Years ago, my husband and I talked about how to help missionary friends on the field in struggles they were working through in a marriage. The couple was fairly new on the field.
It was tough, we acknowledged: A missionary marriage was like a pressure cooker, intensifying whatever flavors were first lobbed in the pot. If basil, you tasted its nuance in the entire dish. If a sweaty gym sock? Well.
photo credit: IMB.org
Go. Serve. Love is happy to welcome Timothy, a student with Fusion, the dynamic missions program at Spurgeon College in Kansas City, Missouri.
The sun beat down on the back of my neck as I struggled to will each step forward.
Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking feet curled beneath us. We were reflecting on some of the more painful parts of missionary life.
I’m talking things that were hard to understand if you hadn’t been overseas, hadn’t had moments in a foreign land defined by sacrifice or loss. They were like scars, covered by clothing.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Editor’s note: For this perennial topic, we’re pulling some tips from the archive for all you spouses wrestling through what do to when your spouse is all-in, sign-me-up, let’s-do-this -thing-for-Jesus! But you don’t feel as “called.”
Hey. Every situation is different, I know. But I’ve talked to a few of you.
I’ve seen the look on your face—not just the usual culture shock or pre-departure if-this-country-doesn’t-kill-me-packing-for-it-might expression. There’s a nearly imperceptible tightness in your smile.
Because you signed up for this. But at the same time, didn’t.
You signed up to follow Jesus, your name on the dotted line beneath the great Commission. And the ring on your finger keeps reminding you of unending constancy; faithfulness.
(But did that mean my spouse’s dreams? You wonder every now and then.)
Or maybe your brain has signed up, knowing God doesn’t just call one of you. (Right? you ask me.) Knowing he asks a whole family to go or to stay.
But your heart signing up? That part could take awhile. And unfortunately, with the lack of medical care for your kids and the size of the reptiles, it could take longer than you planned.
I’m obeying you, Lord. This is my choice. (Write this down—I made the right choice when it killed me, and took me away from my mom living right down the street to help with the kids.)
I don’t know if you’ve already made your decision, or are waffling a little as the gravity of this choice starts to show like the hem of a slip.
(Spoiler alert: At the end of this post, you will still not know exactly what to do.)
I can only tell you what I know.
This decision is hard enough when you feel completely called and feel zero hesitation.
But what’s not okay, even when you don’t feel as called? Choosing to be powerless.
When it was time for us to head back from Africa, that’s the time I felt the least “called” anywhere. It felt like a perfect storm of circumstances were grounding us from flying into Uganda—and what had become like home.
During that tumultuous home assignment, we were straddling two continents and homes. And that included, what? At least three evaporating sources of identity for me. (Missionary. Teacher of refugees. Educator of my kids.)
I remember words my husband spoke to me as we wound our way over a New Mexico highway. He cautioned me, encouraging me to dig into my confusion, my low-burning anger.
He said something like,
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Why? Because your life is about to change just as much.
And the demands and required teamwork of overseas living require more buy-in from a spouse than simply submitting to another’s passion.
I have seen this subtle, underground division work its way into the cracks of a marriage’s foundation like ivy, spreading slowly in a thick blanket. They’re so subtle, a person may hardly notice until it’s nearly too late.
There’s such wisdom in the words of 1 Peter: Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
That verse ratchets things to a whole new level, right? It’s not just unity of action. It’s my mind as one flesh with yours.
“Calling” gets tricky these days. It can be wielded as “a rubber stamp from God on doing what I really, really want.”
It can also be a mystical, vague buzzword that gets us hung up.
And the truth is, “calling” gets tricky in a marriage. Because few of us have had actual writing on the wall. For most of us calling is less “I’ve heard an audible Word from God–and more synthesizing passions with Scripture and the world’s need.
It’s a working out of what would be our own alabaster box, our own act of beautiful, sacrificial worship, to a God worthy of every loss.
But Jeremiah, Jonah, even Jesus? They had words with God about their calling.
What about when your spouse’s desires are different? When you just don’t feel as called?
Desires are not just something to steamroll over as an act of faith. Trying to rid yourself of desire is actually more…Buddhist. We see Jesus’ example in the Garden of Gethsemane of total honesty with his desire, yet total surrender.
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In case you missed it, allow me to say it openly: God accepts you fully whether you go overseas or not.
Whether or not this is an “obedience” issue for you isn’t something our blog can weigh in on. But do the hard work of exploring your call together, knowing your particular application of the Great Commission is your joyful choice.
Side note: Depending on your theology, you may feel that this is an area where you need to submit to your spouse. That may be the case.
But let us encourage you that–as demonstrated in Esther or Ruth or Proverbs 31–submission does not mean silence. (Jesus shows this in his submission to the Father in Gethsemane.)
Like I mentioned in the beginning–I promise you no easy answers.
This is your time as a couple to be transparent, to think deeply and broadly (and Scripturally) about what is right and good for your marriage, your family. It’s time to seek God’s face together, for what you can willingly, open-handedly give him.
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House) releases October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
Different Strokes? Marital Differences as You Look Overseas, Part I and Part II
Help Your Marriage Thrive Overseas! Part I, Part II, & Part III
8 Ways to Help your Family Flourish Overseas!
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Words
are
powerful.
With a click of the lock, the creak of the wooden door and the click of my brass mailbox…another card is ready to be picked up.
It doesn’t take long. Ten minutes at most. Each day this month I have committed to send one handwritten card to a different friend.
These aren’t your typical Christmas cards with signature and family picture. I want these cards to be filled with words that speak life to those I care about most.
Last year, this mission began with family. I realized the thing we really needed and wanted most from each other is not another gift under the tree but instead to have the people we care about speaking words of encouragement, affirmation, and blessing over our lives.
I know I needed to hear those things. Others were feeling that need, too. (And hasn’t this year made that need starkly apparent?)
Instead of spending more on a gift that I wasn’t sure kids would like or that adults needed, our family choose to focus our attention on written words. Words of appreciation, affirmation, and blessing for each parent, aunt, uncle, and cousin.
My family split up the cards and worked on a few each evening after dinner. I didn’t want us to wait till the last minute or feel rushed.
Our notes included characteristics and qualities we were thankful for in the recipients–observation of talents and abilities that we saw in them, as well as reminders of who God says they are and the promises he has for them.
Ann Voskamp reminds me in Unwrapping the Greatest Gift,
Look for the small, broken cracks in the world, in hearts, that would be easy to walk right by – and right there, slip in a little word that grows great courage. Miracles happen whenever we speak words that make souls stronger.
What is true here is also true for the people you plan to serve overseas. All mankind is created in God’s image, as relational beings with a God-sized purpose.
The art of speaking words of life is something that can open the doors of homes, hearts to friendship, and minds to believe and receive the love of Christ.
Of course, the one who made us and knows us best has a few things to say about the power of our words as well. Take a moment to reflect on his words:
Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. Proverbs 16:24
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:6
Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Proverbs 25:11
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. Colossians 3:16
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Ephesians 4:29
Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. Proverbs 15:4
A person’s words can be life-giving water; words of true wisdom are as refreshing as a bubbling brook…Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:4, 21
In case you’re in need your own round of truth-filled affirmations? Take in what God thinks about you, as his son or daughter this Christmas through Who I am in Christ.
Share them liberally with others!
How will you use your words to uplift and encourage your family, your friends, or the person waiting on you in line today? A card, a text a call?
While you speak life-giving words here today, say a prayer for those you hope to befriend overseas.
Ask that God will prepare their hearts to receive his words of love. Pray for the ability to learn their language well so you can use new words to share the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15).
Speak life, impart hope, and share love with your words. No matter your zipcode.
Rebecca Skinner is an MK and adult TCK from Central and South America. Don’t miss her post, We Were Missionary Kids. Here’s What My Parents Did Right and Top Missions Podcasts of 2020!
Fun fact: Rebecca and her husband were one of the first couples to met on eharmony.com and get married! This August, they’ll celebrate 18 years of marriage, They have twin boys.
Christmas, Rewrapped: Navigating Overseas Holidays
Why to Learn Their Heart-Language, Even if They Speak Yours
The Cultural Iceberg: What You Need to Know about Cross-cultural Communication
Reading Time: 4 minutes
My husband and I, kids in tow, were maneuvering at a snail’s pace through a traffic jam in our trusty high-clearance minivan. Our speakers happily trumpeted the Christmas CD my mom had sent, and we chatted, our energy high for our Christmas shopping in the city and the Christmas party of our non-profit (which, with the barbecue and kids running around in shorts, tends to look a little more like the Fourth of July).
It was sometime after “Let it Snow” that our heads all swiveled to the driver’s side, where a man was banging—hard—on the outside of our van. Never a good sign in Kampala.
And that’s when his partner whipped open my car door and swiftly grabbed my bag slouched at my feet. My casserole dish skidded across the pavement as I unbuckled without thinking, standing between the unmoving lanes and yelling something very helpful, like, “HEY!” as he and his cronies ran away with my reading device, my phone, the drivers’ licenses from both countries, and our house keys.
I make it sound lighthearted. But really, I just started sobbing, my hands shaking. It probably frightened my children just as much as the stranger flinging open the car door. Robbery, even a purse-snatching, is a level of trauma.
Truthfully, the highlight of my day took place about thirty seconds after that lowlight. My eleven-year-old: “Guys, it looks like mom is really upset right now. Let’s all pray.”
You know, when he was born, all of the parenting magazines kept telling me how to keep him safe from everything: from choking, from bullies, from cyberspace. And keeping our children safe is a godly desire.
But I’m also reminded God’s “faith school” for my kids is so good to teach them, even while they are quite young, who he is in suffering.
As a friend wrote me the week of the robbery, The very thing we would protect our children from experiencing may be the very thing that God wants to use in their lives now so that when they are adults, they’ll know how to respond to crisis.
That he gives, and he takes away, and we can sing Christmas carols with full hearts afterward. That this isn’t a “when bad things happen to good people” kind of thing. From dust I came—and hell I deserve.
After the police report, after the two hours spent at the phone company, after breaking in to our own house in absence of my keys, my emotions were as tangled and frazzled as my hair.
For one, all of my muscle to make it to the end of the year in a foreign country felt suddenly spent—a year complete with harrowing accident and move to a new neighborhood and all the little pecked-to-death-by-a-duck cultural frustrations.
The sledgehammer in my heart had fallen, and the bell at “WEARY” dinged.
After the robbery, I felt vulnerable. Violated. Stupid. Shaken.
And still—I kept thinking, This is why He came. This is why we need Christmas. Not for some vague, nebulous, Dr.-Suess-movie “Christmas is about giving! The Christmas spirit is in our hearts!”
Because Christmas is—but it isn’t.
We needed Him because Christmas—an unselfish, give-till-it-doesn’t-make-sense, fatal rescue mission—was not in us as we mourned in lonely exile here, basting in our own junk and selfishness, as both victim and criminal.
He, too, was here to help, and people wanted to take what they could get for themselves.
Jesus was subject to far more injustice, theft, and hate than a robbery.
He bore so much more grief than I have, so that my treasure could be not in a purse or an iPhone, but in a place untouched by thieves and tears.
This is only a pinprick of suffering. But his hand seemed to rest on my slumped shoulder when I happened on C.S. Lewis’ words from The Magician’s Nephew.
I saw that “faith school” though it may be, God’s pain in the midst of my pain is real. I am not merely a project to be sanctified, but a child who is loved after a crime:
“But please, please–won’t you–can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?’
Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
‘My son, my son,’ said Aslan. ‘I know. Grief is great.”
And so I found Christmas–with a side of robbery–yet again painting in vivid strokes that God is with us. wrapping our injured flesh around him, breathing our air and walking our sod.
Thank God for Christmas.
Christmas, Rewrapped: Navigating Overseas Holidays, Part I and Part II
Creative Celebration: Why It Matters Overseas
Advent: When You’re Not Where You Hoped (FREE PRINTABLE)
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House) releases October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
The dust, fine and red, coated the plants lining our roads. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. As my children lay awake in bed, I stuck my head in and reminded them to keep guzzling plenty of water, after a friend of theirs landed in the clinic due to dehydration.
Unfortunately it paralleled my parched insides. So many tasks to which I put my hand seemed to droop, languishing and limp. The cost-benefit ratio of my parenting, my ministry there in Uganda, and a handful of relationships seemed tilting precariously in the wrong direction.
It’s funny how perceived failure–and waiting–stirs up silty questions that had lain quiet in the soul.
What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Does any of what I do matter?
A friend had mentioned that week how, when we trust God in the dark, it’s amazing how so many things begin to happen.
Honestly?
I was thinking, What about the times when you trust big, and nothing big happens? What about when everything feels sluggish, fruitless, and cracked?
Am I the only one who feels like waiting has been a recurring lesson of adulthood? Indeed, to prep for this post, I searched “waiting” on my personal blog–and found 8 pages of posts.
Sometimes army-crawling through my own seasons of advent (Christmastime or not) feel like one of God’s favorite scalpels. It lies ominously–no, lovingly! I tell myself– next to the one labeled “suffering.”
I was embarrassingly late into adulthood by the time the word “advent” revealed itself for what it was, i.e. not the name of the month before Christmas, where we have to wait a whole 25 days.
It’s this word that remembers the waiting, the inevitable coming true–to the tune of millennia, generations upon generations “that mourn[ed] in lonely exile here.”
Maybe, looking at where you hoped to be, everything seems…off. That promises or hope, if advent were real at all, would be fulfilled by now.
To get married. Or be able to start filling applications rather than taking care of aging parents or changing diapers. To be done raising financial support. Or go overseas when the borders open. To have ministry that feels like it’s worth the career and family and comfort and validation you’ve given up.
Maybe it feels like you’re on the wrong side of a three-legged race. Something’s dragging. You’re lurching. Everyone else seems to fluidly gallop ahead, while you’re stuck with a mouthful of turf.
This is not the life I pictured.
I have become a different woman as God changes me in the muscular, faith-filled waiting: for the months-long process of appealing our denied work visa. To go overseas, when the man I married wasn’t feeling led that direction. For a child making decisions that seized my heart with fear. For God to restore a sense of purpose after we returned from Africa.
In those times, it has felt easier to do anything, really, rather than be still, my soul; bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
I think of Abraham, waiting twenty years after God’s promise for a son. He even tried to rush it a bit. So I must include one of my favorite truisms a la Peter Scazzero:
I, like Abraham, had birthed many ‘Ishmaels’ in my attempt to help God’s plan move forward more efficiently.
French activist and philosopher Simone Weil’s wrote on some of the ways affliction–and, I would offer, waiting–changes us. It’s our decision how we respond to these wearying side effects of waiting.
And two friends reminded me gently during those hot, heavy months on my soul and body–my own mini-advent–What if we redefine success to mean “faithfulness”? Sure, God wants us to get excited about results, too. Purpose is part of his perfect design.
But don’t forget the “fruit”, in His eyes, starts long before what we see.
You will arrive at precisely the time God has ordained–for the good works he’s created for you to do: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
God has “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of [every person’s] dwelling place”. If your Plan A has gone unfulfilled, that fulfillment would actually go against God’s design. Over 100 verses speak of his precise timing.
Could this waiting be a form of God’s mercy? Is someone being primed for the perfect opportunity to receive the Gospel? Are you being protected or perfectly prepared?
With this in mind, we’ve got a download of the four verse graphics in this post–printable here–for memorization and meditation in this season of Advent, of waiting.
One morning, I stirred in the early hours to a rushing sound outside of my flung-open windows; a deep rumbling had brought at least one child toting pillows and blankets to the floor around our bed.
And yes! Pouring rain grayed the sunrise sluicing down the sidewalk. I pulled the sheets taut around my shoulders.
The next day, I addressed my new class of refugees. Somewhere, amidst the raised hands and laughter, I thought, I can’t believe I get to do this job. I felt the term’s potential ripening in my hands, sweet and red.
I don’t know what you’re waiting for this Christmas. I’ve got a feeling it’s for something more weighty than hooves on a rooftop. But let me assure you: Those who wait on him aren’t ever–ever–put to shame.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
Like this post? Don’t miss
Purpose While You’re Waiting to Go Overseas
Out of Place: When You’re Not Where You Thought You’d Be
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House) releases October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
As cited in Keller, Timothy. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. New York: Penguin Books (2013). Kindle edition.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
“I’m trying to be patient while I wait,” she told me.
She smiled, and yet I could see the disappointment. My friend was ready to be moving overseas. And instead, she seemed to be stuck stateside.
Waiting.
I was reminded of my own season of waiting before we moved overseas. We had been living in a metroplex, surrounded by diversity, different cultures, different religions, and international students. We knew we wanted to head overseas in a few years.
In order for my husband to gain more work experience for the job he would do abroad, he decided to work for his dad’s firm.
This required us to move to a much smaller town. Very little diversity, much fewer cultures, hardly any different religions.
This did not seem like a strategic move.
Talk about disappointment. Here I was full of excitement about our first baby coming and getting our family to a point where we would be ready to move overseas.
I was young and optimistic, with energy and motivation to engage. Then I was placed in a location that did not seem like it would help with the preparation, the engagement of cultures, the developing of cross-cultural skills.
Even in this time of waiting, God was preparing me.
News flash: God does not need strategic locations to develop our hearts. He doesn’t need diversity to teach us to love.
He will use those situations to grow us.
The truth is, He will use any situation to grow a willing heart.
I think during those first few months I spoke to God and said something like, “This is not what I would have planned. [Insert big sigh] So I guess I need you to show me what you have planned.”
It turns out God had big plans during that time of waiting.
I wanted to do things with my hands and my words, to engage in ministry for others and learn how to do cross-cultural ministry effectively. God wanted to do things with my heart. He wanted to show me the blind spots in my love for others. He wanted to show me my pride.
In His mercy, He wanted to teach me to love from humility, rather than a sense of calling.
In His mercy, He quickly revealed to me some of my pride that I didn’t realize had grown in my heart about our desire to go abroad and serve overseas. He wasn’t going to let me go without first learning to invest and love right where I was.
See, He knew there would be rough times ahead. He knew there would be times when it would be difficult for me to love others out of a sense of sheer calling.
He knew the only way I would love others well was if I loved Him first, and through Him loved others.
I needed to trust Him with my time not just the minutes in the day to get tasks done, but the months and years.
I needed to trust Him in His purposes and do my part by investing well, loving well, and keeping Him first, even if I didn’t know the plan. Even if the situation seemed like a backward step or if I could find better ways to fill our time.
The time of waiting ended up being a precious time for our family.
Friendships grew in the soil of waiting that still encourage us today. God showed me my blind spots and gave me time to work through them, time to seek understanding, time to find appreciation for other perspectives.
When the time came for us to move overseas, I had to grieve leaving the small town that had become home as we invested and sowed with love.
Dear one, if you find yourself in a time of waiting, know that this does not need to be a wasted time. God’s purposes are not for empty, wasted time. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, lift up your hands in surrender, and ask what need be done in you or around you.
And let even the time of waiting be precious.
Sarah serves in Egypt with her husband and four children. You can catch her blog here.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Editor’s note: When God begins to pull your hearts in an overseas direction, that potential decision is inevitably a life-shifting chapter of your kids’ calling and story, too.
We’re pulling this post from the vault to help you navigate.
I’d say–and most sites agree–as soon as possible.
Your goal? Well-adjusted kids with ownership in your decision, and who can eventually follow God courageously in their own life decisions.
If your kids keep secrets as well as mine did didn’t, it can be hard to discern (“What if they tell people in Sunday School and our cover is blown? We’re not ready to tell the whole church”).
But even before you tell-them-tell-them, you can start planting seeds in your kids’ heads.
The more kids feel “brought along” in the process, being able to ask their questions, process, understand how and why you’re thinking this way, the less they’re likely to feel excluded and out of control.
Take advantage of times when a conversation at the dinner table turns to events around the world, or your church service brings up missions. (Or get a little sneakier, and bring up age-appropriate world events yourself.) You could ask questions like,
Let kids choose a country each night, and perhaps look up a few facts or pictures about those countries. Eventually, start to talk more about how many people in your future host country don’t know Jesus, and the specific needs.
Look up videos and photos, and read kids stories and blog posts (missionary stories work, though realize many are told to demonstrate missionaries’ sacrifice–and kids may get the idea you’ll be in a mud hut with no other kids around and asked to die for Jesus. Use discernment, m-kay?). See if missionaries you’ll be with can send a video or photo of their child and their house.
This may sound weird–but after my husband and I returned from our vision trip to Africa, I started telling my kids about a pair of fictional siblings. They will always remember “Shiloh and Summer stories I told as we drove somewhere.
These kids just happened to be my kids; age–and just happened to be moving to Uganda. (This site suggests using toys–perhaps a plane and some dolls?–to tell younger kids.)
Without overselling it, get excited about a new “adventure.”
I talked about how the kids had to go through airport security, had to sleep under a muggy mosquito net but were thankful they wouldn’t get sick, and realized people around them looked at lot different now, but were mostly really nice.
These fictional characters missed grandparents, and yet made new friends. They counted down the dates till Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, when the kids got to be the hosts.
Kids can have an uncanny “you’re not for real” radar. Let them know they can trust you–that there will be no spin on the truth when they want to know how things really are. That’s not to avoid optimism, but let kids no that no questions or answers are out of bounds.
A friend was overwhelmingly glad she made this decision.
Older kids are rightfully growing more independent–and are more likely to feel the threats of moving. They can keep secrets, generally.
So as you wade through this, show them the respect of communicating openly about the pros and cons; the questions you’re asking.
Demonstrate how you make godly decisions. Ask your child’s opinion, as long as they understand you’re the one with veto power. Hear their hearts. Shepherd them through their hearts’ most profound questions without resorting to spiritual platitudes.
Don’t let them feel written off. Help them feel like a valuable member of your team–and that if God’s calling you, he’s calling them, too.
They’ll have relationships to establish, too. Help eliminate some of the weirdness by getting them a tutor, an app, a class.
Kids, having no framework of life overseas, might envision leaving everything.
Try to make it as long-term as possible. (“We’re going on a plane and watching movies!” isn’t much consolation when your child is missing his old home and tired of mosquito bites and power outages.)
Don’t gloss over mourning by just propelling your kids forward. Sit with them and cry a little about leaving cousins, grandparents, and the friends they have here.
Ask friends to contribute photos; save Christmas photo cards. Download Marco Polo or another strategic way to connect with friends. (Just remember you will likely no longer live in the land of free wi-fi.)
As you progress through your journey, continue to ask questions about how kids are feeling, what questions they have, what they’re scared or excited about, etc.
Consider recruiting family friends to take your kids out individually and ask questions/listen to them talk, in order to give kids other arenas in which to discuss their feelings and thoughts.
With the exception of preteens and teenagers (at least one missions org has been rumored not let you move with kids around this age), my kids were bouncing around Uganda in about two minutes. (Their parents took considerably longer.)
If it’s home to you and you’re there, kids will feel like home. If you’re willing to try new things (roasted grasshoppers. Boom), they might, too. (Don’t miss 8 Ways to Help your Family Flourish Overseas!)
That doesn’t mean you slap on a happy face. We can talk with kids age-appropriately about times we feel sad or afraid. But in general, where your family is together will eventually be home sweet home.
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills for Work-in-Progress Families (Harvest House) releases in October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
When I first met the head-turning, nearly-too-good-to-be-true man who would be my husband, there was only one possibly fatal flaw.
He didn’t see himself going overseas.
At that point, I had participated in short-term missions in ten countries, give or take. I’d maxed out my university’s Spanish classes and minored in cross-cultural services. My college activities pointed to my love of cultures and helping the powerless.
Geez, Lord. Couldn’t you make this easier?
Serious questions crossed my mind about whether in marrying the man I respected most on Planet Earth, that I would also be…a sellout.
Spoiler: I married him. Nearly every day of our married life, I’ve thanked God for this man. (Without him, I may have been World’s Most Insecure Missionary).
But a decade later, “living my life for God” had slid from those mental images of handing rice to refugees, dust in my skirt. Instead, I was drowning in a sea of apple juice with some Goldfish floating on top. The commercial for my life would have looked less Peace Corps, more Bounty paper towels.
I felt confused. Angry. Exhausted.
And the sellout question loomed large, as if a rocking rubber stamp were about to declare me “Life Opportunities Missed.”
Perhaps if you’ve followed my posts, you know the spoiler: My husband and I ended up spending half a decade in Africa. I felt a technicolor version of alive. (We’re still with the same org.)
But this was not before a tough couple of years when God and I wrestled with whether I’d chosen the best path. When God was growing contentment in me for what I called a “small life”. (Um, despite fierce love and happy sacrifice for my kids and husband. Which I wouldn’t have given up in a bajillion years. Turns out the Gospel matters to them, too).
My heart caught around Kathleen Kelly’s musings in You’ve Got Mail:
Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, not small, but valuable. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave?
God has grown me exponentially in understanding the peculiar heroism the Church places on missionaries. He’s taught me no role in the Church is unimportant.
God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?….
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (1 Corinthians 12:18, 19, 21)
I also had to be taught that part of my own desire to life a “big life for God” was the emphasis on my own life being valuable. I’ve been guilty of, in a sense, using God for my own fulfillment more than I love him for himself.
I’ve thought more about this recently for two reasons.
First, I returned from Africa. My sense of co-laboring fell to a much quieter, occasionally indiscernable hum. I lost most of my sexy job titles (Missionary to Africa! Teacher of Refugees!) all over again. (See “Do our Churches Prefer Certain Occupations? Does God?“)
At times, I grew angry that God hadn’t created a more tenable way for us to stay, for making a difference. My identity felt horribly jumbled as I struggled for worth apart from the field.
(This was recognizable, at times, as one who’d lost not just something precious, but perhaps lost an idol, too.)
I’ve also considered this in light of what I’ve read in Skye Jethani’s With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God.
Jethani explores five primary postures in which we relate to God: Life under, over, from, for, and finally with God. He cites God’s vision in both Genesis and Revelation (and throughout the Bible) to reign with humankind: to be loved as he is, rather than us seeking to manipulate or use him.
“In other words,” Jethani writes, “God would cease to be how we acquire our treasure, and he would become our treasure.”
I won’t explore all the postures here. But Jethani reminded me that many of us have been schooled in Life For God more than With God. Jethani quotes Phil Vischer, creator of VeggieTales, following Vischer’s loss of his company.
“God would never call us from greater impact to lesser impact!” [I thought.]
The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail–a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream…The Savior I was following seemed, in hindsight, equal parts Jesus, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish.
Unfortunately, taken to its fullness, this missionalism, this disordered priority for making a difference, brings us to a place the end justifies any means. Including the loss of our own vital connection to God. Our families. Our marriages.
Jethani observes,
A great deal of effort is expended in faith communities trying to transform people from younger sons [in the story of the prodigal son] into older sons. But this is a fool’s errand, because what mattered most to the father was neither the younger son’s disobedience nor the older son’s obedience, but having his sons with him.
In fact, Jesus foretells of some making a difference, achieving great things in God’s name.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me… (Matthew 7:22-23, emphasis added)
If we land on the mission field feeling that in some sense we’ve arrived (or perhaps will, after Making a Difference), we will–like the biblical Jacob, always wake up with Leah.
Because the mission itself, or our ability to accomplish it, was never intended to form our sense of worth and fulfillment.
Don’t go overseas with “impact” as your greatest goal. Because missions is not, cannot be, the Great End.
God is.
(And by the way, Honey. I would marry you all. Over. Again.)
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills for Work-in-Progress Families (Harvest House) releases in October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
