5 Tips for Newbies About Relationships with Oldies (From an Oldie)

The Newbie. In August of 2001, that was me. Standing in the dirty house that was going to be my home, totally overwhelmed by the barrage to my senses–smoke in the air, humidity on my skin, roosters crowing. What on earth was I going to cook? How was I supposed to get anywhere? And what the heck was I supposed to do with the trash? The first meal I attempted was baked potatoes (and only baked potatoes), and I cried in front of my husband because I couldn’t figure out my Celsius oven.

I needed people, someone who could walk me step by step through my life. I was thrust onto a new team, and into a larger missionary community. I knew nothing about these people, and yet I needed them desperately. How should I navigate those relationships?

I’ve lived 11 years in Tanzania since then, and turnover is so high that missionary years are kind of like dog years. Multiply by 7. Somehow, living here 11 years makes me a veteran. I’ve learned a lifetime of lessons in those years, including how to use a Celsius oven. But maybe some of the most important lessons have been in relationships with other missionaries.

At orientation, our mission told us that the number one reason people leave the field is because of relational problems with team members. Let’s work together to reduce that, starting with these tips to Newbies, from an Oldie.

1. Hold back the criticism, and look for ways to learn.

When you first arrive, you will notice about 12 things that your missionary team is doing wrong. Keep your mouth shut. Instead, ask lots of questions. After six months, that list will go down to 6 things. Continue to keep your mouth shut, and ask more questions. After a year, it will dwindle to 3 things. At that point, you can humbly, carefully, start bringing up your ideas.

Don’t give up or give in if change doesn’t happen as quickly as you like. The longer you stay, the more impact you will have on your team, and the more credible your voice will become. As much as Oldies might grunt and groan about Newbie ideas, we really do need your fresh perspective and new vision.

2. Lower your expectations of how Oldies should welcome and guide you.

I had been on several short-term missions trips before arriving in Tanzania. I think one of the dangers of STMs is that when you do arrive long-term, you expect to be treated the same way: The red carpet thrown out, someone who holds your hand everywhere you go, all your meals bought and prepared for you. But when you arrive in a country to live, it won’t look quite like that. If you don’t get the welcome you expect, if there’s not a parade for you at the airport or your house isn’t ready, it’s easy to think that the Oldies don’t really want you there. But that’s not true! Remember that missionaries are almost always overworked and distracted. Plus, a lot of Oldies have just forgotten what it feels like to be a Newbie. If you feel thrown in the deep end, well, you probably are. You will have to learn to fend for yourself quickly and it will definitely be overwhelming. Try to prepare your heart and mind for this ahead of time.

3. You may need to take the initiative in asking Oldies for help.

Even though Oldies might not be able to walk you through every step of the way, there are plenty of us out there who are eager to help. We can be a listening ear; we can commiserate by telling you horror stories of our own adjustment; we can tell you the best place to buy pita bread or how to find a refrigerator mechanic. Most Oldies are happy to answer your questions–but they probably won’t come to you; you’ve got to go to them. There’s a lot of Newbies out there, and it can be hard for us to know how to meet all those needs. You will have to take more initiative in relationships than you realized. That doesn’t mean Oldies aren’t glad to have you around. We couldn’t do this work without you, and many of us are happy to help out if you ask.

4. Remember that missionary communities are eccentric.

If you spent your whole life in one church, you may not have ever interacted with people who are theologically different than you. Welcome to the mission field! You may find missionaries in your community—even your own team–who are all over the theological spectrum. You’ll find that missionaries tend to be strong-willed, Type-A kind of people. (I’ve found that missionaries tend to be a disproportionate number of former Student Body Presidents and Valedictorians.) Put all these people together, stir the pot with some extreme heat or extreme cold and some cultural barriers, and you’ve got yourself a very interesting stew.

Be prepared to have your theological assumptions stretched. Be prepared to be surprised how love for the Gospel and lost people can transcend denominations and petty differences. Listen well and forgive abundantly. Steadfastly determine that there will be very few hills you will allow yourself to die on. Since it’s likely you are one of those Type-A people yourself, this may be tough. Choose humility.

5. Be patient with Oldies who seem relationally distant.

If we hold our emotions away from you, if we seem distant and hard to befriend, please don’t take it personally. Know that it has a lot to do with getting our hearts broken too many times to count. I remember as a Newbie, I was eager to dive into relationships with everyone in our missionary community. We had everyone over for dinner. We wanted to get to know everyone…and we did! Then….people started leaving. And leaving. And leaving. People’s terms ended, emergencies happened, health concerns came up. We stayed, but everyone we loved kept leaving. Choosing an overseas life means choosing a life of saying good-bye.

After a while, it just gets hard to initiate relationships with all the Newbies. If we hold ourselves aloof from you, it’s because of the callouses that have grown on our hearts from so many wonderful friends leaving us. We might not even consciously realize that we are holding ourselves back from you. This doesn’t mean we don’t want to be friends with you. It does mean that it may take more time for Oldies to open up. Please don’t give up on us. We need your optimism and energy as much as you need our experience and advice.

Store up your emotions and experiences being a Newbie. As you become more comfortable, as the years slip by and you become an Oldie yourself, you don’t want to forget what it felt like to just step off the plane and wonder how on earth you bake potatoes in a Celsius oven.

Photo credit

Amy Medina has spent almost half her life in Africa, both as an MK in Liberia and now in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, since 2001. Living in tropical Africa has helped her perfect the fine art of sweating, but she also loves teaching, cooking, and hospitality. She and her husband worked many years with TCK’s and now are involved with pastoral training. They also adopted three amazing Tanzanian kids along the way. Amy blogs regularly at www.gilandamy.blogspot.com.

15 Questions To Help You Set “Relationship Resolutions” In The New Year

After we got married and moved overseas five years ago, my husband, Mike, introduced a concept that initially horrified me. He suggested that every year around New Years we name one thing we’d like each other to work on in the upcoming year. In essence, he proposed that we assign each other a New Years resolution.

I spent weeks trying to decide what I would say to Mike that first year. I felt like I had to pick something serious. Momentous. Life changing. And I fretted about what he was going to say to me. What awful, embarrassing, character flaw was he going to spotlight and ask me to work on?

When the night finally came, this is what he said: “I would like you to please pay more attention to not scattering your stuff all over the place the minute you walk in the door.”

I was so relieved that this was what he picked, I laughed at him. But I now think his choice that first year was wise. He started small—a pet peeve that annoyed him out of all proportion to the actual offense, but something easy for me to agree to work on. And ever since then I have tried (with varying degrees of success) to be more mindful of keeping my clutter out of common areas.

Now that we’re several years down the track of our relationship, this little tradition has begun to serve an additional purpose—it reminds me that New Years resolutions shouldn’t just be about what I want to do (or not do) as an individual. As I take stock of my year in December, I should also be thinking about how my relationship with Mike is going and how we could improve it.

There are all sorts of things we can aim to do to build happier, healthier relationships. Here are just a couple:

Practice kindness
Laugh together more
Say what’s on your mind
Tell your partner what you want and need
Ask questions
Play together more
Practice really listening
Spend more time together
Talk about tension points (like money, or sex)
Give each other undivided attention (with no cell phones lying handy nearby!)
Be quicker to apologize
Practice forgiveness

The trick with setting resolutions, however, is to focus. If you try to do everything on this list you’ll probably end up accomplishing nothing new in the long run. So be strategic. Take stock of your year and your relationship, and then pick one or two things you really want to work on. Add this to the one thing your partner has asked of you and craft your New Year intentions around this trio of aspirations.

Ready to get started? Great. Here are some questions for you to think about and discuss this month in the lead up to Christmas and New Years.

Answer yourself

Answer these questions for yourself, and then set aside some time to share some of your answers together.

Pick three words that describe this year.
What are four things from this year that you are grateful for?
What is the habit you would most like to stop next year?
What is one habit you would really like to start next year?
What are two things you and your partner “did well” in your relationship this year?
What is one thing you would like to do with your partner to improve your relationship next year?
Pick three words you would like to describe next year.

Ask each other

Now, take some time to ask each other these questions and discuss the answers.

What were some of your favorite moments this year?
What is something you have really appreciated about me this year?
What is something I could do to support you well in this upcoming year?
What is one thing you would like me to work on this year?
What is something you’d like us to work on together to improve our relationship?

Setting relationship resolutions

Congratulations!! If you’ve asked and answered all of the questions above, you’re ready to set some relationship resolutions for next year. Use these questions to help you:

What are one or two things (not more!!) that I really want to work on this year in my relationship?
What is one thing my partner would like me to work on?
What might these things look like in action (e.g., if you want to practice kindness, what might that actually look like on a daily basis)?

Your turn…

Do you set New Years Resolutions? If not, what do you do to mark the turning of a new page in January?
Leave a comment and let us know, or share some of your answers to the questions above.

Living Overseas Can Be Hard On Love: Making Your Relationships Work When You’re On The Move

Before we moved to Laos, I worked full time as a stress-management and resilience trainer for humanitarian workers. During those years I saw first-hand the pressure that living overseas places on people and relationships. After my husband and I moved overseas ourselves, I decided to focus my energies on supporting relationships—particularly long distance relationships—and last week I pressed “publish” on a new, free resource I want to share with you on making long distance relationships work.

If you’re NOT in long distance relationship

If you’re not in a long distance relationship you’re probably wondering if there’s anything here for you, so let me speak to you first.

When you move overseas, you’re hit with myriad challenges all at once. You need to make a thousand and one decisions in quick succession. You need to learn a new environment, new people, a new job, and maybe a new language. You need to do all of this at the same time your normal support systems (familiar friends, family, routines, jobs) are stripped away.

Moving overseas when you’re single has it’s own constellation of additional challenges. It can be less complicated in some ways, but lonelier. If you’re single and missed these posts recently right here on ALO, check them out—Not An Afterthought, and A Life Alone.

If you move overseas with a partner and/or a family you’ve carried a very important part of your identity and support system along with you. In some ways this is great—some of the bumps of transition can be softened when they’re shared. In other ways, however, partners and families add an extra level of complexity to a taxing situation. And partner and/or kids can want extra attention and support right when you feel stretched to the breaking point yourself, when you’re struggling most with your own overload, fatigue, and ricocheting emotions.

What’s the bottom line? Moving overseas can take a real toll your most important intimate relationship. When you’re in survival mode during those early days following a move it’s extremely difficult to actively invest in and nurture your relationship with your partner. And once you start to emerge from survival mode, it can be difficult to reshape the new patterns you have been laying down and fumble your way towards a closer connection again.

I acknowledge all of that, but I’m here today to say it’s really important to make your relationship with your partner one of your top priorities. There are many reasons to do this. Here is just one: Marriage and relationship problems are one of the most common reasons people need to leave the field and returning home.

Where to start with this? There are many things you can do to build connection with your partner. Today, why don’t you check out the following articles from the long distance relationships tips page. Set aside a bit of time, pick one or two and discuss them:

If you live overseas and you’re in a long distance relationship

If you live overseas and you’re in a long distance relationship, well… you like to keep things extra-interesting, don’t you? If it’s any consolation, I’ve been there. So has Shannon Young, Steffani Taylor and Dawn Othieno.

Come visit us over at Modern Love Long Distance. We’d love to share with you, support you, and hear more about how you make your long distance relationship work.

Your turn to share your stories and strategies with us.
What are things you and your partner do to help “make your relationship work”?

Banished from Bolivia

We messed up. Most times I want to end that sentence with a question mark. We messed up? Truth is, we all mess up, sooner or later.

Thomas Edison – scores of failures before the light bulb
Abraham Lincoln – lost dozens of elections
Albert Einstein – expelled from school because he was a dunce who asked too many questions

Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. The quantity of motivational pep talks in no way compares to the quantity of embarrassment one feels after a failure. Call it what you will — mess ups, screw ups, failures, errors in judgment, inexperience, sin — it still hurts.

We came to Bolivia after my husband got his Business Administration degree and after we attended one year of mission school. With a ten week old baby strapped to my chest and my hands clasping the toddler fingers of our two-year-old and our three-year-old we stepped onto Bolivian soil with high hopes for our internship. The mission school program required two years: one year of classes, three months in Mexico with an affiliated missionary, and then back to the States to finish the year with classes. We did the first year of classes. We knew we wanted to serve in Bolivia. We knew that a missionary couple affiliated with the school had been in Bolivia for seven years. We asked for a modification to the program. Considering the ages of our kids and the fact that we knew we wanted to serve in Bolivia we asked about a year long internship serving at this ministry as the second year of the program. They approved our request.

We stayed the year in Santa Cruz, Bolivia (11-01 to 12-02). Then we went back to the States for a few weeks to visit family and supporters. Before that first trip back we decided we wanted to do one more year with this ministry. They agreed to that. We came back and worked even harder.

During those two years we: started 64 bible schools, oversaw an outreach program that facilitated the bible school students teaching moral formation to 50,000 public school students, taught two classes each at the local bible school, ran the children’s ministry at the church, participated in the G-12 discipleship system of the church, and traveled extensively throughout Bolivia doing conferences for pastors and church leaders. We were also intensively learning Spanish. Did I mention we had three small children as well?

In our non-denominational, independent circles people applauded our fervor and passion. Our time commitment was coming to a close and we began to discuss what came next. Tensions had been building and we felt like some things would need to change if we were going to continue with this ministry.

The discussions became muddled and personal. Many hurtful things were said. They told us they would like us to connect with their ministry and come under their covering. We decided it would be best to tell them that we would no longer be working with them.

That’s when the proverbial fecal matter hit the gyrating, bladed appliance.

We were:

told the operations in our charge had grown too fast and things were unbalanced.
told to relinquish all our financial partners’ information.
accused of owing thousands of dollars to the ministry.
visited by lawyers threatening to take us to prison.
immediately removed from every position and our keys were taken away.
slandered and the church members were told to stay away from us.
told to leave Bolivia and never return.

I was stunned. I knew things had become tense. We had seen things we didn’t agree with. That is why we were stepping away. We turned in our official letter of resignation from the volunteer positions we had assumed as interns. It was shoved back across the desk, rejected.

I was baffled. We didn’t receive a paycheck from them. The people who partnered with us funded the operations and covered our family budget. They had asked us to consider staying on with them. We decided not to. So why didn’t they just let us go? Why did they have to make life so difficult for us?

Why did they banish us from Bolivia?

We messed up? Yes? No?

Our options for how to respond dizzied me. We could: cower, blame, defend, reason, negotiate, formulate excuses, quit, throw a fit, accuse, cry, shrink back, play the victim, bend under the oppression, fight, etc.

Through many tears and prayers and the advice of our home pastor back in the States we decided that it was not necessary to leave Bolivia, but that we would start out afresh in another city. We liked Cochabamba best of all the cities we had visited. We moved.

— — — That was ten years ago. This November marks 12 years for us in Bolivia. — — —

In my mind I replay scenes from those first two years as missionaries. I want to say that all has been redeemed; some has, not all. I wish it never happened the way it did; but it did. I would like to have a better starting out story; but we don’t.

The regret tally marks scratched on my soul still burn. What could we have done differently? In retrospect the list is enormous. At the time, though, I believe we did the best we could with what we knew.

I would like to dress this up with a bow and a pretty ending. We could compare the numbers from our first two years and the following ten. Since our move to Cochabamba we: started a K-12 Christian school, pastor a church of 100+ people, help thousands of pastors throughout the Spanish speaking world with conferences and online resources, have provided care to 53 orphans, published a more than a dozen books, employ more than 60 Bolivians, mentored 3 career missionaries, and own the only bowling alley in town.

The balance of numbers feels superficial. We are not newbies any more, but we are nowhere near done with life. I am 37 and my husband is 38. Who knows how this thing will finish?

Does it do you any good to know we messed up? That we feel wronged? That regrets loom over my head like ominous vultures circling a bleeding carcass? That my dutiful dedication to the works of the ministry often find their motivation in paying a penance or seeking validation?

If there can be any good sucked from hearing our tale of woe it will not have been told in vain. Maybe the good comes from knowing we made it through. We are still serving as missionaries. Bitterness didn’t beat us.

I fear my words will be interpreted as complaining or moaning. I worry you will feel sorry for me – which I want none of, for it does no good to wallow.

Hurts come. Each situation is unique. I feel unqualified to advise anybody walking through relational struggles. I can only speak of character and say:

Keep a tender heart before the Lord
Forgive Forgive Forgive
Learn and grow in spite of the pain
Pray Pray Pray
Love people

The words of Maya Angelou might give you solace.

“Do what you know to do. When you know better; do better.”

Pray with me this prayer attributed to St. Francis

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

————————————————————————

– Angie Washington, missionary living in Bolivia, South America

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

Do you find yourself disillusioned, discouraged, disheartened, defeated, or destroyed?

What are you doing to keep yourself moving through this valley?

Who can you trust at this crucial time?

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Way back in June of last year, the same weekend that I published my latest book, Love At The Speed Of Email, Mike and I learned that we would be leaving Luang Prabang in April 2013.

Mike’s position is being handed over to a Lao national staff member, which is good. Working yourself out of a job is exactly what you want to do in international development, and Mike’s good at that sort of capacity building.

So this move is a good thing, and we always knew we wouldn’t be here long term.

And, yet.

There’s a difference between knowing you won’t be somewhere long term – that you might be moving in “oh, a year, maybe two” – and suddenly knowing that the clock is ticking.

When we first received the news we had ten months. Now we have less than three.

We’ve spent that seven months alternately thrashing out possible next steps and avoiding discussing the topic because it had gotten all too exhausting. We’ve tried on one possible future after another – holding them up to us mentally and looking them up and down to see how they fit.

The possibilities, and the questions, seem endless. Where will be we most useful? Doing what? Where do we want to be? Doing what?

Australia? The US? Stay in Laos? Move somewhere in Africa? East Timor? How important is it to have access to decent medical care during this season? How much permanent damage am I risking by continuing to live in the tropics with a health condition that’s aggravated by heat? How important is it to my sanity to be able to keep doing some work myself while also being our children’s primary caregiver? Where am I going to have this new baby that’s due to join us in six months? How important is it to Mike’s well-being and the health of the whole family system for him to be doing work he enjoys and believes makes a difference? Does that work have to be in the humanitarian sector? If not, what else is out there? Where do we start looking? Do we want to put down some roots – we who don’t even own a car at the moment, much less a house? Where?

And so it goes. It’s been a long, hard discussion with no easy answers. Mike and I have been forced to acknowledge that as well matched as we are, we are still different people, who want some different things in and from life. We’ve come to realize that some of what first drew us together five years ago has shifted and changed. We’ve had to confront, again, some of the constraints that my health condition and parenthood place upon us. We’ve repeatedly collided with the myth – the hope – that there is an option out there that will be a perfect fit for everyone. That neither of us will really have to forgo some things that we really want.

Ironically, during the six months when people all around the world have been reading the memoir that details the fairytale of our early romance, Mike and have been getting dirty in the trenches of our marriage. We’ve been battling depression, injuries, and some growing and unacknowledged resentments. Failing to communicate well. Trying to come to grips, still, with the earthquake that parenthood has been in our lives. Getting up in the middle of the night again and again and again. Praying for that perfect option (or, failing that, clear guidance) and having neither materialize. Replaying conversations about the future that we’ve already had dozens of times in an exhausting, maddening, spiral of thoughtful decision-making. Waiting.

We’ve been struggling to figure out how to love each other well when it doesn’t come nearly as easily.

I have moved countries almost a dozen times so far, and these sort of limbo seasons that herald drastic change are my least favourite part of living overseas. There is some excitement at the thought of a brand new adventure, but there is also sadness and a numb sort of exhaustion. Especially when you’re leaving something familiar for the unknown, it’s easy to identify the good in what you’ll be leaving behind and impossible to fully visualize the good that might be lurking just around the next bend in your path. Do this too many times and you risk never really sinking deeply into places or people, never really tasting the good of the present, because part of you is always aware of a looming horizon. Of more coming change. Of yet another inevitable departure.

I don’t know how many more of these transitions my life will hold, but this one, at least, is inevitable. We have fewer than 100 days left in this little town we’ve grown to love and then we’ll be leaving on a jet plane. It’s just … we still don’t know where that plane will be going.

What’s a tough decision you’ve had to make in your own relationship – one where all the pieces didn’t seem to fit neatly? What did you decide to do?

And, what is your least favourite season of living overseas?

Lisa McKay – author, psychologist, sojourner in Laos

Blog: www.lisamckaywriting.com Books: Love At The Speed Of Email and My Hands Came Away Red