Missionaries can be a negative, cynical bunch sometimes. And I’m not pointing fingers because I get it. I’ve drunk the kool-aid and have come up woefully short of expectations (of myself, the work and others), and I’ve done this same fall-on-my-face-move on four different continents. Hacking out a life overseas can make a pessimist out of the best of us.
But it doesn’t have to. And maybe it shouldn’t.
Because yes, international living can be brutal. Yes, kids get hurt and marriages suffer. Yes, culture shock can lay us low and goodlord sometimes other missionaries can do that, too.
And this space at A Life Overseas is most definitely a safe place to air those realities. And it’s a place to be reminded that you are not alone in them.
Yet, yet.
I do fear that missionaries can become all work and no play. All sacrifice and no joy. All sprint and no marathon.
I mean, there are some pretty amazing things that take place overseas that would never happen were we to all have stayed home . . .
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Okay, so bring it. What do you LOVE about living overseas? Let’s fire up this comment section with the post ivies . . . it’ll make us all feel a little better.
Laura Parker, Co-editor/founder, former humanitarian aid worker in SE Asia
