Category: Guest Contributors

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.

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.

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.

Suitcases, Sacrifices, and Sending Well (reflections from the author of the new book, For Those Who Send)

by Heather Fallis

For Christmas during my senior year of high school, my parents bought me a set of luggage. I hadn’t asked for luggage, and honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the gift. My parents were probably thinking I’d take the suitcases on vacations and trips that always included a return ticket back home. And for many years that was the case — until 2015 when I boarded a plane with my husband and three children that would take us to our new home abroad.

Although we didn’t understand then how appropriate their gift to me on December 25, 2001, was, I look back at that moment and think how grateful I am that, even then, my parents were preparing to send me well. We just had no idea how far.

The Christmas of my oldest daughter’s senior year of high school, we followed in my parents’ footsteps and gifted her a luggage set. This time, however, we knew exactly how far we would have to send her. The gift was given with tears and a somber understanding that we would soon be living oceans apart. A few months later she packed those bags, and the day after her high school graduation, with a one-way ticket in hand, flew solo across the globe.

Having experienced both being sent and being the sender, I can honestly say the latter was harder.

I knew it wasn’t easy for our families to watch us pack up our lives in our passport country and move to the other side of the world, but until I had to do it myself, I had no idea how painfully difficult it really is. Becoming a sender gave me a new realization of what our loved ones had experienced.

When my family first left home to move abroad, we had attended training, studied, and prepared for this new career and step of faith. When we landed in our host country for the first time, we had teammates waiting to welcome us and help us navigate the new country and culture. When we had hard moments, we had a prayer team that was faithfully lifting us up and bearing our burdens with us. While it was just the five of us who got on that plane with passports in hand, we never felt alone.

I can’t say the same for our loved ones who sent us.

There was no training course to prepare them for sending their loved ones overseas. There was no team or community to come alongside them with understanding and experience, ready to help them navigate this new way of being. When they had hard moments, there was no group of supporters waiting for prayer requests and updates in order to bear their burdens with them. And though they did have friends and family who cared and knew it was difficult for them, as senders they did not have the same support and resources as we did, the ones being sent.

My parents’ gift of a suitcase was a tangible expression of their permission for me to spread my wings and soar. When I bought the suitcase for my daughter, I was giving her the same thing. It’s a noble and beautiful and right thing to gift to our children. And yet, I’ve learned that giving them that permission will cost you dearly.

I’m grateful for what my experience of sending is teaching me, and how it’s given me a deeper understanding of what those who have sent us all these years have sacrificed. As I’ve learned about the cost of sending, I’ve recognized that there are very few resources for those who send that validate their grief, affirm their sacrifice, and celebrate their role that is vital to global kingdom work. Since I couldn’t find the book that I wanted to be able to gift to the senders in my life, I decided to write it.

I know that one book is not enough to encompass the many facets of being a sender, and it won’t dull the ache of the airport goodbyes and the miles between loved ones. What I do hope is that it will be a companion in the grief and a guide in the vital role of sending and praying for those we send. Whether the reader is a parent, child, family member, friend, supporter, pastor, or acquaintance of the one they are sending, I believe they will find comfort and confidence that sending matters — and that they matter.

My Christmas suitcase showed me the joy of going and the sacrifice of being sent. My daughter’s Christmas suitcase showed me the grief of sending and the sacrifice of being a sender. What I’ve learned through it all is that we cannot be sent without a sender, both roles are essential to the Great Commission, both are infinitely harder than we think, and both are worthy of compassion and care as we live out our callings — sent and sender — for the glory of God.

For Those Who Send: Prayers for Those With Loved Ones Serving Abroad provides senders with a practical and applicable tool for expressing the challenges, losses, and sacrifices that come with supporting those we love as they settle in far-away places. Parents, siblings, friends, supporters, and all those who love and send global workers will find these liturgies to be a source of encouragement, as well as a way to cultivate communion with Christ in the joy and sorrow of sending.

With prayers for topics such as saying goodbye, missing their presence, reading a newsletter, making a video call, giving sacrificially, and spending holidays apart, every sender will be reminded that their role matters and that their sacrifices are seen and cherished by the Father. Now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook.

~~~~~~~

Heather is the creator of Liturgies for a Life Abroad, where she writes and publishes prayers for global sojourners. She and her family have made their home in the remote mountains of Southeast Asia since 2015. Heather co-authored Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner, Volumes 1 & 2 and authored Crafting Liturgies for Life Abroad: A Guide to Processing Cross-Cultural Life Through Written Prayer. Her full author bio and other resources she has written can be found at www.liturgiesforalifeabroad.com

Is This the End? (When the Mission Becomes Dangerous)

Written by an anonymous worker

“The rebels burned a plane.”

I looked up at my husband, a sense of dread growing in my chest. “Who was it?”

Over the next few hours, we learned the devastating details. American pilot Nick Gosselin had been ambushed by rebels shortly after landing on a village airstrip. He was executed, and his plane set on fire. My Instagram feed filled with images of the burned aircraft and blurred photographs of his body.

“That could have been you,” I whispered to my husband.

This is not the first time a civilian aircraft piloted by an expatriate has been targeted by rebels here in Papua. In 2023, New Zealander Philip Mehrtens was kidnapped and held captive by a rebel faction for nineteen months before being released through lengthy negotiations involving Indonesia, local leaders, and the New Zealand government.

Then, in 2024, New Zealand helicopter pilot Glen Conning was shot and killed shortly after landing. Following Conning’s death, the Associated Press reported, “No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, and the rebels and Indonesian authorities have blamed each other.”

Still, Nick’s death feels different.

As a pilot for the Catholic aviation mission AMA, Nick flew humanitarian flights to isolated communities. Rebels have attempted to justify the attack by accusing mission aircraft of supporting military and police operations — an accusation that is categorically false. Rebel spokesman Sebby Sambom later released a video calling for the murder of all foreign civilian pilots, the burning of their aircraft, and the murder and expulsion of missionaries from Papua, dismissing them as “useless.”

Pilots are not the primary targets either. In recent years, schools have been burned, teachers killed, medical personnel murdered, and construction workers attacked. But none of this is really new, is it?

Around the world, missionaries and humanitarian workers knowingly place themselves in harm’s way to serve others. While there is no comprehensive annual count of missionaries killed worldwide, the Aid Worker Security Database recorded a staggering 383 humanitarian worker deaths in global hotspots during 2024 — the highest number on record. Most of those killed were local aid workers.

Before leaving for the field, we understood that serving in Papua would involve risk. As a missionary pilot, my husband would fly through some of the world’s most challenging mountain terrain, navigating rapidly changing weather and difficult landing spots. We would face diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, dengue fever, malaria, and typhoid. We knew robbery or assault was possible. We came to Papua knowing that choosing to serve here meant walking hand in hand with heartache.

Over the years, we’ve had our share of challenges. The flying environment has given us a few scares. Our family has battled serious illnesses. We’ve lived through riots, evacuations, and tribal conflict. And yet, despite it all, we would say our lives have been made immeasurably richer because of this place. Papua has become home. Our children — from our teenager down to our toddler — love life here.

Now, it all feels like borrowed time. I find myself praying, Lord, what are You doing? Is this the end?

I carry a tremendous sadness — not only for our own family and the life we’ve built in these mountains, but especially for the people living in isolated villages who depend on mission aviation.

What will the mother suffering complications in childbirth do when reaching the nearest medical facility is several days of hiking away? Who will respond when a village is devastated by a landslide? What happens to communities cut off by mountains and jungle when no aircraft are willing or able to come? And if we are forced to leave, how will our family grieve losing our home?

I don’t know what comes next. Can we stay? Must we go? Nick’s death has forced us to revisit questions every missionary must ask themselves. What risks are ours to accept? Which are not? And what abilities do we have to wisely mitigate the dangers where we can?

I think of the apostle Paul. When the Jews in Damascus plotted to kill him, fellow believers lowered him through an opening in the city wall under the cover of darkness so he could escape (Acts 9). Later, on his journey to Jerusalem, the prophet Agabus warned Paul that he would be captured and handed over to the Gentiles. His friends pleaded with him not to go, yet Paul remained convinced that obedience required him to continue (Acts 21).

At first glance, those two stories seem to point in opposite directions. In one, Paul escapes because God provides a way out. In the other, he walks knowingly toward suffering because he is convinced that obedience requires it. Yet neither story is ultimately about avoiding or embracing danger. Both are stories of faithful discernment.

That is where we find ourselves today. We are praying. We are listening. We are engaging with community. We are weighing our responsibility to our family, the people we serve, and the calling God has entrusted to us. We are grateful to serve with an organization that views security planning and thoughtful risk management not as a lack of faith but as faithful stewardship.

I don’t know whether we will remain in Papua or whether this chapter of our lives is drawing to a close. I don’t know whether the risks will increase or diminish in the days ahead. But I do know this: God holds tomorrow, and we can trust Him.

So we pray — for Nick Gosselin’s family as they grieve, for the people of Papua who continue to bear the greatest burden of this conflict, and for the missionaries, pilots, teachers, healthcare workers, and local believers who continue serving in places of extraordinary need. We also pray for the wisdom to surrender our plans continually to God, holding neither our comfort nor our calling more tightly than our obedience to Christ.

* * *

Editor’s Note: If you are in currently in a season of risk, danger, or fear, here are some additional resources for discernment and support on our site. ~Elizabeth Trotter

Risk and the Cross-cultural Worker (an interview with Anna Hampton about her first book, Facing Danger)

Can Faith and Fear Exist at the Same Time? (an interview with Anna Hampton about her second book, Facing Fear)

Confronting Risk and Managing Fear in the Uncertainty of War (resources from Anna Hampton)

Plant Your Trees

by Mary Silkwood

Another box packed, suitcases piled to the side of the hallway anticipating their next trip. Totes placed carefully into storage, joining the efforts of their counterparts in another corner of the world and holding life on pause until we return.

As sojourners in a missionary lifestyle, it can often be difficult to put down roots, at least deep ones. Roots that give assurance that when you meet friends for coffee and a bit of conversation, you don’t have to wonder when your next meeting will be. The kind of assurance that you’ll see your parents at church in the same pew as always next week, because those things never change. They are part of a revolving door in the beauty of the mundane.

I often find myself living life on the edge of my seat, anticipating what direction I will go next. Where will I hang my stockings next Christmas? What kitchen will I bake my child’s next birthday cake in? At times I even wonder what bed I will sleep in tonight. I know that in an instant it can and will change, just as it has countless times before.

What seemed to be the new is now old, and you are starting all over again. At moments you question its worth. To truly settle in yet again, but at what cost? To begin making room for more roots to grow, knowing another transplant looms in the future, all the while wondering what distinguishes us in this season of time?

When you do choose to plant your trees, to give the next chapter your heart, and a chance to put down roots, you soon realize there is a particular value in it all. It will be painful to pack up and leave again, but it’s not worthless. In fact, there is a unique element that this lifestyle produces. The ache of going is worth the wide breadth of friendships, rich memories, and profound reality you gain through the process.

Our roots don’t have the chance to go as deep in one spot as for others. But there are pieces of them spread around the globe. Being transplanted into new places doesn’t permit the same depth as for others, but it certainly allows them to grow wide, wider that I ever could have imagined. And in some mysterious way that may provide a strength and resiliency that a missionary life needs.

In this lifestyle I have had to learn balance. I cannot allow myself to become so comfortable that I forget that I have a revolving door that will always force change. I can’t be in a place where I refuse to be anywhere else, because as a servant of Christ, I must be willing to go anywhere at any time.

Yet at the same time, I can’t be so quick on my feet that I don’t settle down, make a life for my family, and take the time to plant my trees. Trees take time to plant and even longer to grow. Many times I have found myself mistakenly neglecting the things that take longer in life because maybe I won’t have time to see the fruit.

Over the years, I have learned the value in planting my trees — wherever the Lord leads us. I could write a book with all the stories about the Lord’s faithfulness. This story is just one of them, of our special little mango tree.

//

One Sunday afternoon within the first year that we moved to Thailand, we were watching a family movie. Suddenly our cat crept quickly to the door, and we noticed a poisonous snake slithering into a small bamboo grove in the front yard. (It is good to have a cat in Southeast Asia.) When the snake decided to make the bamboo its home, my husband had to remove the grove for the safety of our young kids and pets.

Now we had a great bare spot with nothing there, and our home was a spectacle with people being able to see right in. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but as a missionary in an Asian country you feel the constant eyes of the local people watching you. That bamboo grove had provided the little bit of privacy we needed at home. We knew we needed to get a new tree to fill the bare space. A trip to the plant market was exciting. We decided to get a mango tree so that we could enjoy the fruit in the seasons to come.

I became nervous and a bit sad thinking of buying a tree. I thought, what if we leave? We will no longer have our tree! That is our tree that we would have planted, and planting it felt like an investment that I didn’t want to lose. My husband, growing up as a missionary kid, knew the importance of making a home no matter how long you plan to stay.  “And besides,” he said, “it’s just a tree, have some fun!”

When we planted our little mango tree, not only did it grow, but our hearts began to change and grow. We became rooted again in the places right around us. It was just a few months later that we unexpectedly had to leave Thailand. We suddenly needed to move back to the States for health care for one of our kids. I began to realize how important it was that we planted that tree.

It was fun and exciting to go pick out and plant the tree as a family. To water it and begin to watch it grow. Our little mango tree was ours. It represented our family and our journey to that place at that time. It was more than just a tree to us. It showed how God had brought us there and reminded us of our adventures, both the fun and the difficult. And just like our tree, we were growing and maturing through it all. I decided then that in some way I would continue to “plant trees” each place the Lord would lead us to.

Before leaving Thailand, my husband moved our little tree to his parents’ house on the other side of the city. For a few years my father-in-law would send us pictures of it and tell about its growth. One Christmas, my son bought Grandpa a little airplane ornament, so Grandpa hung it on the tree we planted and took a picture of him and Grandma with it. That was the last email I received from my father-in-law before his passing a few months later.

Two years after we lost him, the Lord led our family back to Thailand and to the home where my in-laws had lived with our little mango tree. Staying in that home was supposed to be temporary, but with now two children with medical needs and COVID restrictions, we stayed there much longer.

We enjoyed many mango seasons eating the fruit that came from our tree. A tree that at one time we thought we might never see again, let alone taste the fruit from season after season. We watched our little tree grow right along with our children. I homeschooled under it while feeding babies. My kids climbed up in it and imagined for hours on end. They put blankets and teapots under it and invited friends to come in. Their stuffies were often found hanging in it, and yes, a few snakes tried to make their home there as well.

It was a refuge in a rainy season storm and a shady place when the hot season baked the earth. Each evening I would watch my children play around and climb up in it as I prepared dinner. For four years we lived there, and in some ways I forgot about the feelings I had before I planted the tree. My revolving door, for a moment, had given way to the beauty of the mundane.

The day came when the Lord had new plans for our family, and the chapter in that place was coming to a close. We called that place home longer than any other place we have ever lived.

A few years have now passed since we moved to Eastern Thailand. On a recent trip back to the north my husband went to our old house and discovered that the new owners had our tree removed. Our home is different, and not ours anymore, and our tree no longer there. The tree we planted is still a reminder of our journey — the journey that brought us there and led us away. Most important, however, is the time we spent planting our trees. And tree or no tree, a large part of our family’s roots can still be found there.

When we planted our lovely little mango tree, we did not just plant it to cover the home, but our hearts as well. It represents a place where growth began to take place in our lives. Now our little mango tree holds even more meaning; it’s not just a tree but a story.

It’s a story of a journey our family took to the other side of the world. It is a story of our adventures, our growth, our struggles, and our faith. It is a story of love and loss. It is a story of relationships we made and relationships we lost. That little tree holds a lot of memories, love, and life. Most importantly, it’s a story of God’s faithfulness ever present in our lives.

I hope my kids look back one day and see a life that was rooted. That their roots run deep, connecting them to people, places, and memories everywhere. That their home was a place of rest and security no matter where it was. That they have learned to plant their trees in each place, no matter how brief or long it may have been. And that they can see God’s glory and goodness in everything.

How about you? How has your family taken the time to plant your trees? It does not have to be an actual tree. It can be a variety of things that give us roots. Over the years, we have planted sunflowers, painted pictures to hang up on temporary housing walls, and raised chickens.

The year we moved to Eastern Thailand, we also went on home assignment. In that year alone we stayed in over fifty different places. Even during this time my son kept a small plant he potted in the window of our van as we traveled all around America. My children faithfully watered it each day.

Over the years our family has had over fifteen major moves. Many times there have been multiple moves within a year. Each place has provided opportunities to learn and grow, and wherever we go we take time to plant our trees.

~~~~~~~

Mary spent her childhood in the Midwest. After meeting her MK husband at a missions conference, her life was never the same. Together they have had a life of adventure following the Lord to many places and ministries around the world. Most days you will find her in a small village in Eastern Thailand surrounded by rice paddies with a coffee in hand, homeschooling her six children. There is something always baking in her oven and a yard full of critters and kids running around. She takes delight in studying God’s word and sharing its truth with others.

What My Cross-cultural Marriage Taught Me About Christianity

by Rachel Espazien

This month I’m celebrating six years of marriage to my Haitian husband. When people ask me about cross-cultural marriage, they expect stories of language differences, cultural conflict, or family traditions. Of course those have been part of our story, but the main lesson that comes to mind as I contemplate how my cross-cultural marriage has changed me over the course of the past six years is something different. 

My husband didn’t introduce me to Haitian culture. I was already living in Haiti and learning the language before we got together. However, ask any cross-cultural couple, and they will tell you. The depth of your cultural immersion while living abroad, compared to doing life 24/7 with your foreign spouse, are two completely different experiences! 

Through our marriage, God showed me that much of what I considered “Christianity” was actually American culture.

Growing up in America, I never realized how difficult it can be to separate my faith from culture. The two were so intertwined that I genuinely thought they were the same thing. Certain ways of speaking, dressing, worshiping, doing ministry, raising children, being productive, giving, and even managing time felt not only normal but morally correct.

Then I married someone who loved Jesus as I did but approached many of those things differently. When these differences would arise, I instinctively viewed them through the lens of right and wrong.

“Why would he, as a Christian, do things that way?” “Why can’t he see that ‘this’ is the right way?” “Surely my approach is more biblical.” But over time, God began exposing the truth to me that many of the things I was defending were not biblical principles at all. They were cultural preferences.

I discovered that serving God can look different from person to person and culture to culture. This doesn’t mean that one is more right than the other. The more I learned about Haiti and the more I experienced life through my husband’s perspective, the more I realized that Christianity is far bigger than any one culture.

Jesus did not come to make Haitians into Americans. He did not come to make Americans into Haitians. He came to redeem people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Throughout church history, Christians have, at times, confused the gospel with culture. Beginning in the New Testament, Jewish believers sometimes struggled to understand that Gentiles did not need to become culturally Jewish in order to follow Christ. We see these same beliefs affecting cross-cultural work and marriages today. 

The gospel was not tied to a single culture then, and it is not tied to one now. That realization transformed not only my marriage but also my ministry.

Because of our work in Haiti, I regularly interact with people whose daily lives look very different from my own. Years ago, I unconsciously measured their practices against American standards. I assumed that what felt normal to me was somehow more godly.

Today, I try to ask a different question in my marriage. Instead of asking, “Why doesn’t he do things the way I do?” I ask, “Is this actually unbiblical, or is it simply different?” And “What would be the most loving thing? To adapt? Or to call him out on this?”

That question has saved me from many unnecessary judgments. It has also helped me appreciate the beauty of God’s global church. Around the world, believers worship differently, communicate differently, and live differently. Yet they serve the same Savior and are filled with the same Spirit.

My marriage has given me a front-row seat to that reality. Living with someone from another culture has forced me to examine assumptions I didn’t even know I had. It has challenged my pride, stretched my understanding, and reminded me that my culture is not the standard by which all others should be measured.

Most importantly, it has deepened my understanding of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is not American. The kingdom is not Haitian. The kingdom is God’s, and it is beautifully diverse.

One day believers from every nation will stand together before the throne of Christ. Our cultural differences will not disappear, but they will all find their proper place under the lordship of Jesus. Just as diversity makes our worship beautiful, diversity makes marriage beautiful too. 

In a small way, cross-cultural marriage offers a glimpse of that future reality. It is two people from different backgrounds learning to build unity without demanding uniformity. For that lesson, I am deeply grateful.

What began as marriage between an American woman and a Haitian man became one of God’s tools for teaching me a larger truth: Following Christ does not require making others look like me. It requires helping people look more like Him. 

Cross-cultural marriage is refining, it’s stretching, and it’s so, so beautiful. How blessed I am to be living this life between two cultures and raising a daughter who is the best of both of our cultures. I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

~~~~~~~

Rachel Espazien is a missionary, blogger, and the founder of Espwa Demen Mission. Married to her Haitian husband, she writes from firsthand experience about the joys and challenges of intercultural marriage, cross-cultural ministry, and everyday life. Rachel is passionate about encouraging missionaries to learn their target language, embrace cultural differences with grace, and faithfully follow Christ wherever He leads. When she is not serving in Haiti, you will find her at home in Missouri raising her two-year-old daughter, selling at her antique booth, and language tutoring. She enjoys coffee, cooking, and fitness. You can follow her blog at espwademen.com/blog.

From Fluent to Clueless in One Simple Plane Trip

by Patricia Paulichen

You really don’t realize how much of life you take for granted until you move overseas. You wake up on the other side of the planet, and suddenly nothing makes sense. Your brain has turned into mush, and you function and sound like a two-year-old.

And yet most people back home — who sent you there as a seemingly capable adult — have no idea of your sudden, invisible regression back to infancy.

The Toddler Phase: Relearning the Basics

So, you think you know how things work? Psych! Think again.

Previously effortless things like grocery shopping now demand Columbo-style detective work. Baking soda? Only in pharmacies, of course. Molasses? Available in greenhouses as fertilizer, obviously. (Both true stories.) Even seemingly simple things can go hilariously wrong. Imagine rushing in to use the loo only to realize (too late) that washrooms here double as election voting booths. Who knew?

Each day presents an escape room-style puzzle that you feel (and are) unequipped to solve. Learning how to complete even basic tasks feels like a full-time job, and the exhaustion of the constant decoding exhausts you; you wonder if competence will ever return.

The Language Barrier: When Your Brain Betrays You

Whether you acknowledge it or not, communication equals independence, and in the early days, you have neither.

Remember a time when you were articulate? Now you’re living in your very own episode of The Twilight Zone where you can only grunt like a caveman. Conversations become heavily gestured, frequently awkward, and often regrettable. You know what you want to say, but the words won’t come to your mouth. You want to yell, “But I have a college degree!” — anything to prove you’re even remotely intelligent. But fear of embarrassment keeps you smiling and silently nodding along, praying you can get through the conversation without losing it.

The mistakes pile up quickly. I know of one missionary who confidently asked a Sunday school child to “spit on” him instead of “forgive” him. The kid wisely refused. Another turned down help refining his sermon, only to open his Sunday morning message by declaring his “backside” had two halves instead of his past. The congregation dissolved in unstoppable laughter, and he had to leave the pulpit abruptly. (Though I’m sure he never made that mistake again!)

While it doesn’t take forever (even though it often feels like it), slowly but surely your brain and mouth catch up to your surroundings. Like a Biblical miracle, your tongue is eventually loosed and the words begin to flow.

The Cultural Differences: Rules Lurking Under the Surface

Every culture has unspoken rules, and the sooner you learn them, the fewer awkward situations you’ll find yourself in.

Greeting customs? Good luck guessing whether to shake hands, bow, kiss a cheek (or two), or awkwardly hover. And why does a latecomer to church have to greet absolutely everyone when they enter, even if it’s in the middle of a service? Public transport? Do you flag it down or just stand there awkwardly and trust that it stops? Is it even alright for “rich” foreigners to use it? (Learned that lesson the hard way.)

Beyond the daily logistics, cultural norms shape deeper aspects of life. Humour doesn’t always translate, and what’s polite in one place might be offensive in another. Hand gestures you’re used to using at home might put you in a more-than-awkward situation in your host country.

What’s considered a casual request in your circles might come across as demanding or demeaning in another. Even time itself can be twisted to the extent that appointments are suggestions (especially for the doctors you’re waiting to see), and events “starting at 6 p.m.” includes the time to get ready. (Who knew arrival times could be so fluid?)

The most frustrating part? No one tells you these things outright. Each day you learn from your mistakes, albeit sometimes rather painfully.

The Bureaucracy Maze: When Systems Feel Designed to Drive You Mad

Back home, things were predictable. Need to renew your driver’s license? You know exactly where to go and how long it will take. Need to pay a bill? Log into online banking, do a quick transfer, and it’s done, easy peasy. But when you move overseas, every system operates by a set of disconnected, unwritten, often baffling rules.

Each day feels like stumbling through a dimly-lit labyrinth full of bad LED lights and endless red tape where, after hours of standing in an unmoving lineup, a disinterested clerk tells you you’re missing one vital document that same person failed to mention to you when you were there yesterday, before waving you off to wait in line at another indifferent office, only for them to hand you a contradictory new mountain of paperwork and tell you to start over, leaving you wondering if anyone in this soul-crushing machine actually knows the rules or if it’s designed to wear you down until you question your own sanity.

Official tasks feel like being on a reality-TV show of trial and error, where every attempt uncovers a fresh complication that determines your survival (at worst) and makes you want to scream (at best).

As one missionary friend wisely shared, “If I can get one thing done per day, I’m doing really well. Anything more than that is unrealistic.” In this hamster wheel-type life, each stamp or signature is celebrated as a victory, proof you made it through some sort of bureaucracy without completely losing your mind.

The Hidden Cost: When Adventure Becomes Exhaustion

Reality check: It’s not all an adventure. This is simply how you live, day in and day out. The constant small frictions and low-grade disorientation are exhausting and take a real toll.

You miss the simplicity of home in ways you never anticipated: the ease of shopping and ready-made food, the predictability of schedules, and the comfort of blending in. Relationships are hard, and making genuine friends as an adult demands real effort.

No matter how long you stay or how well you adapt, you’ll always carry at least a subtle difference to the nationals. As my immigrant father-in-law said, “Once you move away from your birth country, no matter where you live, you will never fully fit in again.” Welcome to Third Culture Life, where belonging is layered with complexity and forever a little bittersweet.

The Redemption: Why We Stay (and How We Grow)

In the beginning, every day feels like a losing battle. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, you start to change. One day, you realize your brain no longer feels fried by 2 p.m. (Score!) Survival mode gives way to flow. Life starts to feel easier. You can finally exhale a little. You’re adjusting.

Living overseas in a new language and culture strips you down to nothing and rebuilds you with a new personality and a new way of thinking. In the grinding process, you cultivate real grit, adaptability, and the capacity to laugh at yourself. Over time, you come to love the new person you’ve become and to appreciate the challenges God used to get you there.

And somewhere in the journey, the foreign place that once overwhelmed you becomes home. You emerge from the cocoon of uncertainty as the beautiful, bicultural butterfly you have been called to be: more humble, more reliant on His grace, and forever transformed.

~~~~~~~

Patricia Paulichen is a Bible-centred life coach who is passionate about helping women in ministry and missions rediscover clarity, peace, and joy in Christ amid the demands of cross-cultural life. With years of overseas ministry and her own family’s neurodiversity journey, she brings practical wisdom and deep compassion to every conversation. Patricia and her husband currently serve in Uruguay, South America. They are parents to two homeschooled adult TCKs and two TCK kids-in-law, all living in Europe. When she’s not ministering or coaching, you’ll likely find her with a good book and a cup of tea, delving into languages, geeking out over neuroscience and faith, wandering in nature, or happily lost in a K-drama. You can connect with Patricia at patriciamyralee.com.

Sobs of Joy: Surrendering the Grief of Singleness on the Field

by Emma Bell

A few years ago, I flew back to the U.S. from my home in Thailand to be a bridesmaid in my dear friend’s wedding. It’s a common missionary experience. Occasionally, if the moment is dear enough to us that we just can’t miss it, we might fork up the money to fly back for such an important event. 

As soon as I landed in the U.S., delirious with jet lag, I was swept up into the flurry of the wedding: getting nails done, preparing the bachelorette party, sleeping on an air mattress, squeezing in a trip to Chipotle. After just a few days of craziness, I found myself all dressed up, standing to the right of the altar with the other bridesmaids and watching one of my best friends walk down the aisle towards her almost-husband. 

At some point during the ceremony, we all sang the song “You’re Beautiful” by Phil Wickham. I was already failing to hold back the tears, but they really started to stream on the last verse:

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

I wanted to think that I’m just a sentimental person, that weddings are so beautiful and I’m just so tender, so that’s why I couldn’t keep my composure. But now, a few years later, I’m trying to be honest with myself: that moment was not only beautiful to me; it was also deeply painful. 

I resent that singleness could make me feel pain. It feels embarrassing to care. It feels anti-feminist. It feels weak. I have spent years learning the gifts and the beauty of singleness and have preached it from the rooftops. I shout to anyone who will hear me, “Singleness is a valuable gift! Jesus was single! Paul recommends it! Marriage isn’t superior to singleness!” And I still stand by these things. At the same time, in my own experience, singleness has caused me deep grief.

I’ve been seriously processing my singleness since I was about twenty-four. At that age, it truly felt like everyone around me was getting married. I had two roommates who were planning their weddings, and that same year I was discerning whether or not overseas missions would be my long-term career. I imagined going overseas and being the only single woman in a missionary community of marrieds and their kids. I pictured the isolation on Christmas when others would celebrate with their families, and I would be alone. I pictured the humility of it — being regarded as less mature or less of a leader because of my single status. 

[Praise God, most of these concerns have not been realized in the way that I had feared. God has given me wonderful friends—of both the single and married variety.]

It was age twenty-nine that singleness struck a new chord with me. I was twenty-nine when COVID upended my life. I found myself stuck in America, my home and possessions left behind in a country I had no idea if I’d ever get back to. Perhaps more importantly, I found myself living far away from my overseas team. I experienced, quite dramatically and suddenly, what I knew would come for me sooner or later: having to say goodbye to my teammates and closest friends — alone. 

Because friends don’t come with a “till death do us part” promise, I parted ways with the friends I had come to depend on like family. I’ll always remember when I chose to relocate to Thailand in 2021, and my favorite married couple decided to stay in America and work on getting pregnant instead. They told me they would be exiting this next chapter of my life over a Zoom call. We stayed on the call and cried, hardly saying a word, for probably an hour.

About a month later, I packed my bags and joined a new team in a new country. The missionary life is full of goodbyes — goodbyes on goodbyes on goodbyes. But for single missionaries, it is uniquely difficult because we do it alone.

I saw a statistic once that said of all the single missionaries on the field, women make up 80%. This means a couple of things for us single ladies. First, it’s hard to meet someone out here. The odds are not in our favor. Second, I am mercifully not alone in my singleness. In fact, I feel more seen and understood where I live overseas by other single missionaries and single Thai sisters than I do back in my church community in the U.S. where it feels like everyone was married by twenty-three.

Are we missionaries because we are single? Do singles have more freedom to go to the nations than those who marry? That’s at least partly true. I can think of a few people who had dreamed of being overseas before they married someone who did not share that calling. So, are we missionaries because we are single? Or are we single because we are missionaries? Would I have met someone and been married with kids by now if I had lived in the U.S. for the last twelve years instead of Asia? Maybe. Not necessarily. I know plenty of single people who live in their home country. 

Yet I find myself in a situation where my obedience to share Christ in an unreached part of the world appears to be at odds with my desire for marriage. I could “try” to meet someone, but again, there aren’t many options where I live. I could get online, but then I’d likely be meeting men who live somewhere else, so I’d have to be willing to at least consider leaving the field. Is my ministry calling more important, or is marriage? If a simple answer popped into your head, I doubt you’ve walked a mile in the single missionary’s shoes.

Singleness is a strange grief. It’s a grief that increases with time. I process it. I mourn it. I put it away for a time, only to take it out again and realize it’s grown bigger and changed shape. 

I’m thirty-four now. Some days, singleness hurts. It’s not having anyone to bicker with. It’s the social smallness you feel in comparison to a couple. It’s a lack of physical affection. It’s having to build trust from the ground up all over again with another new roommate. It’s when your age is getting older and your life stage is the same as a recent college-grad. It’s the feeling of rejection compounded over many years. It’s when the conversation turns to pregnancy or kids, and I have nothing to contribute. It’s when baby showers have a new twinge of sadness and shame. 

One night, lying in bed trying to fall asleep, my overactive mind stumbled upon a thought: What if God really loves me? A few days earlier someone had been praying for me, and as she prayed, she said this to me: “He loves you so much, Emma. He would do anything for you — just ask Him.” Those words stunned me. They felt so personal and specific to me. Days later, they were still ringing in my ears. Is she allowed to say that? How could she even know that that’s how God feels about me? 

Yet I couldn’t deny that it had to be true. God’s Word says so over and over. Jesus said to his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And a few verses later: “Whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you” (John 15:16.) Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” 

The idea that Jesus deeply loves me and takes care of me wasn’t brand new information, but that night, the Spirit allowed me to believe it in a way I hadn’t dared to before. I sat up in my bed and started to cry. I started to really cry. Sobs. I had to get a box of tissues. Sobs of relief. Sobs of joy. Sobs where my walls of self-protection were being dismantled. Sobs I thought I might have if a man ever told me, “I love you, and I choose you.” 

And ever since then, I’ve consistently found it much easier to believe God really loves me. His love is not theoretical. It’s not just for theologians to muse upon. He is near to us. He heals our wounds.

When we arrive on eternity’s shore
When death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

I may never ever have a wedding day. I may have to continue dealing with my ever-expanding, ever-changing grief for the rest of my life here. But I will be at that wedding — the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). Because of Jesus, I’m invited to be in that marriage. The marriage of which all marriages are but a dim shadow — the eternal union of Jesus and His bride, His people. 

At that wedding, rejection and shame will fall off my shoulders as I am welcomed by the King himself. To be included and chosen on that day will far outshine any loneliness I’ve ever felt. And I know that on that day, when I finally see Him with my own eyes and worship Him alongside people from every tribe, nation, and tongue, no part of me will regret trusting God with my singleness. Not one part of me will regret putting my whole life into His hands. When I hear Him welcome me home, I won’t have any more questions.

~~~~~~~

Emma Bell has loved doing evangelism and discipleship with the unreached for ten years now — first in East Asia and now in Thailand. If you’d like to respond to this article, Emma would love to hear from you. You can contact Elizabeth Trotter, and she’ll connect you.

An Invitation to Help Improve Member Care

by Andrea Sears

For too long, people care and development (member care) for cross-cultural workers has been operating with no shared guidelines to shape our field. But now, the Shared Foundations Initiative at MTI (Mission Training International) aims to gather the voices and wisdom of the Great Commission community to work together toward thriving for cross-cultural workers. We are currently accepting submissions for the Thrive Outcomes Project, and you are invited to participate!

[For more information on the Shared Foundations Initiative, scroll to the bottom of the article below the author bio.]

This project seeks to answer the question: What does it take for a cross-cultural worker to thrive? As cross-cultural workers yourselves, you know what helps you thrive and what hinders your thriving. We want to include your voices in this important research.

We believe the Thrive Outcomes Project has the potential to:

  • add depth and clarity to what member care is and does,
  • strengthen organizational conversations,
  • help practitioners access quality thinking on how to support cross-cultural workers well, and
  • lay strong foundations for collaboration.

We cannot build this project alone. Would you consider contributing your voice and insights for the strengthening of cross-cultural workers? This is an evolving research endeavor, and we have published preliminary results from initial submissions, which you can check out here.

See what ideas are still missing or need to be strengthened, and submit your ideas here. We’re looking not only for your personal experience, but also for evidence from books, blogs, podcasts, or published academic research (when available) to support your ideas. This helps us to ensure that the results are strong, evidence-based, and credible, which will increase their utility to organizational leadership and care teams.

~~~~~~~

Andrea Sears and her husband, Seth, spent thirteen years in Costa Rica, working in the largest immigrant squatter settlement in Central America, and founded the community development ministry giveDIGNITY. She now runs the ministry from the U.S. and recently accepted a faculty position at John Brown University, teaching Intercultural Studies, Humanitarian & Disaster Relief, and Bible courses. She previously oversaw a missionary attrition study, which was summarized in a series here at A Life Overseas.

Additional information about the Shared Foundations Initiative:

The Shared Foundations Initiative (SFI) exists to strengthen the health, resilience, and long-term thriving of cross-cultural workers from Global North cultures by cultivating shared language, fostering alignment, and hosting thoughtful, collaborative conversations related to cross-cultural worker care and development.

Rather than prescribing uniform practices, we seek to offer ideas and examples of practices that could be done, to help organizations and individuals translate shared values into a lived reality within their specific contexts (denomination, organizational culture, organizational size, cultural context, etc).

Our vision is a Great Commission community in which quality care & development for those sent is consistently understood and practiced, contributing to the faithful witness of God’s love both to those sent and to those they are serving.

SFI’s vision is shaped by the following guiding commitments:

  1. Unity without Uniformity
    We affirm shared values and principles while honoring the diversity of organizational models, theological traditions, cultures, and contexts.
  2. Field-Informed Wisdom
    Guidance emerges from the lived experience, research, and discernment of practitioners and organizations actively engaged in cross-cultural worker care.
  3. Non-Prescriptive Influence
    The initiative does not set standards, accredit programs, or enforce compliance. Its influence is catalytic, invitational, and relational.
  4. Holistic Understanding of Thriving
    Cross-cultural worker health includes spiritual, emotional, relational, physical, vocational, and communal dimensions across the life cycle of service.
  5. Learning as a Shared Stewardship
    Knowledge is held as a commons to be cultivated, shared, and responsibly stewarded for the good of the whole field.

The cornerstone of our approach is applied research into what factors are helping cross-cultural workers to thrive. This research is conducted by researchers and practitioners that have come together to form the John Powell Institute (JPI) at MTI.

Finding Identity While Crossing Cultures

by Rebecca Lebens

We define ourselves both to belong and to be set apart. We identify with a place, a culture, a language, an age group, a profession. By our personality, attributes and abilities, by our roles, relationships and religion, we declare who we are and where we belong and why we are special.

Maybe because God met me when I was only five years old, drowning, to show me a ladder and remind me how to crawl—I never thought about creating my own identity back then. I was God’s beloved daughter, rescued from death for now and forever.

I didn’t set out to be a missionary. I asked God if I should be, but I didn’t think I had the personality or the ability for it. I enjoyed traveling and had some ability to learn languages, was extraverted enough to want to meet new people and to share God’s love with strangers, but I was afraid to ask for help and disliked “standing out.”

I hoped He would send me to countries where the people look like me and where I could learn the language well, so that my foreignness wouldn’t be noticed. Maybe I could have a normal job and just moonlight as a subtle advocate for the kingdom of heaven.

When I had the opportunity to study abroad in France, it perfectly suited my preferences and skills. I thought that was the start of my journey, where I would become an undercover religious ambassador. And I loved the way of life that I found there, even though I was surrounded by non-believers and constantly made to defend my faith and challenged to uphold my values.

I made plans to go back after graduation, only waiting on a green light from above. Instead, friends, teachers, and a persistent prompting from the Holy Spirit pointed me in the direction of southeast Asia, specifically South Korea.

Do you ever catch yourself making deals with the Almighty? “Okay, God, but then back to Europe.” He is so gracious — three times He sent me to Asia to work as a teacher, to grow my faith, and to share my love of God with others. And every time He opened doors for me to spend time in Europe after, an irregular sort of furlough.

I am on my third such furlough, and I recently I had to face my fear of being sent back. Since coming back to Europe, I was refusing to cook non-European foods, avoiding using non-European languages, pretending I wasn’t missing Asian dramas and Asian music and my faraway friends. I didn’t want to be associated with anything other than Europe. Like a billboard, I wanted to advertise to God with my choices that I could give up everything I like that is outside of Europe.

In return, He asked me: Where are you trying to belong? Do you belong to a country? To a language? To a certain church?

As a child, I knew I belonged to the God who cared enough to save me. My identity was His daughter; my skills were His gifts. Nothing else mattered. As an adult, I learned to appreciate other identities — and the comfort that comes from fitting in.

Everything I love about Europe also exists in Asia, except that I can pass for a local in almost any European country. I didn’t like being stared at in Asia, just because I look foreign. I didn’t like people asking, “So how long will you be here?” and then deciding whether to be my friend based on the answer.

I didn’t like the smallest word being treated as amazing — wow, you can say hello? And the longest speech being treated the same — wow, you can say all that? I didn’t like being constantly made aware that I didn’t belong, that it wasn’t my language, wasn’t my place.

But do you know what is beautiful about belonging to God? That identity stays true no matter where we are in the world. No matter what languages we speak or what roles we take, we are His children.

And maybe, sometimes, it is in the places where we stand out that His light can shine through the most clearly.

I am re-embracing that identity. It was never forgotten, only covered by other worries and overlooked because of misplaced hopes and fears. More than being unknown, or being known for something else, I would rather stand out for my faith. If I cannot be bold already because of a worldly desire to belong, how will I be bold about God? 

Wherever I am, I want that to be my first identity. I do not want to define myself by other roles or traits or interests, or by specific languages or cultures, or as foreign or not foreign, but as a Christian. 

~~~~~~~

Rebecca Lebens’s passport country is the US, but she has spent the last decade living from promise to promise, following God’s calling across ten different countries where she has worked as a teacher, studied languages, earned a master’s degree, and grew in her faith. Now she is using the knowledge she accumulated along the journey for her PhD research.

Mercy for Moms Who Doubt

by Aylin Merck

Recently I found an encouragement I had written for moms seven years ago. As I read it again, I was struck by the confident tone in it. While I believe now every word I wrote then, I think what strikes me most is how the parenting job description then seemed so clear compared to what it seems like these days. 

When our kids are young, it is so tiring but also straightforward what we are supposed to do: 

  • Change diapers – check
  • Feed them 6 times a day – check
  • Make sure they are safe – check
  • Keep their closet stocked with the right kind of seasonal clothing – check
  • Play with them, read them a book, snuggle – check check check 

But as they grow out of childhood and become teens, our job description becomes less precise. Discipleship moves toward coaching. Our kids’ needs in some ways also become more complex, and for moms of TCKs and neurodivergent children, that is especially so. 

Navigating our children’s insecurities, moods, dating sagas, depression that won’t lift, relentless anxiety, loneliness, and potential need for accommodations while also honoring their agency tests our confidence to do this job. 

For someone who has historically found belonging through usefulness and emotional safety through not missing the mark, the ambiguity of parenting teens in really difficult waters can make me feel faint of heart. When my words don’t seem to help my child, when the transitions mount faster than we can process well, when my window of tolerance has shrunk, when I don’t have the answers to their deep doubts, I want steady ground beneath my feet, the kind that used to come from the confidence I was exceeding, or at least meeting, the standard. If I can’t have that confidence, am I even the right person for the job? 

And is there joy for me here? When the wins are not easily obvious. When my kid is angry at me or feels terribly misunderstood by me. When the proverbial report card from my teen kid seems to be “E” for effort. In those times, can I still breathe in deep peace and exhale deep trust?

A few years ago, as I read Matthew, a little phrase in the Great Commission caught my eye: 

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

The original eleven disciples had spent extended time with the Risen Christ by the time Jesus instructed them to meet him on this mountain. They had eaten with him (Luke 24:30-32; 42-43; John 21: 13-14), had touched his scars (John 20: 26-29), and heard him explain the prophecies made about him. He had opened their minds to understand Scriptures (Luke 24:45). 

And yet, when they came to him in this scene, some doubted. 

I will someday thank Matthew personally for preserving this. Even as some saw the Risen Son of Man with their actual physical eyes, they doubted. Thankfully, Matthew also preserves Jesus’ deep mercy offering them both his presence and power, inviting them to partner with him in the job of reconciling all things to himself. 

In his gentleness and lowliness of heart (Matthew 11:28-30), he offers the same promise to all of them: 

I am with all of you, always — when you are sure of me and when you are not, when you fumble in the dark and when you know exactly what to do, when you see me clearly, and when you don’t — I am with you always, to the very end of time. (Matthew 28:20, paraphrased)

Jesus knows that among those who follow him, there are some who doubt his presence, his nearness, his power and therefore question this mission to make disciples (or at least his mission as it is entrusted specifically to us). Yet while it is so easy for us to be moms (and disciple makers in general!) who doubt, this is the ground beneath our feet: we have been baptized into the Triune God. He has brought us into his life, deep friendship and mission. 

Belonging to His kingdom does not come from usefulness or from meeting the standard but from existing in the world in his name. Our confidence comes from the certainty that all that He is is ours and enough — truly enough — for all that he has called us to. 

Doubt easily becomes a staying friend, its voice loud, persistent. And while doubt is a needed part of faith, I am learning that there is a rock under my feet, a refuge that keeps me safe when the path is slippery, foggy and dark. That even when I doubt my usefulness, capacity, resources to do this job, I still belong among those who are called to make disciples and live in the name of the Triune God. This is the peace that is not like the world gives: knowing that somehow I am okay and will be okay no matter the outcome of my parenting efforts.

Our meeting the standard is not how Jesus fulfills his mission through us. His will is done in me when I throw myself at his mercy, and by faith and united to Him, trust him with each weakness, failure and sin so that he can live through me with all his authority, power and presence. 

As we make disciples in our Jerusalem, right at home, our dear friend Jesus comes alongside us. He is our king, who commissions us to join him in his redeeming work, the work that reverses every impact of the curse, starting in us. 

He enters each broken piece of our story, and by invading it with His resurrection life, His glory shapes us more and more, heaven comes to earth, and mercy gets the last word. 

~~~~~~~~~

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.