transition – A Life Overseas |

The Emotional Progression of a Home Assignment

The last four weeks leading up to our first home assignment were chaotic. It was our first return to our passport country after three years. Our to-do list was 38 items strong, some items as simple as “pick up extra cat food” and some as complex as “find a car.” By the time we had said all of the final goodbyes and boarded our first flight, the relief was palpable. We were finally on our way, and what was done was done. (And perhaps more importantly, what wasn’t done wasn’t.)

Our first day outside of our ministry location was blissful. I distinctly remember feeling as free as bird – and being slightly disturbed for feeling so very free. What exactly were those weights lifted that resulted in such a weightless feeling? At the end of our first week, I had identified three key cultural stress areas that had clearly been affecting me more than I realized, and the idea of entering back into those specific difficulties was more than I could bear. And so began the tumultuous emotional journey of our first home assignment.

Emotional resolution #1: I don’t think we can ever return.

Over the next couple of months, my husband and I talked extensively through these cultural stress areas. We also debriefed with our member care friend and with other close friends around us. Questions of calling began to arise. Were we serving overseas because we thought it was the most meaningful way we could serve God? Were we basically deceiving ourselves with a works-based mentality of earning favor with God? And, wow, if any of this was deeply true, should we even be doing this kind of work?

Emotional resolution #2: I don’t know if I want to be a mission worker anymore.

The ambiguity of our future increased because our return was uncertain for reasons outside of our control. And that caused us to question even more. Maybe we were not supposed to be living in that ministry area. Maybe we were not supposed to be involved in mission work anymore. We considered career changes, country changes, all of the changes. Maybe we should not be in ministry, maybe we are not qualified for ministry.

I began to tire of the traveling life of home assignment and of the lack of personal space for our family. I missed our friends and coworkers in our ministry area. All of the questioning and traveling and evaluating and discerning took a heavy emotional toll. And all of this transpired in the middle of seeking to honestly share about our life and work in our ministry area at churches, with partners and friends. The desire for my own bed and my own kitchen and my own routine was deep and strong.

My emotional resolution #3: I’m ready to go home…wherever that is.

We continued sorting through questions of calling. What did we even believe about God’s call on our lives? We talked more about God’s sovereignty and our own selfishness in making decisions and how God works in spite of all that. We talked through what we felt we were gifted at and what we liked to do. We sorted through the many needs that faced us and tried to discern where best to focus our time and energy. We began to feel renewed and rested, spiritually and emotionally, and refreshed in our roles as parents, as spouses, as mission workers. We began to regain the smallest sense of passion for the work we had been doing.

Emotional resolution #4: I think maybe God has called us to this ministry area.

Where God leads, he also provides sustaining grace. Had I not experienced so very much of God’s good grace over the last three years? Had he not sustained our family so well despite stresses and hardships? Our understanding of God’s calling matured, and our desire to serve him in ministry was refreshed, not from a place of owing God or working for him, but rather from a place of surrender of our lives, of committing to be part of the bigger kingdom work. All work is God’s work, and our role is to be faithful with the work he has given, where he has given it to us.

Emotional resolution #5: I am ready and willing, Father; use me as you see fit.

With some level of excitement, we anticipated our return, less than a month away now. The ambiguity of our return remained, but we felt confident God would bring us back to this work.

As God would have it, we received visas and the green light to go ahead back to our ministry area in March 2020. We arrived three days before our country shut its borders, with Covid enveloping the world.

Our family has just returned to our ministry area after our second home assignment. We have now lived and worked in South Africa for over seven years, and there’s a sense of rootedness that comes with time and investment. Even still, I am grateful to have realized that there will always be an emotional progression on a home assignment. We will always need to do deep emotional work while away from our overseas home.

And while this second home assignment did not look exactly the same as our first home assignment, the stages were remarkably similar and had a sense of familiarity about them. Oh, I’ve been here before, my heart could say. In hope, I could look forward to God bringing my heart back around to willing service and obedience. And with gratitude, I can say that he did.

I Hate Moving

by Katherine Seat

A string of fairy lights ties memories of my first baby to a night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We decorated our house with the lights, along with postcards and photos. Giving birth in a country we had never lived in was surreal.

I tried to make our room feel like home right away. I couldn’t invest too much though; we would only be there for three months.

I tacked up, taped up, and tied up satiny scarves from the local market to begin my first year in Cambodia. Brown marks littered my bedroom walls from the last person’s posters. The ceiling was too low. Natural light and airflow did not exist.

I needed to make my room feel like home right away. I couldn’t invest too much though; I would only be there for ten months.

To combat the dark months of a northeast Chinese winter, I populated my apartment with pot plants. I arranged photos and pictures above the radiator. The colourful doona cover I received from college friends brightened up my sofa. It was a challenge finding a place for the washing machine that still allowed me to use the kitchen.

I needed to make my room feel like home right away. I couldn’t invest too much though; I would only be there for eighteen months.

As a group, we cross cultural-workers frequently pack and unpack. We’re not the only ones, but it is a characteristic of ours – and I’m not talking about vacations. Sometimes we live in temporary housing for training. Sometimes we go to a different country for medical care. Sometimes we spend months visiting supporters in multiple locations. We are often living out of bags and often without a home base.

What do you do if you only have a short time left in a cold climate and your shoes break? It feels like a waste of money to buy brand new shoes that you will only wear for a limited time. But you also cannot walk around with bare feet. And what if it’s not the first time you’ve had to make that decision? And what if you have a hundred other similar dilemmas?

How do you cope if you constantly have to be settled enough to function but are never able to fully settle? Always feeling like you want to go home but knowing that nowhere feels like home.

“I hate having to pack up again; I never get to unpack properly. But I know I have an eternal home waiting for me, and Jesus didn’t have anywhere to rest. And anyway, at least I have somewhere to live; some people don’t even have that. What’s more, I have electricity and indoor plumbing, so my life is easier than most. I have so much to be thankful for, stop complaining.”

Have you ever talked to yourself (or a friend) like that? I know I have. As if knowing I have a better home waiting for me will cancel out the feeling of wanting to rest. Maybe we think if we really believe in our eternal home, we shouldn’t feel difficult emotions around moving house.

I’m reminded of Peter Scazzero’s words in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality:

“We inflate ourselves with a false confidence to make those feelings go away. We quote Scripture, pray Scripture, and memorize Scripture—anything to keep ourselves from being overwhelmed by those feelings!

“Like most Christians, I was taught that almost all feelings are unreliable and not to be trusted. They go up and down and are the last thing we should be attending to in our spiritual lives. It is true that some Christians live in the extreme of following their feelings in an unhealthy, unbiblical way. It is more common, however, to encounter Christians who do not believe they have permission to admit their feelings or express them openly. This applies especially to ‘difficult’ feelings as fear, sadness, shame, anger, hurt, and pain.”

Am I suggesting we stop reminding ourselves and each other of God’s truth? No, but let’s notice how we do it. What is happening when we tell ourselves, “I have an eternal home waiting for me”? Are we trying to make the feeling go away, or are we leaving room for feelings alongside the truth?

Perhaps we need to acknowledge the problem in order to receive God’s comfort. It’s not until I took notice of the unsettledness and how much I hated it that I was reminded that God was with me. If we are trying to deny unpleasant feelings, perhaps we will also miss the comfort.

Yes, we can be glad we have our eternal home waiting for us and that we have a roof over our heads. That acknowledgement doesn’t cancel out the difficulties. We still feel homeless and unsettled.

In some cases it may be wise to take a break from pain for a while, or maybe we need help to face it safely. But in many cases of moving-house-pain, we may just need to acknowledge that it is really hard and that we hate it.

I suspect that to help others with their pain, we need to deal with our own pain first. If we are trying to reach people for Christ or bringing up children, this is all the more important. Are we sharing a faith that makes uncomfortable feelings go away as soon as they arise? Is it our goal to make people happy as soon as possible? Or are we living a faith that brings real long-term comfort?

I live among people whose daily life is hard. Complex and severe issues seem to impact them every step of the way. What if I were to treat my neighbors’ problems by glossing over them with, “At least it’s not as bad as it could be”? Or by telling them I will fix their problem? Or by quoting out-of-context Bible verses about hope? I don’t think any of those would be useful.

How can I point them to the source of Hope while they are living with so many difficulties? I don’t write as one who is an expert at this; rather I’m reflecting on being on the receiving end. The most useful pastoral care I’ve received is from people who listen and help me notice that my pain exists. It helps me see what is really happening, and it feels like they are with me, which reminds me that God is with me.

Other people I’ve gone to for help either haven’t realised the depth of my pain or have been in a hurry to apply the correct solution so we can all continue on, happy as usual. It can make me feel like I shouldn’t be in pain. Am I doing something wrong? Am I beyond help?

If our reaction to pain is to solve the problem or explain why it is not painful, it may be that we never sit with the pain long enough to receive comfort.

Perhaps we can learn to notice our own feelings while remembering God is with us in the packing, the unpacking, and everything in between. Then perhaps our awareness of pain and our experience of God’s comfort will help us to bring God’s comfort to others.

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Katherine’s childhood church in Australia launched her on a trajectory to Asia. After a decade of preparation she landed in Cambodia and married a local Bible teacher. Read Katherine’s other posts at Linktree and connect with her on Instagram.

Staying isn’t always good. Leaving isn’t always bad.

by Sue Eenigenburg and Eva Burkholder

Missions is hard. Really hard. Ministry is difficult. Cross-cultural living makes any expat question their resolve to stay. Unexpected changes, finding their niche, juggling multiple roles, and messy relationships reflect just a few of the challenges missionaries face. And don’t forget the revolving door of teammates and the endless goodbyes.

Missionaries are often under-prepared for how difficult this endeavor actually is. Some leave the field prematurely. In fact, 47% leave within the first five years. But it isn’t just hard in the first term. Mid-term and even end-of-career workers have their own set of challenges.

Gospel messengers can be tempted to lose heart, choose the easy path, run away, or give up, especially when seeing others leave their agency, location, or church. They believe lies like: I’m not cut out for this. I’m ruining my children’s lives. No one else struggles as much as me. If I were in a different organization, relationship, or country, things would be better. I am not needed. If I had different gifts, the ministry would flourish.

These challenges can cause global workers to wonder if they can persevere or if it’s time to go. But staying isn’t always good, and leaving isn’t always bad. Both require grit and grace. How do people know when it is time to go?

As someone who was tempted to leave too soon, global worker and author, Sue Eenigenburg, wanted to develop a resource that would help both men and women, newcomers and veterans, not to leave too soon or stay too long. To equip them to stay even when life and ministry feel overwhelming, but also to decide wisely when it is time to go. So she asked her colleague, Eva Burkholder, to collaborate on a new project.

The result is a story-driven, interactive, resource-filled workbook: Grit to Stay Grace to Go: Staying Well in Cross-Cultural Ministry.

Sue and Eva wrote this book because they desire to encourage global workers to develop grit to stay well even when it would seem easier to quit or when teammates leave unexpectedly. But the book also helps people discern wisely when to go — and to experience grace whatever they decide.

Grit to Stay Grace to Go has three parts:

In part one, Sue discusses the many challenges global workers face and the lies they believe that tempt them to leave too soon. Through her own stories and others’ experiences, she encourages global workers to not only stay, but to stay well by clinging to truth when circumstances are intense. She hopes readers will take away a renewed commitment to persevere by remembering truth and remaining unswayed by lies when cross-cultural ministry seems impossible.

Part two, which Eva focuses on, explores more deeply one specific challenge to staying well—the difficulty of watching teammates and friends depart. Testimony after testimony from fellow missionaries illustrate the reactions of hurt, disappointment, grief, guilt, and even judgment this revolving door brings. She hopes that stayers will turn this challenge into an opportunity to extend grace to goers—to forgive, bless, release, and live in the present, helping those who stay say goodbye well to those who go.

Sometimes workers choose to leave the field in the heat of conflict, when they are burned out, or in isolation after a stressful season. Sometimes God leads his messengers to leave the field or change roles. And going is also hard. After all, it doesn’t just take grit to stay, it also takes grit to go.

Therefore, in part three, Sue and Eva offer thoughtful questions to help readers make an intentional, rather than reactive, decision when they are undecided. Questions such as: Why do I want to transition? Whom do I need to talk to and when? What would I do if I weren’t afraid? Have I already moved on? What would I be going to? They hope that thoughtful reflection will help those considering whether to go, to do so in a healthy way with grace no matter the outcome.

The authors also encourage readers to pause after each chapter to engage with poignant reflection questions, suggested spiritual practices, and prayers. Additional resources offer more hope and encouragement to stay or go with grit and grace.

Grit to Stay Grace to Go is an effective preparation tool to help newcomers normalize their struggles and identify faulty thinking. For those with experience in ministry and in the fray, it is a resource for persevering when it seems easier to quit, especially when others leave them to carry on alone.

For those in the throes of determining whether to go or stay, it will be a valuable guide for the decision-making process. And for those who send and pray for global workers, this book will help them to empathize with the challenges of those they send and offer grace when their global partners return to them.

Grit to Stay Grace to Go is a practical guide to help cross-cultural workers and those who send them (or anyone who serves on a ministry team for that matter) develop grit and grace to stay or go. Get your copy at William Carey Publishing and other major book retailers.

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Sue Eenigenburg graduated from Moody Bible Institute and Lancaster Bible College. She has served with Christar in cross-cultural ministry on four different continents for more than thirty-five years. She and her husband Don have four married children and twelve grandchildren. She is the author of Screams in the Desert and More Screams, Different Deserts. She also co-authored Expectations and Burnout and Sacred Siblings.

Eva Burkholder’s experience as a missionary kid, cross-cultural worker, and member care provider adds a global dimension to her study of scripture and storytelling. Through her blog and her book, Favored Blessed Pierced: A Fresh Look at Mary of Nazareth, Eva invites readers to slow down, reflect, and apply God’s Word. She and her husband live in Texas and enjoy spending time with their two married sons and their wives.

How to Sustain Yourself Spiritually While Living Overseas

I remember when my team leader first spoke about learning to ‘self-feed’ spiritually as a part of living overseas. I didn’t understand what she meant then, during my initial missionary internship, but I certainly know now.

When we moved to Hungary long-term, I was pregnant with our third child. Hungary, like many non-U.S. countries, did not have child care options in most of the national churches. As a mom of young children, I entered a time when church attendance was scarce for me, and those circumstances would lead to floundering spiritually.

The struggle of being a missionary who couldn’t be fed spiritually by church pressed me to self-feed. By this I mean I developed the ability to be sustained spiritually outside of Sunday church or even mid-week fellowship. To be clear, it is very important to integrate into the church of our host countries. Yet, we also need to learn how to grow deep roots in our faith.

Here are some ways we can feed ourselves spiritually. With time and practice, we can learn to let our doing define our being.

Find consistent teaching or preaching which is gospel-centered: For me, this teaching came most through the ministry of Tim Keller. I felt such a shepherding presence from his consistent, biblically-sound, gospel-driven messages. I will never forget what it meant to repeatedly listen to the ‘Prodigal God’ sermons I had downloaded onto my iPod as I walked the hill by our Budapest flat. (His entire sermon collection is now available for FREE here.) I wept when he recently passed away as a testament to what his long-distance, yet, so close to the heart of God, ministry meant to me.
Meditate on Scripture: When I became a mom, this discipline led me on a deeper journey to learning to self-feed. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I memorized Romans 8. While memorization is not necessary for meditation on Scripture, it is very helpful to know passages so well that we can recall them in part or as a whole. There is a reason why Psalm 119:11 talks about hiding the Word in our hearts so that we might not sin against God. This internalizing of the Word is a journey we walk for ourselves, not counting on any church or small group to do it for us.
Connect with God through Your surroundings: Walks around our neighborhoods or cities are important anywhere we live. But, it is especially important to make what is foreign, familiar. When bill paying can be stressful, note the trees and the birds which perch on them, as we walk or ride or drive to pay a bill or speak our new language in relationship with native speakers or to do any anxiety-laden experience. As we do this, we learn to trust God anew that He is omnipresent and always with us and this world–His world.
Learn to Prioritize Heart Community: Like a good missionary, I didn’t want to become so much a part of the expat community that I wasn’t forming relationships with nationals. While this is a valid concern, there are times when we just need to make sure we have present, solid community where we can share our heart struggles. Some of our best and most safe friends may be nationals, and that is beautiful. However, these relationships tend to take a longer time to develop. If we are feeling isolated, seeking safe, heartfelt community with other expats is not failing to bond with our host country. It is at times necessary to sustain ourselves for the long-term.
Instead of Residing, Dwell: Psalm 37 became a key passage to center and focus me in my overseas journey. Verse 3b in my favorite translation says: ‘Dwell in the land and feed on faithfulness.‘ Dwelling means we find communion with God through being nourished by His faithfulness. Recognizing the steadfast love of God wherever we are in the world comes through the discipline of recounting God’s work on our behalf. We often do this by intentionally practicing thankfulness.
Speak the Gospel over Ourselves Daily: The gospel-centered teaching I mentioned above is important to anchor us. But if we don’t internalize the message of our unmerited favor through the work of Jesus Christ, we will cut ourselves off from the life we desperately need. It is one of the greatest occupational hazards of missionaries that we would withhold from ourselves the gospel-bearing heart of God which we so dearly want to share with others. As our identity is lost through all that is hard and foreign, we cling more deeply to lives of performance. But there is no true sustenance if we cannot melt into that white hot and holy love of God displayed supremely through the gospel.

And in all of our days and ways, as we sustain ourselves, we must remember we are not being nourished in ourselves. It is only through the presence of ‘Immanuel, God with us’ that we have that unending well of spiritual provision. It is His light which will face any darkness and never, ever, ever be overcome.

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When Expectations Aren’t Reality: Supporting Your TCKs in the First Years of University

by Lauren Wells

I stood on a grassy hill hugging my parents tight as they prepared to drive away and head back to Africa, leaving me at university in Indiana. I had prepared for this transition. I had visited the school, had already made some friends, had earned my driver’s license on a previous home assignment, and felt ready and excited for this new chapter. It was going to be great.

A few days into the semester, I was required to go to an international student workshop. I was excited, thinking this was the part where I’d meet other TCKs. I was surprised to find that all of the other international students came from other passport countries for the purpose of university and that this was their first time living outside their home country.

I was equally surprised when our workshop consisted of teaching American currency (“This is a dollar. This is a penny, it’s worth one cent.”) and explaining how to dial 911. Having lived in the US until I was 13, I quickly realized I was the outsider in the international student group, so after I’d met the requirements, I never went back.

As the semester went on, I tried to make friends. But it felt like every time I opened my mouth, the words I spoke didn’t get the reaction I was expecting. My attempts to be funny were met with awkward smiles. My attempts to deepen relationships by sharing about something a bit more vulnerable were met with comments that communicated a lack of ability to relate to my experiences and no invitation to continue the conversation.

I quickly felt like I didn’t belong with the monocultural crowd, but I told myself it didn’t matter. “I’ll only be here long enough to get my degree anyway, and it will be easier to leave if I never make close friends.” I knew what it felt like to leave close friends, so when my initial attempts to build relationship hadn’t worked, that seemed like a good excuse to stop trying.

I became the quiet one who walked through campus trying not to be noticed. I succeeded academically but have no memories of good social experiences. That first Christmas break, I remember feeling like a shell of myself, never having felt that level of emptiness and despair before, and I simultaneously decided that I just needed to toughen up and keep moving forward.

School resumed, and I took on more classes than recommended, thinking that if I just poured myself into the academics, I could ignore the rest. But then, the grief started to creep in. Not just the grief of that year, but the grief that I had so skillfully pushed down for a long time before that. My Grief Tower was collapsing.

At TCK Training we work with TCKs on both sides of this story – educating families who are raising TCKs on how they can be intentional in caring for the unique needs of TCKs so that they can prevent adverse outcomes in adulthood and serving adult TCKs who reach out to us for support.

In between the two parts of that story, we have found the need for preventive care and support. Sometimes universities have a wonderful TCK program, like MuKappa, that provides community and support for TCKs in their university years. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of resources available to university-age TCKs to guide them through that season.

But there is good news! We can be intentional about supporting our university-age TCKs well, especially in those first couple of years.

Set them up for emotional success by making sure they’ve had the opportunity to debrief and unstack their Grief Tower before university. The books The Grief Tower and Unstacking Your Grief Tower can guide you in doing that process in your own family. We recommend doing this at least 3 months before the transition to university so that the grief these conversations bring to the surface has time to begin to heal before they experience the major transition of starting university.

Make sure they have avenues for connection and continued processing with safe people – family, friends, counselors. There will inevitably be difficulty in the transition, but they will not always want to share their hardships with you. Often this is because they won’t want to burden you on top of your international work or because they won’t want to disappoint you at their “failure” to thrive. Take away that shame by regularly asking them what has been hard. Ask them questions, and even when they don’t answer, let them know you don’t expect everything to be easy for them. For more on this, check out KC360’s workshop, “Indicators that University Transition is Going Well (or Not) with Dr. Rachel Cason” included in their free website membership.

Help them develop a support network. There is potential for heavy, hard, or just unexpected circumstances to arise that require the help of a supportive adult. Asking for help can feel shameful, but that fear and shame can be reduced when the TCK has a list of people who have agreed to be a support to them. It is even more helpful when those people regularly check in with the TCK to see how they’re doing and what they need. Have your TCK help create a “supportive adult” list, and then ask the people on the list to regularly reach out to the TCK – both asking what they need and offering tangible ways they can help. For example, “Can I take you shopping for a winter coat? Can I come help pack up your dorm room for summer break?”

Teach them to celebrate wins. Adult TCKs often struggle to acknowledge their victories due to consistently feeling the need to adapt to fit the communities around them. The internal need to continue performing at ever higher levels leads to burnout. Celebrating victories, however, allows for rest, builds confidence and a sense of value, and strengthens their emotional bank to handle the difficult waves that come.

Provide them transition support in their first year or two of university. An example of this is TCK Training’s Launch Pad program, which provides repatriating TCKs with a 10-month virtual cohort community, education, and support directly related to adult TCK experiences. There is space to process and grieve, along with regular checks-ins to celebrate victories and continue developing as an individual.

Familiarize yourself with Adult TCK resources so that you can support your Adult TCK by sending them relevant resources along the way. There is so much available now that simply wasn’t around only a few years ago! You can view all of TCK Training’s ATCK services, workshops, and resources at www.tcktraining.com/for-atcks

The first couple years of university are notoriously the most difficult transition for TCKs. We believe, however, that with intentionality we can make these years not only healthy, but years that set them up for long-term emotional and relational health.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

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Lauren Wells is the founder and CEO of TCK Training and the Unstacking Company and author of Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids, The Grief Tower, and Unstacking Your Grief Tower. She is an Adult TCK who spent her teenage years in Tanzania, East Africa. She sits on the board of the TCK Care Accreditation as Vice Chair and is part of the TCK Training research team focusing on preventive care research in the TCK population.

4 Ways Parents Can Help Young TCKs in Transition

by Hannah Flatman

We enjoyed setting up home in Brazil again. We had returned to our host country after a year away, eager to settle back into life at home. Discovering all their old toys felt a bit like Christmas for my children.

However, as gently and slowly as we took things, our little ones were sometimes overwhelmed by newness and change. They had forgotten quite a lot of the life they had lived here pre-pandemic. Surely this latest transition would be easier because my husband, the kids, and I were desperately looking forward to coming back ‘home’ to our serving country after the pandemic. And we are professional movers! I can’t count the number of cross-cultural transitions we’ve navigated our three- and five-year-olds through over the past years: Europe, Latin America, and Africa.

Our preschooler had gotten past the phase of bed wetting and middle-of-the-night visits to Mum and Dad’s room. However, accidents began occurring fairly frequently and were accompanied by nightmares, a tantrum or two, and a refusal by one of our TCKs to speak anything but their maternal language for a time.

After frantically Googling ‘regression behaviour in young children in transition,’ it was a comfort to find that whilst it is exhausting, frustrating, and embarrassing (especially during long flights!), regression is also totally normal. If we expect tantrums from all young children as they learn to regulate their emotions and express themselves, how much more should we expect regression from young children in transition? This is especially true for cross-cultural transitions.

By regression, I mean temporarily reverting back to a younger or needier way of behaving. Perhaps a young child is using a pacifier again. Or they become clingy when they had been more independent, especially at bed times and goodbyes. A toddler who was speaking might revert to babbling. Children might become fussy about eating or refuse food at meal times. You might hear increased whining and stalling. Bed wetting might begin again.

Our experiences taught us to anticipate a toddler or young child’s regression on some developmental milestones in the weeks and months before, during, and after transition. It is a normal reaction to a big adjustment to their new environment.

When we expect regression, we can remember to allow margin in our full schedules. Parenting a child going through regression, even if short-lived, is intense and sometimes isolating. It often comes at a time when you want to focus on language learning, starting your new ministry, or just working out essential life skills like how to use public transport and where to buy veg.

Regression may mean you have little energy for anything beyond the demands at home for longer than you expected. If you are a cross-cultural worker returning to your host culture from a time of Sending Country Assignment, your little ones may each take different time frames to adjust and settle back in – just as they would on arriving for the first time.

If this is your family’s first term of service, you’re probably wanting to make a good impression on new colleagues. Demanding perfect behaviour from our little ones (which usually means silence and politeness) in an attempt to validate our ministry or earn respect from our colleagues puts a huge pressure on our family.

When we expect perfection in our TCKs’ behaviour, we may be unconsciously teaching them that they need to hide their emotions, that mistakes are inexcusable, and that it is only acceptable to express (or feel) positive emotions. Let’s not project onto young children in transition the damaging idea that they compromise their parent’s spiritual witness, ministry, or family’s reputation when they demonstrate regression behaviour. People understand that acting out is normal from any toddler, even if they don’t understand the unique pressures of families with a globally mobile lifestyle.

So how do we help our little ones navigate transition and help our whole family navigate our toddler’s regression behaviour? How do we survive and thrive as parents of toddlers in transition? Below I’m sharing four ideas based on our own experiences.

1. Practicing Forbearance
In Ephesians 4:2 Paul exhorts the church to ‘be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.’ Bearing with our little ones in the midst of their transition-induced tantrums encompasses much more than just being patient and putting up with them. It is a choice to forgive, not to take offense, and most of all to love whilst acknowledging the real grievances and trials.

It is much easier to be patient and forbearing with our children when we are rested, in our own culture and home, with a well-established support network around us. In cross-cultural transitions so much is stripped away from us as parents and TCK caregivers that we are more vulnerable. We are often experiencing the disorientations and frustrations of culture shock along with our family. Regression behaviour in our little ones can be difficult to cope with when we want to make good first impressions in our communities, ministries, and churches.

I was once told that it usually takes 3-12 months for children to adapt following a transition. Anything outside this window does not necessarily mean that the settling in journey is not going smoothly, or that our little ones are failing to adapt. For example, transitions may take longer or regression behaviour reoccur where there are a series of transitions involved over a number of months or years. However, if the regression behaviour is not short-lived, or if a caregiver is concerned, then do seek professional advice.

2. Transition Preparedness
Gradually introduce elements of the new culture in the lead up to a cross-cultural transition. This can be as simple as a weekly attempt at making a dish from the new culture, language learning through games and apps, or finding out about cultural practices, special days, or celebrations in our host nation and joining in where possible. These may seem like small steps, but they build excitement about trying new things and can help the family prepare emotionally for departure.

3. Creating Consistency
Even when we are not going through transitions, I try to give my kids a preview of the day over breakfast. We talk about what is going to happen that day and when, often using meal times as references, because most young children are still coming to terms with the concept of time. So I might say, ‘After breakfast we will… and then just before lunch you can…’ That way they know what to expect. We also have a weekly schedule pinned to our fridge – the more pictures the better! We move a magnet along to show where we are in the week.

As soon as possible in the transition, try to establish routines like mealtimes and bedtimes. This helps little ones to feel more secure. We can make our homes warm and safe spaces so that our little ones can relax, be themselves, and have time away from others’ eyes. This could be achieved on Sending Country Assignment, where families don’t always have their own space, with a framed photo or two that comes with them or bed sheets or a toy from home. The child can help pack a small bag of things which are important to them to take. Set aside some time each day to lavish attention and affection on each child. These and other habits can help our children feel at home, even in transition.

4. Emotional Preparation
Giving our TCKs the emotional vocabulary to express how they feel helps alleviate some of their frustrations in being unable to communicate their needs. We have a weekly family check-in on Sunday afternoons where we all talk about, or draw, how our week has been. Mum and Dad share something as well! We hope this practice will help our little ones build emotional vocabulary and foster open and trusting relationships where they can express any feeling to us. Emotion cards can help with this.

Remember that God is gracious to parents. He cares for the whole family even as he calls the parents to serve Him. Doubts may creep in about the truth of that during lonely moments when we are reeling from our toddlers’ tantrums, attempting to get our little one to eat, or changing wet bed clothes at 3am, again. It is a comfort to me to remember that He sees and knows our parental struggles and fear, as well as our mum/dad guilt. God is alongside us and our little ones in all those moments. His constant presence is our home through all transitions.

For additional practical advice from Lauren Wells, see this article.

My story for young TCKs and MKs in transition, A Fish out of Water, is a good conversation starter for parents who want to guide their little ones through cross-cultural moves and culture shock.

~~~~~~~~~

Hannah Flatman writes about culture shock, transitions, and raising resilient Third Culture Kids. She has been serving as a missionary in NE Brazil since 2005 and is mum to two little ones whom she has already guided through several significant cross-cultural transitions. Hannah is responsible for the member care of short-term members of Latin Link Brazil and also serves in South Sudan, where she and her husband have an ongoing commitment to the Ngok Dinka community in Abyei.

Freedom for the Missionaries

by Shannon Brink

It’s been almost five years since we moved overseas.

Not much has gone as we expected. There have been such highs, and such lows, that it’s hard to articulate. We don’t know what the future holds. Are we coming back after this summer’s visit to our passport country, or will we call it quits?

There are so many questions ricocheting around my mind. Unsolved ruminations of what this was all about and what it was all for.

This has all been so much messier than I thought it would be. There is so much pressure to succeed, so much riding on our ‘success.’ People’s money, their tithes, their prayers, their sacrifices. Our children’s childhoods. Can we justify, can we explain, if the ‘mess’ is worth it? What if it’s not?

We need to explain ourselves on both sides of the ocean, be available and relatable to two different worlds and carry the needs of both. We need to justify when we take a break, when we aren’t doing what we thought we’d be doing, when there are disruptions.

We struggle with our own level of productivity, our own desires to be successful, our own fears of not being fruitful. We don’t see what is happening underneath it all, and we can’t even explain it to others sometimes because we don’t know what God is up to.

I haven’t met a single missionary who really understands the bigger picture. In fact, more often I meet others who thought they knew the roadmap and had to throw it all away. If God does anything through any of us, it’s an absolute miracle.

But I wonder if this time would have been different if there had been less pressure. And it hit me — I need more freedom. The freedom I profess to others, I need for myself. So for other missionaries out there, here is my prayer for you as it is my prayer for myself. A prayer of recognition, a prayer of release, a prayer of humility and brokenness:

Lord, I pray today for freedom.

I need the freedom to have it all far apart.

I need the freedom from it all making sense.

I need freedom from the fear of messing up my children’s lives.

Lord, give me freedom from the fear of financial ruin.

Free me from my need to make a difference.

I need freedom to be working through the same issues that I had before I arrived in this place.

I pray for freedom to doubt and wonder, to be mad about the losses, to long to be understood.

Freedom to realize that I’m not the super Christian I thought I was.

I need the freedom to still need grace.

I need the freedom to start language learning again, and again.

Freedom to try and fail at making myself known.

I want freedom to wish my story were different.

Oh God, I need freedom from my own unrealistic expectations.

Give me freedom to love and hate all the places I’ve been.

Lord, I need freedom in greater measures than yesterday.

Free me, God, in Christ, for your glory and fame.

Free us all, Lord.

We are an army in chains, marching wounded and terrified. We are struggling with our own fears, doubts, failures, and baggage.

We are rubbed raw and overwhelmed by pressures on ourselves and our own expectations.

We forget that we are the beggars. We are not the ‘have it all togethers.’ We do not need to be strong, we need to be forgiven.

We don’t need to prove our worth, we need to admit our brokenness. We don’t need to be fruitful, we need to be obedient.

You will get the glory then, when we admit that it’s all about you and not about us at all.

Free us, Lord.

~~~~~~~

Shannon Brink is a nurse, a mother of four, and a missionary in East Africa. She hails from the west coast of Canada, where her family is returning for a year long home assignment in June. After that, they’re not sure if they will continue overseas or not. Her first book, There’s a Dragon in my Pocket, is designed to help children process their anxiety and was written during the pandemic. Her next book, Waiting is the Night, is about the journey of waiting on God through her chronic struggle with insomnia. It will be released in May.

I Coped Well in Transition…Until I Didn’t

I remember all the dogs at the Dar es Salaam airport. Usually people don’t travel internationally with their pets, but in the spring of 2020, nothing was normal. The dogs were restless in their cages, but the rest of us stood unusually still, tense, our faces strained from lack of sleep, frantic packing, a thousand unknowns.

I remember the recorded British voice that politely reminded everyone every five minutes: It is not permissible to bring plastic bags into Tanzania. In a dark humor, I thought, How about infectious diseases?

Just a few days earlier, we got a call in the middle of the night telling us to book a flight as soon as possible. Many in our community were making the same decision, but it was even more significant for us. We had planned a year earlier to relocate to the States in the summer of 2020. So this early, frenzied departure meant leaving a life of sixteen years with no closure, no dignity, no RAFT.

The memories of these moments in March 2020 are sharp and vivid, as if they happened three days ago, not three years.

In the five days before our departure, I can picture myself lining up my kids’ baby shoes, carefully saved for so many years, and taking pictures of them before handing them off to a friend. I remember making broccoli beef for my last meal in the crock pot I’d owned for 12 years. I remember how our feet echoed on the empty marble floors of the Ramada hotel restaurant on the night before we left.

I could list thousands of tiny, minuscule details of those five days. My focus was razor-sharp. My emotions were not.

Other than a couple of bursts of despair or panic, I went numb during those five days. And then during the long, unpredictable journey to California. And then during the next three months when we lived like vagabonds, trying to hold together our jobs in Tanzania while applying for new ones in the States.

If you had asked me how I was doing, I would have told you I was okay. I wasn’t happy, and sometimes I was decidedly unhappy, but I didn’t fall into a depression. I got out of bed every morning. I wasn’t crying all of the time. I wasn’t having panic attacks. I wasn’t having nightmares. Well, not many.

I am task-oriented. I did what I needed to do. And big feelings were not on the agenda.

But I was not okay, and that fragility manifested in unexpected ways. Suddenly, I had an aversion to anyone outside my immediate family. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, even people I normally would have been thrilled to be with. (Pandemic restrictions made this easy.)

Another A Life Overseas writer asked me to be on a podcast of people who were evacuated because of the pandemic. A little voice in my head said, “You like things like this.” But a bigger, louder voice said, “No. No. NO. Not even an option.” The big voice didn’t give me a reason. It just bullied me into saying no.

I stopped writing. I went months where my mind was mostly devoid of anything to write about, even though it was usually the best way to process my feelings. It was like my emotions froze, and I became a robot.

I was trying to adapt to a new life, and I was restless and impatient. I wanted to feel productive and meaningful again. But I had no energy, no creativity, no mental space. I could only focus on what was directly in front of me. I was frustrated that I couldn’t do more, and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t. I thought I was fine. I knew I was sad, but I thought I was handling our transition well.

I wasn’t. Not really.

About a year and a half after our arrival, my brain and body decided to shut down, and I stopped sleeping for ten days. I finally got help. I told the urgent care doctor, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know what anxiety feels like, but this is different. It’s like I’m on overload and can’t get my pulse to slow down.” That admission was the beginning of feeling better.

I’ve been back three years, and it’s taken me that long to figure out what was happening inside me during that first year and a half. I only see it now in hindsight.

There are times in life you know you’re a mess; the pain or the fear is big and consuming. Every moment of every day feels like a fight. (I’ve had seasons like that, and this wasn’t one of them.)

But other times, you don’t realize you’re in a fog. You are coping quite well. You are doing what you need to do. You don’t realize your soul is actually withering. Then one day, the sun breaks through the clouds and triggers a distant memory: Oh yes! This is what warmth feels like.

This is what it feels like to be creative, my mind brimming with ideas.
This is what it’s like to live without a constant sense of being overwhelmed.
This is what it feels like to be happy.

I didn’t recognize that I wasn’t doing well until I started to feel better, and to remember what it feels like to be fully alive.

Today, I love being with friends and meeting new ones. I’m doing seminars for small and large groups. I was a guest on a podcast. My brain comes up with way more things to write about than I have time to get them out.

I don’t think I anticipated the jarring effect the transition would have on my body, mind, and soul. Or that it would last as long as it did. Seeing this in myself has given me empathy for others around me who are in transition: the new parents, new empty-nesters, the immigrant. How can I show them grace? How can I help to bring light into their fog? How can I walk alongside them for as long as it takes, knowing it will probably take longer than anyone anticipated?

But also, I want to remember to give myself grace the next time. To be more patient with myself. To remember that some of the hardest parts of life must simply be faced a day at a time until they get better.

This morning at church, a song unearthed a sweet memory of Tanzania, and I cried. For what I left. For what I’ve missed. For what I’ve gained. For how far I’ve come.

Finding Your Rhythm for Every Season

by Elizabeth Vahey Smith

I know exactly how I want to start each and every morning. It looks like waking up before my alarm, dawn light setting aglow the edges of little sleeping faces. I kiss foreheads and little lips scrunch up until my children resettle into their sleep. It looks like the steam from my coffee dancing in the cool fresh air of the morning. It looks like an undisturbed hour on my patio with my coffee, journal and Bible, and an excessive number of highlighters. It looks like a bit of exercise before a shower, and working on breakfast with a second cup of coffee as my kids stumble into morning hugs and snuggles.

I know exactly how I want to start each and every morning.

And then dawn breaks.

This morning is different from the one I wanted.

We’re leaving next week and are in the midst of farewells. My kids went to bed late, so naturally they woke early and cranky. I need to pack the house, and I’ve got 15 million errands to run and a lunch date with a friend at noon. Coffee is getting cold as I unpack kitchen tools to make grumpy children breakfast, and I’m persistently plagued by this one tennis shoe I’m sure I packed three times already. I’m in the car, throwing granola bars at the snarling children in the depths of the vehicle, and I’m missing, desperately missing, my morning routine.

Grieving that my favorite morning rhythm was ruined by reality.

Guilty that I shirked things that are important to me.

Ashamed that I can’t seem to do it all some days.

Oftentimes we develop rhythms during seasons of peace and orderliness. We develop our routines based on things that are important to us, and we make them routines because we want to make sure they happen in our lives. But for the globally mobile, it seems that seasons of busy and even seasons of total chaos are common.

The natural response is to skip the routines until we shift back into easier days. But the globally mobile life is full of prolonged and frequent seasons of busyness and chaos, of transition and resettling. Rhythms get so long forgotten we don’t shift back into them at all. The moments of self-care for our own well-being, the moments of connection with our families, are lost in the hustle.

Instead of throwing out the whole concept of routine when there’s no way to accomplish the ideal routine in a season of chaos, we can shift our rhythms to match the season.

In addition to a Thriving Rhythm during seasons of peace when we have time for growth ––

Have a Striving Rhythm for a season of busy hustling or even when the emotional toll of the season is making life seem harder.

Have a Surviving Rhythm for those seasons of total chaos or deep grief and despair when just one more thing seems too much to bear.

Have a plan in place to modify your routines so that transition, changes, and urgent needs don’t throw everything off.

How to Set a Rhythm for Each Season

I find that three sets of rhythms – thriving, striving, and surviving – are adaptable to most seasons of life, but if you have some very specific seasons (i.e. during school/school break or village living/town living), you can create custom rhythms for those seasons, too.

1) Make a list of daily priorities.

If you already have a routine, then this would be the “why” for the items on your to-do list. For example, do you run everyday because exercise is important to you or because you value getting outside or because it helps you manage your emotions?

2) Outline a Thriving Rhythm.

A Thriving rhythm is a realistic routine based on your real-life seasons of peace that makes space for the things that are priorities for you. It doesn’t have to be a morning routine or an hour long. This is an attainable rhythm for you during a season of peace. It will look different for everyone. If you don’t already have a Thriving Rhythm, you can create one from the priorities you just made. If you already have one, it will be helpful to see it written out.

3) Outline a Striving Rhythm.

Looking at your priorities and your Thriving Rhythm, ask yourself what it would look like if you only had five minutes for each task, or half the time you scheduled for your Thriving Rhythm. If you can’t spend an hour doing a morning devotional, what could you do in five minutes? If you normally take five minutes to cuddle your kids in the morning, what could you do in two and a half minutes?

4) Outline a Surviving Rhythm.

Looking at your priorities, Thriving Rhythm, and Striving Rhythm, ask yourself what your absolute bare bones are. You have 10-15 minutes, maybe not even consecutively. How do you fit in your priorities even during the seasons of chaos? Knowing that “nothing” is often what happens when chaos throws off our Thriving Rhythm, what is better than nothing?

For everything there is a season. (Ecclesiastes 3:1a)

The varied seasons of life are normal, and it’s normal to have different capacities and different levels of routine in those different seasons. What needs to be normalized is giving ourselves grace and flexibility while not neglecting the bare bones – the most important things that keep us grounded even when life is hectic. We can be consistent and steadfast in the things that are important to us, even if the rhythm sounds different to match the current climate.

Through these rhythms we can invest in self-care and connectedness, so that even in the unsettled, hectic, difficult, or just simply busy seasons, our families feel heard, prioritized, safe, and emotionally supported.

We set the rhythms for our families. Let’s shift with the seasons but not be thrown off by them.

I went to bed with my hair wet so I didn’t have to worry about drying it. I kiss my children awake, and then we roll into the kitchen together. “Snackle box is in the fridge. It’s breakfast-on-the-go today,” I say as I tap my YouVersion notification for the verse of the day while I get coffee brewing into a to-go mug. My kids each pull out their own tackle box full of small snacks and load into the car. Running errands counts as exercise, right?

Photo by David Mao on Unsplash

~~~~~~

Elizabeth Vahey Smith is a TCK mom who spent 5 years in Papua New Guinea as a missionary. Now her family explores the globe full-time as worldschoolers. Elizabeth works remotely as the COO for TCK Training, traveling often for work and always for pleasure. She is the author of The Practice of Processing: Exploring Your Emotions to Chart an Intentional Course. Follow her travels on Instagram @elizabeth.vaheysmith and @neverendingfieldtrip. Learn more about research-based preventive care for TCKs @tcktraining.

Culture shock is hard no matter what. Dear newbie, be gentle with yourself.

by Katherine Seat

Dear Friend,

I’m so excited to hear you are getting ready to leave your passport country and move to my host country. It’s great to hear about all the preparation you’ve been doing over the past few years to get to this point. Now you’re at the point where you actually have to think about what to pack!

You asked what apps were good for language learning. Sounds like you are eager to get a taste of the local language even before your formal classes start. From the way you asked, it seemed like you assumed I would know. It took me a while to realise my answer: I used cassette tapes when I was at your stage.

My first year in our host country was difficult. Transport and medical care were constant challenges. I spent a good portion of my first year sitting on the back of a motorbike taxi trying to direct the driver. After all those bumpy roads my back needed physiotherapy. The drivers didn’t read maps, and the map only covered a tiny part of the city anyway. So it was up to me, my sense of direction and my brand new language skills. I was often lost and wishing public bathrooms were a thing.

But now that tuk-tuks are easier to find, I haven’t been on a motorbike taxi for years. With internet on our phones we can see the whole city map — game changer! Combine that with ride hailing apps, and you might not need to spend so much time taking scenic routes. My back is happy there are so many smooth, sealed roads these days. So you probably won’t have the same transport troubles as I had.

Options for medical care stressed me out. I was told there was one clinic I could go to, but one doctor’s appointment cost about the same as a month’s rent. Other clinics cost only $2.50 per visit, but I was told they were only for locals. Not only had I moved to a place with more diseases and traffic accidents, but there was also reduced access to good medical care.

Things changed quickly. In my third year a new hospital opened. It was cheaper than the other good option, and better than the cheap options. Hurrah! Finally, good affordable medical care. But now more than a decade on, I consider that hospital too expensive to go to. These days I overhear expats discussing which doctor they see. I even know of several foreigners who have given birth in-country. So you probably won’t have the same fears about not being able to see a doctor as I did.

Discovering all my first-year stresses don’t exist anymore, I feel jealous. Perhaps your first year will be a walk in the park compared to mine. In fact, you can literally go for a walk in a park right near your house. One of the things I missed that first year (and in the years since) was being able to go for a walk anywhere, let alone a nice, green park with smooth paths.

However, I know changing countries remains a huge adjustment despite some practical things appearing easier. You are already hitting a few of the top stressors just by relocating. Plus, you are in a different family and work situation to me, so you will have added challenges I won’t even be aware of. And despite some of the changes making things easier, other changes make things harder.

I had thought that after all my hard work making it through that first year, I would have some advice to share. I’m frustrated to realize that I don’t have any practical tips for you, but there is something I wish I had known at the time. Well, I did know it, but I didn’t get just how true it is:

Culture shock is really hard, so go easy on yourself.

Yep, that’s all. It’s hard, go easy.

Maybe you are already well-versed in this. I know I thought I was. I remember telling myself it’s unrealistic to get those 10 things on my to-do list done. It might have seemed doable in my passport country, but now I’ll be happy if I just get one of the 10 done. Culture shock is just so exhausting, and you don’t know how things work in your host country or what to expect.

Although I told myself that at the time, I’m only just starting to realise now, all these years later, that what I was up against was even harder than I had thought. Why did I even have a to-do list?

And while you are being kind to yourself, be kind to those of us who have been here longer.

You might hear us say “You can’t get fresh milk in-country” when clearly you can. Or “Don’t go out after 9 pm” but then find you are expected to be at a weekly work meeting that goes past 10 pm.

We’ve spent so much time and energy learning to live here that we feel we have expertise to offer, but we don’t know everything anymore as things keeps changing.

Some of my hard won skills are now obsolete. I felt I had conquered so much, but some of those achievements aren’t useful anymore.

So be kind to yourself. It’s harder than you think: you are going through culture shock.

Thanks for your graciousness towards me, and be kind to those who have been here longer than you. We might be going through culture shock upon culture shock.

And let me know if you want to borrow the language learning cassette tapes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know about jet lag. Do you know about heart lag?

Jet lag, sweet terrible jet lag. It leads to entire chocolate bars consumed at three in the morning or entire novels devoured in the first three days after an international flight. Might lead to sickness, crabbiness, headaches, complaints, arguments. Every expatriate knows about jet lag.

But do you know about heart lag?

Every time I come back to Djibouti or go back to Minnesota, I feel shock. And then I feel shock that I feel shock. It has been twelve years; I should be used to the coming and going by now. I thought after a decade the transition would get easier, but I find my heart lagging more and more behind my body.

In some ways it does get easier. I know our routine and our stores and our friends and the languages. But in some ways I find the return more jarring than ever, increasingly so. Why?

Expectations. I expect not to be jarred, not to be shocked. I expect both sides of the ocean to feel normal, and they do. But when those two normals are so far from each other, when one is green and leafy and one is brown and dusty, when one sounds like robins and one sounds like the call to prayer, the normality of such variance is shocking.

Deeper Cultural Knowledge. Now I am aware of the deeper differences. I see beyond the tourist-culture-shock things like garbage and the driving and the heat and the clothes. I see the values, the fundamental differences in worldview, the different political structures and family functions and religious practices. And these differences both rub against the deeper things of my soul and resonate with those deeper things. This means that a much more profound part of my identity is experiencing the shock.

Personal Change. I have been changed now precisely because of interacting for so many years with this deeper cultural knowledge. Those changes affect the way I act on both sides of the ocean, so the transition requires digging deeper to uproot and replant. It involves more struggle.

Home. Coming home instead of going on a trip or returning to a relatively new place changes the way I see it, changes the way I respond to the inundation of the changes. Small developments happen while I’m gone, and as a long-term expat, I notice them. A corner store turns into a restaurant, the newspaper is under new management, the mosque has a new voice. Home changed in my absence, and I have to catch up.

These things could all easily be considered culture shock. But I recently started thinking of them in terms of jet lag. I decided that they are the result of heart lag. The shock factor is there, but I know I will move beyond it quickly, and I know what resides on the other side – settling, ease, comfortable familiarity. My heart just needs some time to catch up.

We give our bodies time to adjust, and people tend to be sympathetic to the traveler who falls asleep in the middle of a sentence at 7 p.m. after flying for thirty-eight hours. Let’s give our hearts time to adjust too. Be sympathetic to the traveler (even when it is yourself) who needs a few days for their heart to catch up to their body.

Originally published on February 2, 2015.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

When projects fail and goals go unmet, I’m quick to second-guess myself: Did God really lead me to this? Where did I go wrong? What did I miss along the way?

I wonder if that’s how the Israelites felt when they were wandering around in the desert, thirsty and lost. You know the story. When life seemed uncertain, their automatic response was to grumble and complain.

They demanded to know why Moses brought them out of Egypt to make their children and livestock die of thirst. They jumped straight from a dry mouth to a dead family. Fear made them believe that catastrophes lay ahead of them. They swallowed that lie and imagined it was true.

I’ve read these passages before and judged those silly Israelites. The Lord parted the waters for them just a few chapters before. How could they forget so easily? But when I read the story again today, I heard myself in their grumbling and complaining. Their question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7), spoke to a deep uncertainty within me.

I’m in a wandering, wondering place right now. When I was sent home from Tanzania at the start of Covid, I left a trunk of my belongings with a dear friend. I assured her that I’d be back for them soon.

Somehow two years have passed. My friend has given away or used all of my carefully packed away things. I told her to because I don’t know when or if I’ll be back for them.

When the Israelites were wandering in the desert desperate for water, the Lord heard their cries. He provided water from a rock for the people to drink. I wonder if there’s a message in this miracle. Could God be telling the Israelites that He brings unexpected blessings from the hardest places? Could He be encouraging them to look for His life-giving presence in places that seem dead? Could He be teaching me the same thing?

Our brains have a built-in negativity bias. This means that we naturally pay more attention to negative experiences and tend to dwell on them more than positive experiences. So it’s pretty easy for me to look back over the last two years and tally up all my disappointments and frustrations.

But I know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And if He was a God who brought water from a rock thousands of years ago, then He can do the same thing today. Rather than grumbling and complaining about my rocky path, I could start looking for the ways that He’s provided for me in the dry places.

This isn’t natural. I don’t want to do it. I feel like I’ve earned the right to complain. I’m sure the Israelites did, too.

With the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I opened my journal and I started writing. Ten minutes later I had a list of 14 ways that God had provided for me over the last two years. I saw water rushing out of rocky places and was amazed that I’d missed it before.

Then I started to wonder if the Israelites looked at rocks differently after this miracle. Did they wait expectantly to see if God might show up and transform the rocks into something else? Did they get excited about the possibilities? Did they see a rock and remember God’s provision?

Maybe this is another part of the lesson. God provided water not only out of a hard place but also out of something that He knew the Israelites would be walking around for the next 40 years. God could have made water appear out of nowhere. Instead, He used a rock. Water from the rock would not only fend off their thirst that day, but perhaps it could also provide the Israelites with an object lesson to remind them of God’s presence every day of their lives.

I started to think about what I see on a daily basis that could serve as a reminder of God’s loving presence with me. I chose pens. Over the last two years, God has provided me with a writing ministry. He’s given me the words to write and opened doors to connect with amazing opportunities (writing for A Life Overseas being one of the first and best of those open doors!).

I asked the Holy Spirit to remind me each time I pick up a pen that God is able to do unexpected and glorious things in the hardest and most trying circumstances. And just because I know my own stubborn, forgetful heart, I wrapped tape around some of the pens in my house and wrote “The Lord is among us” on them.

Is the Lord among us or not? He is. He is most certainly among His people. He’s been with me for the last two years and all the years before that. He’s been with me through the failed projects and the unmet goals. He’s been with me through the disappointments and the victories.

And He’s been with you the whole time too. He’s been there through all the ups and downs of following Him across borders and into foreign cultures. He’s been there through all the ministry roadblocks that these last two years of covid have thrown your way. And He is with you right now.

God’s loving presence takes the sting out of dashed dreams and unmet goals. In His hands, rocks become water, wandering builds character, and failures get reformed. He is at work among us, now and always.