You Are Going to Hate It

You know that country you’ve been dreaming about? The one that you have been praying over and researching? You’ve been talking about it endlessly these days, building a team who will support you when you move there. You are ready to uproot your family, your job, your entire life to pour your soul into the place you love so much.

Call me a party pooper, but today I’m here to tell you something important: Shortly after you finally arrive in that country, you are going to hate it.

It might take a few weeks, or maybe a few months, but at some point it’s going to happen: You will wonder why on earth you thought you would love this country. You will question why you enthusiastically raised support for so many months to go live in a place that you actually despise.

It might happen when you come to the realization that this doesn’t feel like a fun adventure anymore. The public transportation is claustrophobic and smelly. You are tired of eating baked potatoes and scrambled eggs and yet the idea of facing the grocery store again makes you want to cry. You feel like a frizzy, unattractive mess. The pollution is triggering your little girl’s asthma or your four-year-old has gotten malaria twice in two months.

It might be because the people you meet are cold and suspicious of you. Or in your face and critical. Or just in your face, all the time, peeking through your windows. You feel like a curiosity on display, or you feel like an ignored, cast aside monstrosity. You wonder why you ever thought you could love these people who apparently abhor you. 

Or maybe you find yourself spending all day every day learning the difference between a past perfect continuous verb and an intransitive verb. Your body hurts from sitting all day and your brain hurts from thinking all day, yet you know you still have 16 months of this same horrible task ahead of you. And you wonder why you uprooted your happy, productive, meaningful life so that you could spend all of your time looking at meaningless squiggles on a piece of paper. 

Maybe you’ll hate it because your team leader seems distant or your co-workers are too busy for you, and you feel very alone. Maybe it will be because you are a woman in a country that demeans women, and you’ve never felt so insignificant. Maybe it will be because you didn’t anticipate how this new country would change your family dynamics, and it’s so hard and so painful to try to figure out new ways of helping your children find joy.

There are a million reasons why you could hate it. But one thing is for certain: At some point, it will happen.

Yeah, I know, just call me a dream smasher. I can hear you imploring, Do you have a point? Do you even want me to move overseas? 

Absolutely. Stay with me. I’m going somewhere with this.

Here’s my point: I want you to know what you are getting yourself into. When you get to the point of hating your country and your life and your calling, you need to know that this doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. Or with your country. Or with your calling.

There are three things you need to know:

Make your calling sure. Do this now, before you go overseas. Your calling to this country needs to be more than just a really strong feeling. It needs to come from hours of prayer, consultation with your pastor, soul-searching with godly friends. You need to know the reasons for why God is sending you to this country: What is the need? How are you uniquely qualified to fill that need? Write it down. Plaster it to your refrigerator. You will want to remind yourself of these reasons when you find yourself hating life. 

Make your faith sure. Do this now, before you go overseas. You must fully understand your worldview. Read a book on how to study the Bible on your own. Read a book on the theology of suffering. Read a book on the theology of poverty. Wrestle with the big questions before you go, so that when they hit you in the face and seek to destroy you, you will already be prepared. 

Perseverance is the whole battle. Not half the battle, not 90% of the battle. The entire battle. Do not give up. Do not give up. Let me tell you something: There will always be a reason to leave. Always. If you want to leave, you will find a reason, and it will be a good reason that will sound honorable to your supporters. 

I know, this is tricky. You are not going to live in this country forever; the right time to leave will come at some point, sooner or later. But make sure your call to leave has just as many prayer-filled, logical reasons as your call was to go. Because if not, then maybe you just need to persevere. Learn one more verb. Meet one more person. Go out your front door, one more time.

And here’s the part where I give you hope. You will not hate this country forever. I promise. Cross my heart; hope to die. If you stick this out and keep your heart open, a lasting love for your host country will sneak up on you. It might take 6 months, or a year, or even five years, but you will not hate it forever. There may be some things about it that you always dislike, of course, but your capacity to love this country will stretch and expand and deepen the longer you are there. One day, it will dawn on you that you don’t hate it, quite so much. And one morning, you will wake up and realize that you love this country. And you will never want to leave. 

To My 25-year-old Self…

cochabamba 8Hey there, you. Yes, you with the big dreams and full schedule. Yes, you getting ready to embark on the greatest mission of your life. Can I have a minute? I know you have laundry to do, support letters to mail, and noses to wipe, but if I may?

First of all, let me assure you – you make it! Yep, you are a missionary. And have been for over a decade. So you can relax – everything does really come together and you really do get on the plane with your newborn, your two-year-old son, and your three-year-old daughter. Though, you must know, that ‘crazy’ label must be stuck with crazy glue because you will forever have someone somewhere thinking it. But you had that hunch, right?

So before you duct tape all your worldly possessions in plastic bins, and before go through all the security check points in a trans-continental journey that will leave you hoarse and would have cost you your sanity had you not already given that up months ago, let me just talk to you and tell you a few things. About yourself. About your life.

You are enough. You will feel like you don’t measure up and that all your efforts are in vain. You will feel the stares of people assessing every detail of your life. You will hear the hurtful comments and feel the sting of rejection, no matter how strong you think you are. You’ve got to grab that bottle of crazy glue and stick this truth to your heart of hearts: you are enough.

See beauty. Look at the leathery skin and see God’s goodness. Look at the aged eyes in young children and see God’s hope. Look at the families who hold so tight to each other and see God’s unconditional love. Don’t turn your eyes from the hurting, keep looking until you see God in them.

Change is the chain around your neck. The more you fight it the bigger it grows until you feel as though you are choking. Submit to change and that chain will shrink until it is as a fine, glistening, gold necklace reminding you of your confidence in the One leading you through these hills and valleys, calm pastures and angry rivers.

You will never regret the hundreds of hours and dollars invested in acquiring language fluency and cultural assimilation.

You will never regret learning to love the land your children know as their first home.

You will never regret the efforts to stay tight with your husband. Go on those dates. Take the trips. Celebrate. Be his biggest fan. Love big, often, and wholly.

Your greatest regrets will come from times when you backed away from human connection, when you prioritized doing over being, and when you forgot that the world is not black and white.

You know that 50 year plan you and your dear man worked out? Hang on to it. It will bring you many fun chuckles after about 3 years into this life that looks like trying to make it out alive while you teeter along on a broken sidewalk, in a never ending earthquake, during a hurricane, next to an active volcano, while being chased by a pack of R.O.U.S..

I give you permission to laugh at that corny Princess Bride reference. In fact, I give you permission to find the humor in tough moments and choose to laugh – rather than growl. Especially when you are on the side of a mountain, in a crowded bus, and the driver tells everyone to get over on the side away from the drop as he shoves another handful of coca leaves in his mouth to stay awake and… oh wait, I don’t want to give away the ending! It’s to die for! [another joke – laugh.]

Okay, you can get back to your scurrying around. Your enthusiasm is contagious! Infect as many as you can! Oh, and when they offer you that first plate of chuño? Be sure to have a napkin close by for quick, yet discreet, expulsion from your mouth. Yuck! Trust me.

Best wishes,

Yourself… with grey hairs, creaking joints, and tons of fond memories from life on the mission field

 – Angie Washington, missionary living in Bolivia, South America

blog: angiewashington.com twitter: @atangie  facebook: atangie

How about you? What would you say to your former self, knowing what you do now?