this becomes part of our witness. I can’t tell you how many times our Japanese friends and acquaintances have exclaimed in surprise when my husband Peter gets up after a meal to clean the dishes.

I continue to be startled by the number of Japanese women who come up to me privately and whisper the question, “Do you and Peter ever fight?” Of course we do, and I tell them so. But the harmony in our relationship seems to have a significant impact on the people around us.

Over our past fifteen years of ministry in Japan, we’ve come to realize:

The messenger is part of the message.

What we do with, and to, our marriages and families matters. Jesus told us this Himself: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Our love for our families as well as the family of God is one of the strongest witnesses we can have. As my Japanese language teacher recently said to me, “We Japanese are not convinced by arguments. We are convinced by how we feel.” If they are not attracted by our love, they will certainly not be attracted by our logic.

THE FINAL QUESTION

Dorothy Carey has been derided as “weak-minded” and “deplorably unsuited” to be William Carey’s wife,[4] but we do the world of missions a great disservice if we disregard William’s coercive tactics, abuse, and neglect towards her. These things mattered — to Dorothy, and to God.

I suppose the only question that remains is: do they matter to us, too?

 

NOTES

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are taken from the NASB.

[1] This might have been attributable to adult cerebral malaria (which can cause cognitive impairment, dementia, and neuropsychiatric symptoms) as easily as to a mental illness. Malaria is most prevalent in children up to 5 years of age. The son who died was 5 years old. Cerebral malaria is contractable by adults who have not built up an immunity to it, including those who have recently moved between continents. (See https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1471-4922(25)00040-6)

[2] Simonetta Carr. 2022. ‘Dorothy Cary and Her Struggle with Mental Illness,’ Place for Truth, https://placefortruth.org/dorothy-carey-and-her-struggle-with-mental-illness/#_ftn5 [accessed 29 August 2026]

[3] A nuanced look at how we can take care of our parents while engaging in mission is a discussion for another day.

[4] Carr 2022: Dorothy’s Legacy.

~~~~~~~

Originally from Canada, Valerie Limmer lives in Okinawa, Japan, where she’s served as a missionary with her husband since 2011, partnering with the local church to focus on outreach and discipleship. Their Japanese pastor calls them “bridge-makers,” facilitating relationships with the community. Valerie is the author of Captive Set Free: How to Find Freedom Through Forgiving and On the Potter’s Wheel, a memoir of disability on the mission field. To learn more about her work or to read more of her articles, visit peterandvalerie.com/OurBlog.

No Idea What You’re Doing? Girl, Join the Club

When my husband and I accepted the call to India, a man walked over to us and put a “mantle” around our shoulders: a yak wool shawl with red and blue woven trim. 

“I’ve worn this every day for two years while I pray for the people,” he said. “It’s yours to carry now.” It was a fittingly cinematic moment at the end of a year of preparation that had felt divinely orchestrated, like watching our lives unfold in a film.

I hadn’t grown up hearing about Elizabeth Elliot or Mary Slessor or Amy Carmichael or Gladys Aylward.  I didn’t have a clear idea in my mind of what a female missionary does. So I asked a few furloughing women.

“What do women in missions do?” “What do you feel is your role on your project as a woman?” “Do you have any advice for me?”

These women would get a far-away look, like their lives were flashing before their eyes. They would start talking and then get flustered and stop. Maybe they weren’t sure how to put such a huge topic into words. Maybe nobody had ever asked them to. Whatever the reason, most of the women I spoke with struggled to articulate their role in or approach to ministry. 

One of them asked me how I pictured my future ministry.

“Um,” I began. “Maybe I’ll wash my clothes at the river with other women . . . and we’ll talk about Jesus by the water?” A dense fog descended upon me as the divine orchestration of the past few months was enveloped in uncertainty.

We launched to India that fall, newlyweds with backpacks disproportionately stuffed with books, to an area with no other foreigners. We were pregnant by Christmas. 

For the next seven years, I tried hard to be a good mom while wondering what a good mom looks like. I tried to engage in ministry while wondering what faithful ministry looks like. I learned to wash my laundry like locals, alone in the bathroom with a bucket and a bar of soap, and I challenged myself to put aside what I wanted, for my kids and for the mission.

I felt my way along in life with the nagging feeling I was not doing anything quite right. I felt very much like the awkward labrador retriever who has grown too fast to know where her legs go.

After India, we moved to Africa and had the privilege of serving alongside other workers. I finally got to see how other women parent and do ministry and take care of their families and themselves. 

One friend loves to paint. So she teaches painting classes, helped organize a community mural, and created some thought-provoking artwork to help her and others tell the gospel story. Another is gifted in conversation. She is socially savvy and loves to walk around meeting people and seeing if she can turn a conversation to spiritual topics.

There are women who are super organized and women who are free-spirited. There are bold, business-minded women and shy, hospitable ones. There are doctors and high school graduates and everyone in between. Each woman has a way to meet and minister to their community. 

Shortly after meeting and getting to know all these incredible people, we went on a furlough and saw what the Bride of Christ is doing in our home country.

A small church started a free food truck ministry for the homeless. Another created a beautiful park on their church property where families can picnic. We saw stop-smoking classes, depression recovery seminars, MOPS groups, car shows, and a whole host of other creative ways to reach and bless communities.

Then I started reading to my kids about mission heroes like Mary Slessor and Gladys Aylward. These experiences began to gel in my mind. And suddenly I wanted to beam myself back to younger me and have a good heart-to-heart. But since I can’t do that, I’ll share my thoughts with you here:

Listen, girlfriend, nobody else knows what they’re doing, either. So don’t get discouraged thinking that the fog is your own personal Winnie-the-Pooh cloud, following you around to keep you confused and ineffective. As philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

You’ve got gifts, interests, passions. Try something. Try anything. Give yourself permission to fall flat on your face and eat a mouthful of desert sand. Wait on God, yes, but don’t wait too much on yourself. Some of us just never feel ready.

So toss your kid in the baby backpack and get out into your community. Learn things. Invite people over. You know that great idea you have, the one that really scares you? Do that! 

Here is what you need to know: You are still growing up. You will always be growing up. So don’t feel dumb when you don’t know what to do. You will always need wisdom like you need water, a fresh supply every day, every hour.

The only way to find your niche in ministry is to pay attention to the needs around you, say a prayer, try something, and honestly evaluate how it went. Do that over and over. And when you look back on your life, your motherhood, your ministry, it will finally make sense. It will look like the divinely orchestrated series of events that it really was. A life lived on purpose, with a niche only you could fill. 

A cinematic masterpiece. 

Dear TCK College Student: Take Care of Your Nervous System

by Aylin Merck

Dear College-Bound TCK, 

Twenty-four years ago, I was right where you are now. I landed in Ohio for the first time as a cross cultural kid (CCK). While I was born in the Dominican Republic, my father is full-blooded Palestinian, and that deeply shaped my family’s culture, values, and sense of identity as well as my own. I had meaningfully interacted with both Dominican and Arab cultures all of my life. Coming to the States as an international student in those formative years changed my sense of identity even more. 

That move to Ohio would become the first of many cross-cultural moves. Since then, I have moved back and forth from the States and the DR several times and lived in a couple of countries in the Middle East. In many ways, I am an adult TCK and am now also the delighted and grateful mother of three TCKs. 

You may be tired of hearing about the TCK/MK identity. You may know that you are so much more than a TCK. You may be deeply rooted in the sense that you are ultimately and foundationally made in the image of God and that is what matters most about you. 

I want to honor that. I am aware that you have a distinct story, which may include some aspects of the TCK experience and not others. There are opportunities and challenges that will be very similar for everyone starting alongside you as a freshman. At the same time, there are opportunities and challenges that may be unique to you as you transition to life in the States. I want to offer tools to help you flourish in this season as a human remade in the image of Christ. 

Something that has become precious to me in all my comings and goings is that as we cross the transition bridge and begin a new normal, we don’t leave belonging behind. Belonging is a new creation birthright that we carry with us even as it is also a gift we offer to others. It is because belonging is a gift we have been given that it also becomes something we steward. 

To be able to belong, then, we need to begin by stewarding who we are and how we face life. I want to share with you some things I have learned about belonging as stewardship and about the opportunities that come with each transition. 

Steward Who You Are

While we don’t ultimately belong to ourselves but to our Father who made us and to Christ who gave His life to free us from brokenness and from the stranglehold of our enemy, we do have a sense of ownership, agency, and autonomy that God has given us to steward. God calls us by name, gives us specific gifts, skills, and a particular story. When He redeems us, and when we live by faith through Christ, we also somehow become more fully ourselves when we own who we are and use our agency to use the gifts and skills we have been given. 

The opportunity with this new transition is that you get to know yourself better and get to live from the heart that Jesus gave you. You can choose what you value and live in light of that. 

There is a lot that has been chosen for you throughout your life — places to live, teams to be a part of, friends that become like family. But now you are here, and you probably get to have more agency than any other time in your life. 

Over the next few years, practice compassion and curiosity about the things that you are drawn to and the ones you are not. As you get to know others and their cultures, some things will change about you. You will become swirly. Some values will change. Some expressions of what you value will change. 

TCKs (and ATCKs) tend to be chameleons. We develop skills of observation and adaptation because we need to learn to belong. In her book, Incredible Lives and the Courage to Live Them, Rachel Cason writes, 

A chameleon is more than a colour changer — it is also the supreme watcher. Eyes spinning in opposite directions, it has 360-degree vision. So do we, hyperaware as we are of all the various interest groups surrounding us. We spin, scoping out the opinions, the demands, the competing expectations of both individuals and groups, trying to find one we can home in on: one set of expectations we can camouflage to, adapt to, belong to. We spin, seeking acceptance. . . . After all, successful adaptation is successful living — surely?

But, is it? Yes, our adaptations are skillful. They keep us able to move between different worlds But often behind our spinning eyes there is fear. That kind of adaptation doesn’t necessarily take into account that chameleons also have legs and can move to the environments they best thrive in. As adults now, you have a sense of agency you didn’t have when you were a kid. And even when you make mistakes, you have the opportunity to practice discernment and wisdom and make choices that honor not only the Lord, but also your own integrity. 

I have a friend who moved from the Middle East to the Midwest a few years ago to go to college. I told her I was thinking about this article and asked her what things she had learned that would be helpful to keep in mind to share with you. She said something to the effect of, 

I think that you have to learn to accept that you are living in a transitionary period. You have to be mindful when you jump head on to things like how we TCKs do. Often TCKs jump into the deep end of things, and it’s okay to let go of things if you realize they are not helping you. TCKs often have transition thrust on us (people leaving/moving) but sometimes we have to be okay realizing something isn’t for us and being OK with bringing that change on ourselves. Sometimes we jump into things and they end up being unhealthy, and it’s okay to move on and not have certain people in your life. The idea of leaving someone/something else can be very jarring, and you feel like you need to stay committed to place/situations/people to belong, but integrity is key.

She went on to say, 

I just had to realize that I would rather have no friends than have friends who treated me like that, and as soon as I did, I was able to make those good friends because I finally had the space and energy to.

Steward Your Responses to Life’s Challenges and Opportunities

A year after we first moved overseas, our family went to Colorado for a cross-cultural training. One of the exercises was called, “What are your true colors?” We went through a drill, practicing who we are under stress. In a very claustrophobic space, I ended up having a panic attack, and felt so much shame for years after that. I felt like my true colors had been revealed – my narrative was “I have a weak faith.” 

But since then, I have learned so much about the way God wired our brains and nervous systems. So much about our response under stress has to do with the circumstances that have shaped our nervous system and what our brain interprets as a threat. 

When we go through transition and change, our body’s response to stress is not immediately evidence of where our spiritual strength is. It has a lot more to do with our nervous system’s capacity. So as you go through the next few months, get curious and compassionate about your responses. 

Do you find yourself in situations

  • Feeling suddenly antsy?
  • Racing/abnormally beating heart?
  • Sweating?
  • Dissociating (like you’re outside of your body)?
  • Feeling emotionally numb or shut down?
  • Seeing stars/feeling like you’re going to pass out?
  • Feeling sick to your stomach?
  • Uncontrollable emotional responses such as rage or intense sobbing? 
  • Any thoughts of self-harm or suicide?
  • Feelings of panic?

If you experience these, it means that something is more than your brain and nervous system can handle at the moment. This doesn’t mean that you have a weak faith, that you’re not cut out for this, or that there is something wrong with you. It just means that your nervous system needs care, and it needs to know you are paying attention and that you will communicate safety to your body so it can regulate and your window of tolerance has shrunk. 

The window of tolerance is that space where we can think clearly and feel our feelings at the same time. Within our window of tolerance we are consciously living from our Spirit-led self. So, when your body is sending you the signals I mentioned earlier, we want to regulate our nervous system, so we can be in that space of both thinking clearly and feeling our feelings. It is that space where we are human-sized. 

Here are some things you can do regulate your nervous system and help increase your window of tolerance: 

  • Take a break
  • Drink water
  • Go for a walk 
  • Take a shower (preferably a cold one)
  • Wrap yourself tightly in a blanket
  • Go outside barefoot
  • Do some tapping
  • Breathe in for 5 seconds and out for 8 seconds
  • Drink chamomile/lavender tea
  • Call a good and safe friend

Maybe you are surprised by the turn that this article has taken. You may not be used to thinking about belonging as something that has anything to do with self-leadership and stewardship. And while belonging is more than this, it starts here. It starts with you knowing and owning who the Lord has made you, living with integrity in light of that, and learning how to steward your body and the impact of the life God has called you, so that you can live with the values that make you you. 

I hope this college transition is filled with tangible expressions of the presence of God offering you His deep belonging. Resting in His love, may you experience deep safety and a joyful sense of knowing who you are.

With you on this journey,
Aylin

~~~~~~~

Aylin Merck is a soulful and contemplative human who lets those traits color everything she does as a wife, mama, writer, coach, and soul care and trauma care provider. A Dominican-Palestinian, Aylin holds a rich cross-cultural perspective, having not only immigrated to the US but also lived in the Middle East with her husband and family for almost ten years. Expat life in many ways fits her like a glove. She thrives in collaboration and mutual partnerships, in companioning others in their healing journeys and in experiencing friendship with the Triune God through Jesus Christ. Her soul grows three sizes whenever she gets to read by a lake, savor laughter and heart-to-heart conversations with kindred friends, and listen to rain with a Highlander Grogg latte at hand. You can find Aylin on Substack.

Finding Flickers of Light in the Darkness of Re-entry

One day I’ll write our looking back story — how I can see God’s hand was with me through the darkest valley and how He turned it all to good. One day, I’ll see how the prayers were answered for the best, and I’ll thank God for the ones that weren’t answered. One day.

But today is not that day. I have faith that God is faithful and will be faithful. But today I am in the midst of it, the darkest valley.

I quote the psalm to myself as a promise I’m clinging to: “Even in the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for I know that you are with me.” But it is my faith that prompts me to repeat these words each day, not my feelings.

I am in the smack-dab middle of re-entry. I am not looking ahead in planning mode or looking back triumphantly that I have finally gotten through. I am in the midst of it — the smack-dab middle.

Here is what the middle is actually like and what I would tell you if I could say how hard it’s been without being accused of being ungrateful or unfaithful (neither of which is true). In the smack-dab middle this is how it feels and how faith in what I cannot see is the only thing getting me through.

Some days and some weeks I have felt everything has gone wrong. Our whole family has been exhausted and sick. We’ve had mystery illnesses, staph infection boils, and tormenting lice caught at a summer camp. What we were really hoping would be a spiritual high ended up being a long, drawn-out physical and spiritual battle.

We are trying to enjoy the US, but it’s hard, and we miss so many things already. We miss our healthy food from our host country. We are sick of peanut butter and jelly, hotdogs, chicken strips, and French fries. But we’ve been so busy and transient for weeks that lots of days, that’s all we can manage. We miss unrushed meals together. We miss having a bed that’s ours and our favorite blankets. We miss our pets and our favorite yard tree. We miss routine and rest and family time. We miss life being familiar.

We’re over travel. We’ve driven too many hours to count and spent too much money on gas and car repairs to transport our family. Anxiety over a broken-down car is constantly lingering in my mind behind all the higher-priority anxieties — what will we do if it actually breaks down unrepairable?

It feels like we are living in our car, and it’s felt that way for weeks. We’ve packed and unpacked the car so many times, I am completely exhausted by it. I am almost paralyzed. I can barely bring myself to load and unload, to carry in another bag. But our travel isn’t over. We don’t yet have a home to call our own. And there’s nothing to do but lift the bags and do it again. 

We needed a break from the constant travel, so we planned two stationary weeks at a free retreat center. We were hoping for rejuvenation — instead, the remote mountain gravel roads caused car damage and necessitated major repairs. All my previous anxieties confirmed. We had to leave early for repairs, we missed our debrief, and my spiritual renewal gauge went down rather than up. “God, why?” I asked in frustration. 

I want to tell you some peoples’ words and encouragement and faith in our next steps have been exactly the cup of cold water we’ve needed in this barren land. But others’ hurtful comments have pierced so deep, it’s hard to imagine a time in the future when the wound could possibly fully heal.

Church member support has been the same mixed bag. Some have shown little or no interest; some have made hurtful comments; some have continued on so faithfully and generously, it brings me to tears thinking of their love and sacrifice. But I have so little to give in this season, I am not thanking them as I should.

In the darkest valley, I want to tell you that we’ve never had so much conflict or so many things go wrong. Yes, even in our life overseas. It’s been in every way a battle, fighting spiritually to hold on to all the beliefs and behaviors we’ve cultivated so many years. It’s taken just as much faith to return as it did to leave, maybe more.

I want to tell you it’s been so hard on our kids, even as they have been so eager and willing to participate in all the new experiences with such courage. They are worn out from the faster pace of life. They are sad that so many people are so busy with their own schedules they barely have time to spend with them. They miss the home they left, even as they want so badly to make a home in this new place, to fit in to this new, foreign world.

This was a planned re-entry for our family. We did plan, grieve, and say goodbye well. Yet, it’s been so hard just the same, and each of us has reacted differently, which has also added to the conflict and confusion and tension we’ve felt. Some of us pre-grieved and are jumping in to our new life with gusto; some of us are post-grieving, and every day we feel the emotional weight of loss.

Knowing all we did beforehand and how carefully we prepared to leave and yet how hard re-entry has still been is at best confusing. I am grateful for our own preparation, full of compassion for those who have no time to prepare their re-entry journeys, and trying to accept the reality that no matter how much anyone prepares, re-entry is still really hard.

We’ve seen light in this dark place, but it’s felt like the flicker of fireflies in a dark forest rather than a constant lighthouse beacon telling us clearly which direction to go. The firefly lights only appear as the sun fades and the darkness is taking over. Then a tiny light here or there appears. But just as quickly, it is gone. Darkness again.

In the darkest times, I haven’t questioned if God is real. An undeserved gift of faith makes me know He is. But I have questioned if He is good. If He will give good gifts, especially to me. If suffering is the only path. If joy will come in the morning.

If this all sounds like a big, faithless complaint, maybe you’ve never walked through your own dark valley. But this is what it feels like to be in the midst of it. My feelings aren’t getting me through; neither are my outward circumstances. I’m walking by faith, not by sight. 

My faith tells me He is with me, even in this dark valley. And I’m clinging to that promise. I can’t see my path ahead clearly. The sun is gone. But in the darkness, I’m watching for the fireflies.

When You Feel Like Giving Up on Team

Before coming to the field, I had glowing ideals for what being part of a ministry team would be like. Perhaps you did, too. I dreamed of serving long term alongside mature men and women of God, who would go through trials together for the sake of Christ and come out on the other side bonded together with lots of fruit to show for it all.

Then I landed in Indonesia and reality struck. The team of five adults that I joined disintegrated within four months, leaving just me and one other teammate. My dreams of serving together long term with that particular group of people were shattered. And over the past fifteen years, as teammates have come and gone, I continue to wrestle with the concept of team.

People come and go for all sorts of reasons. Often, the reasons that call expat friends back home are totally outside of their control: a dad got brain cancer, an aging mother needed to go on dialysis, visa trouble caused chaos, a mental health crisis required more help, and the list could go on. 

I naively turned to having Indonesian teammates instead of Westerners, expecting team dynamics to be “easier” in some ways. Surely doing ministry together with Indonesians would provide more longevity than working with foreigners. 

Except it didn’t. In fact, doing team with Indonesian Christians led to much more stress and disappointment than I ever anticipated. No matter how hard I tried to bond with my Indonesian teammates, there seemed to remain a barrier. A “transactional” relationship, instead of a relational relationship. The Bible school graduates that we recruited needed a job, and the ministry was a job. And deception, stealing, mistrust, addictions, and heartbreak ensued. I still deeply believe in serving alongside brothers and sisters in Christ who are from Indonesia, but it has not been an easy journey. 

Over the years, team drama has sucked energy, time, and resources that perhaps would have been better spent actually building relationships with people who do not yet know Christ. Which has led me to where I am today, wondering is ministering in teams even worth it?? Perhaps you can resonate with this question, too?

In Scripture, we see that Jesus sent his disciples out two by two (you can read the story in Mark 6:7-13). Surely there was a reason the Lord did not send them out alone, but instead as teams of two. And the apostle Paul worked together with a variety of people: Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, John Mark, and Priscilla and Aqilla are names that come to mind. I can believe in my head that Christ calls us to work together with other believers, but the nitty-gritty of doing life together with others is challenging.

Team dynamics can be hard. But to be fair, good relationships always take work. Giving and receiving. Sacrificing and benefiting. Conversations and conflict. So I really still believe that there is a reason the Lord sends us out in teams, not as lone rangers on our own. It is because we need other believers to practice the “one-anothers” with. 

The New Testament is filled with over twenty commands that are all about interacting with “one another,” such as:

  • Love one another (John 13:34-35)
  • Live in harmony with one another (Rom. 12:16)
  • Serve one another (Gal. 5:13)
  • Bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2)
  • Encourage and bear one another up (1 Thess. 5:11)
  • Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another (Eph. 4:32)

And there are so many more.

But the team is not meant to be an idol. There is no such thing as a perfect team, because it is made up of humans and no human is perfect. I have had to confess my unrealistic ideals for a team and fall on my knees wondering what God is teaching me through this whole team journey. 

I have learned that a ministry team is not meant to be your church. When possible, it is still a good idea to plug into a larger body of believers to walk out practicing these “one another” commands, too. 

I have also learned that team can be beautiful. Sharing laughter, sharing tears, sharing meals, sharing memories, sharing a heart for the people we serve. 

Ultimately, I must remember to put my hope in Jesus. He knows firsthand the heartbreak of being abandoned, betrayed, and lied about — by his team of disciples. And yet He still washed their feet before going to the cross. And He still forgave them and equipped them with the Holy Spirit to send them out to share with others. 

I am also a sinner, in need of this crazy foot-washing grace every day. I am also in need of the Lord’s forgiveness over and over again. And I need to be rooted in Christ’s love — for myself, for my team, and for those who do not yet know the Lord. 

So I do not think I can give up on team. Not yet anyway. 

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Insecurity and Expat Friendship

by Breanna Rudolph

We say we want community and friendship and ministry — but not if she’s prettier, bolder, holier, cleaner, fitter, smarter, or a better wife and mom in some way. On the mission field, comparison finds new ground: We may feel insecure around the one who adapts quickly, left behind by the one who speaks the language fluently, or envious of the one whose reports are full of the results we’re still praying for. 

“Susan just isn’t a good fit because she makes me feel intimidated.” We say things like that as if Susan’s discipline and gifts are an attack on our worth. But Susan isn’t the problem. She’s just doing her best. It’s our own insecurity that turns someone else’s strengths into something we feel we have to defend ourselves against.

And so instead of learning, we label, and instead of growing, we gossip or “vent.” We need some way to justify our feelings and make them more palatable. So we make her faithfulness sound like control, or her wise strength sound like arrogance, or her clarity sound like harshness. We push her away or treat her like she’s less than because we’ve already decided she’s too much. But every time we do, we’re not really protecting ourselves — we’re only shrinking the circle of grace we get to live in and enjoy.

Then we wonder why community feels shallow, why friendships stay surface level, and why the good and stable people in our lives end up farther and farther away.

The fact is, sometimes we don’t truly want sisters. We want to be the one others look up to. In our own way, we want to be an “influencer” in an influencer-driven world. We want admiration and affirmation without accountability. And we want to keep everyone else confined within our standards so they never exceed our own. We end up missing the women who could sharpen and inspire us.

I think of my friends who are so generous and gracious in hospitality; those who are disciplined in health; the patient mom who keeps a lovely home; the many who are kingdom servants and love our kids so well; the one who tends a magnificent garden; the friend who teaches me to love beauty; the older women whose kind words and wisdom always lift me higher; and the one who knows all my faults and always tells me the truth.

My list could be far longer. Beside these women, I learn the shape of Jesus by the way He moves through these ordinary, glorious lives.

Sometimes we measure the wrong things. We only learn to see this when we stop trying to rank what we’re looking at. Some count obedience by achievements, ministry stats, or charisma; but the fruit of the Spirit is God’s proof in us, not the tallies we keep. We’re all learning from the same Teacher, and the table stays round.

God didn’t make us rivals; He made us reminders that He’s still shaping each of us, in different seasons, with different gifts. Comparison destroys this harmony. 

We need each other. Because community can’t grow where insecurity rules. And jealousy will keep you lonely, even in a crowd of people. You can’t build sisterhood while secretly wishing to be the main one standing.

~~~~~~~

Breanna Rudolph is the wife of Michael and a mother of three. After serving in Haiti for over seven years, their family now lives in Tennessee, seeking to be faithful where God has them while waiting on His next steps. Her writing can be found at thinkingwithtruth.com.