Tag: A Life Overseas Page 4 of 6

Choosing the Desert

On December 3, 2017

“Unlike many in the world, I’ve had the incredible privilege of never needing to worry about my daily bread. Perhaps that’s why God allowed me to be deprived of my daily sleep. And there are a myriad of other ways we can be sent into the desert involuntarily—cancer, hurricane, betrayal.”

I wrote how Choosing Missions Means Choosing the Desert at A Life Overseas. But I think this post applies to any0ne who has chosen the desert–and that can look like adoption or foster care (or maybe parenting in general!) or church ministry or any kind of sacrifice made in the name of the Kingdom of God.

So this post is dedicated to those who, for any reason, have chosen the desert. May God meet you there and show himself as your Bread of Life.

Missions Means Choosing the Desert

Earlier this year, I went through a season of insomnia. A chaotic furlough, a new job, and lots of life change brought on anxiety, which bred sleeplessness, which bred more anxiety, until I was a mess.

I lay awake many nights and begged God, “You know I need to sleep. You know I can’t function without it. I believe you want me to be productive. So why won’t you help me sleep?”

And the Word of God spoke to me through Deuteronomy 6:

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

There I was, wandering in the desert, feeling desperate, crushed, and abandoned by God. Until I remembered that the desert is the very best place for God to meet me.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna….to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

God caused you to hunger. Just like sleep, bread is necessary for life itself, yet God wanted his people to remember that their very existence depended on God and his Word.

Thousands of years later, our Savior voluntarily went into the desert, and learned for himself that man does not live by bread alone. And not long after that, he stood tall and declared himself to be our Bread of Life, sent down from Heaven.

Unlike many in the world, I’ve had the incredible privilege of never needing to worry about my daily bread. Perhaps that’s why God allowed me to be deprived of my daily sleep. And there are a myriad of other ways we can be sent into the desert involuntarily—cancer, hurricane, betrayal.

As insomnia helped me to understand the value of the desert, I realized that choosing missions is one of the ways we voluntarily choose the desert.

In choosing missions, we leave behind our support structures: family, church, friends.

Choosing missions means learning new ways of survival: how to communicate, how to care for our children, how to provide for our basic needs. Most of the time, we give up many of the comforts of home, whether it be as simple as McDonald’s Playland or as complex as feeling understood by the people around us.

Missions sometimes means we find ourselves in a spiritual wasteland: a city where we are one of only handful of believers. Where the oppression, whether seen or unseen, lies heavy on our shoulders.

Choosing missions means choosing the life of a stranger, an outsider. We are often misunderstood. We often feel alone, and as time goes by, we often feel disconnected in our “home” countries as well. Like it did for our Savior, the desert brings on temptation strong and thick. But unlike our Savior, we often cave to it.

So why, why, why do we choose this life? Why on earth would we choose this desert?

Because man does not live by bread alone, or cream cheese, or even Starbucks. Man does not live by running water, or air conditioning, or indoor heating. He is not sustained by paved roads, or fast internet, or stylish clothes. He even does not live by English education for his kids, by real turkey on Thanksgiving or by cold Christmases and the smell of pine trees.

No.

We live by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.

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When I Was the New Missionary

By Amy Medina

On August 10, 2017

In Other

I was 22 years old, I had just finished my teaching degree, and as far as I was concerned, I was ready to be a missionary. After all, I had been an MK and thus knew everything there was to know about missions in Africa. And for that matter, I pretty much knew everything there was to know about life. Like any 22-year-old.

I went to our mission organization’s candidate school twice. Once while single, since the plan was to head to Tanzania after my first year of teaching. Then this dream guy named Gil Medina messed with my plans and I ended up getting married instead. So two years after my first time at candidate school, and 9 months after getting married, I went again–this time with Gil.

Visiting the States always brings back so much nostalgia for me. So much of my history is in America; it floods me with memories. And this time around, I was reminded of that pre-Tanzania season of my life. I was invited to be a facilitator at our mission’s missionary training a few weeks ago–this time as the experienced missionary. So I spent a week in July with our mission’s newest crop of missionaries. And I saw myself in them, 18 years ago.

Candidate school, 1999

You would think that after being a missionary kid, and attending candidate school twice, that I would have been ready for my new life overseas. I sure thought I was. But in reality, I had no idea what was about to hit me.

I had a massive panic attack and mental breakdown ten days after arriving in Tanzania in 2001. As a result, I was barely coping for the entirety of the first year we lived there. I dug up my old journals last week while at my parents’ house, which flooded me with even more memories. This is what I wrote a few days after that breakdown.

August 10, 2001
Everything within me is wrestling. I scream, “I hate this! Let me go back!”
And the pain of missing people sinks into my soul and creates an overwhelming sadness.

I’m telling you this for a couple of reasons. Partly because it’s good to look back and see how far I’ve come. Even though that period in my life was certainly the darkest I’ve experienced, it’s reassuring to remember how God showed up in the midst of that pain–even though I couldn’t see it then. It’s comforting to understand now how necessary that pain was, and how profoundly it contributed to who I am today.

But I also wanted to give you the backstory to this piece I wrote for ‘A Life Overseas.’ I wrote it on the plane as I was coming home from helping to facilitate the new missionary training. It was such a privilege to spend that time with about 40 new missionaries–many ages, many walks of life, headed to countries all over the globe. And I hope that the beginning won’t be as hard for them as it was for me. I know that even if it isn’t, it will still be hard. But I wanted them to know that it’s worth it.

I wrote the following piece through tears. Tears in remembering, but also tears of great thankfulness and joy. Because, oh, how it’s been worth it! That’s what I wish I could tell my 22-year-old self, sitting in candidate school. She had no idea how hard it would be. But I’m sure glad she didn’t give up.

Here’s an excerpt, but I hope you’ll read the whole thing. It expresses a great deal of how I feel about the last 15 years of missionary life.

Dear New Missionary,

It’s going to be hard. Really hard.

And it won’t just be the things you anticipate will be hard. Sure, there will be the bugs and you might hate your kitchen and driving might terrify you. You might cry because the potatoes are just not cooking right and you accidentally insult someone and no one speaks to you at your new church. Your kids might get a strange rash and you will buy the wrong medicine and you’ll wonder what on earth you were thinking to bring your family to this strange place.

Then there’s the fear. You won’t let your kids play outside without you; you’ll hold your purse a lot more tightly; you’ll worry about the pollution affecting your lungs. You’ll sleep a lot less soundly and get up at night just to check out the windows, one more time. It might feel like everyone is smirking at you behind your back. And you’ll wonder why you ever thought you could have an impact on this new place.

But then there will be the things you didn’t anticipate would be hard. Your sin won’t stay in your home country, in fact, it will seem to ooze out of you in buckets. Your team leader won’t have enough time for you, and you’ll feel left dangling, high and dry and bewildered. The poverty surrounding you will hang constant guilt around your neck. You will communicate like a two-year-old. You’ll lose your sense of self-respect. You won’t feel good at anything anymore.

You will, in essence, lose yourself. And it might feel like dying.

But, in that losing, you will find yourself. And in that dying, you will live.

Read the rest here.

When Missionaries Think They Know Everything

By Amy Medina

On July 8, 2017

In Other

I wrote this post for missionaries, but it’s a revision of something I wrote a few years ago, and it applies to anyone who is experiencing any kind of cross-cultural life (which really should describe almost everyone in the U.S.).

A few years ago, a video started making its way around my Facebook feed–shared by lots foreigners who live in my part of Africa. The video showed two African men shoveling sand. There was a very large pile of sand to their left. The two men were shoveling the sand into a wheelbarrow, filling it up, and then dumping it…two feet away.

The person filming this video obviously thought the men were complete idiots. “Watch this! Wait for it…wait for it…” she gleefully exclaimed. And when the men dumped out another wheelbarrow of sand just inches away, she could be heard bursting into giggles.

By the time I saw the video, it had over 13 million views and 300,000 shares by people who obviously thought the men’s idiocy was equally hilarious. I didn’t share it, but I had to admit that it did seem pretty amusing.

That is, I thought it was funny until two African friends set us all straight. They explained: While making concrete, in the absence of a cement mixer, a builder will use a wheelbarrow to measure. One part cement, two parts sand, three parts gravel. These men were not idiots. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were using the resources they had to do something that was actually quite rational.

Oh.

Oops.

I was terribly ashamed. Not just for myself, but for the millions of foreigners who come to Africa and think that we know everything. That one little video made me re-evaluate how I view my host country. It made me wonder how many other times I had the same attitude of condescension about something I knew nothing about.

There was a tag on that video: #TIA: “This is Africa.” This is a common hashtag in my part of the world, but foreigners often turn it into something demeaning. For example, “Spent all day waiting for my car to be fixed, and then realized they ‘fixed’ the wrong part. #TIA.”

But let’s step back a minute and take a look at that from a distance. What is “TIA” communicating in this instance? That everything always goes wrong in Africa? That no one knows how to fix anything? That we should have the expectation that everyone in Africa is an idiot? What would the mechanic think if he read it?

As Christian missionaries, it’s easy to assume that we are above this kind of behavior. After all, we’ve been vetted, interviewed, and scrutinized more than most people will be in their lifetime. We’re supposed to be godly, right? We’re supposed to love the nations, right? Missionaries could never be racist….right.

Call it racism, stereotyping, or ethnocentrism, but one thing we need to get really clear is that it dwells in all of our hearts in some form or another. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we really do think we know what’s best. Our way of doing things is really the most effective. Basically, I am better than you. Or at the very least, my culture is better than yours.

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Your Short-Term Trips Have Not Prepared You For Long-Term Missions

By Amy Medina

On June 14, 2017

In Thoughts on Short-Term Missions Trips

My monthly post from A Life Overseas……

I can still remember the random thoughts that shot through my head during my first couple of weeks as an adult long-term missionary. Wait, what? There’s nothing planned for us today? So what are we supposed to do? Hey, when is someone going to take us souvenir shopping? I was really looking forward to that! Why is no one telling me what to do with the trash? What am I supposed to do with it? Why is no one telling me what to do about anything?

I caught myself many times. No, Amy, you live here now. This is not a short-term trip. I knew that, of course, especially since I had been an MK. But it was weird how my short-term trips had programmed my brain with certain expectations.

This is not a post about the good or the bad of short-term missions (STM), or how to do them well. This is a post about the limits of STM trips as preparation for long-term missions.

These days, just about every long-term missionary has been on at least one STM. Of course, many long-term missionaries choose that life because of a short-term trip—which is a wonderful thing indeed. But what is often not discussed is how different long-term missions is compared to short-term trips. And sometimes, those misplaced expectations can actually make a long-term missionary’s transition even harder.

So if you are headed for long-term missions after a series of short trips, what differences should you expect? Here are four things to consider.

1. No one is going to hold your hand. STM trips, when done well, are carefully controlled. Your entire schedule, down to when and what you will eat, when and where you will sleep, and how you will spend all of your time, have been decided for you. You might not even get to handle local money yourself.

So when you arrive on the ground as a long-term missionary, it might come as a shock that you will be more or less on your own. If you’re lucky, there might be a few missionaries who will show you around and get you oriented. But they will be busy, and you will find yourself thrown in the deep end a lot sooner than you wanted. It might be scary and overwhelming and not nearly as fun as your short-term trip.

2. Daily life is not all ministry; in fact, most of it isn’t. My husband remembers his first STM trip when he was in college, and the shock he experienced when he realized that his host missionaries not only watched television regularly, but they had cable. What? Missionaries need rest? On STM trips, you might joyfully work 12-hour days and fall into your sleeping bag at night feeling smugly satisfied with all you accomplished.

But as a long-term missionary, you might waste 5 hours driving all over town, looking for the right-sized lightbulb. Or you might spend all day in the immigration line. You can go whole days where all your time is consumed by figuring out how to just live, and you think, Ministry? What’s that? On top of that, you’ll soon discover that burn out comes really quickly if you don’t allow some downtime into your life. Even if that means getting cable.

3. True results take a long, long, long (long!) time. When you went on that STM trip, you may have been ecstatic to see the kids who raised their hand at the VBS. One of the best moments of your life might have been when the poor family stepped into the new home you built for them. And you will never forget the party that broke out in the village when they witnessed the well you paid for. But a few days later, you got on a plane and left. You weren’t there to notice that the VBS kids never showed up at church again. You didn’t see the poor family get pushed out of their brand new home by an older relative. Six months after the well was built, you weren’t there to see it broken and rusting.

But when you sign up for long-term service, those disappointments become your reality. And if you’re expecting quick, easy, fabulous success stories, you’re not going to last very long in your new country. You’ve got to start your new life with your teeth clenched in determination, with lots of grit, and humble, long-term perseverance.

There’s more….click hereto read the rest.

Visiting Home Might Not Be Everything You Dreamed

By Amy Medina

On May 20, 2017

In Other

I struggled with knowing whether I should share this post here, because I wrote it for missionaries. To anyone else, it might sound whiny or cynical. But if you’re friends with missionaries (or any overseas worker), this might be helpful for you. It may sound strange, but coming home can be just as difficult as adjusting to a new country. I hope this may give you a glimpse into what it can be like.

Visiting Home Might Not Be Everything You Dreamed

When I’m overseas, I dream about Target. Everything I need, all in one place, at reasonable prices! So when our furlough started a month ago, I visited Target the day after I arrived.

We’ve been missionaries for 13 years, so I should know better by now. Target’s awesomeness can be a little too much to take in just 48 hours after leaving East Africa. I was instantly bombarded with hordes of conflicting emotions. Wow, it’s all so amazing! Look at all this stuff! Yeah, what’s wrong with Americans? Why are they so materialistic? That one pair of shoes could feed a family for a week in Tanzania. And in just a couple of years, all these clothes will be cast off and end up in some market in Africa. So why should I even bother shopping for them now? Oooohhh….but I really like that blouse.

Emotional whiplash. I couldn’t keep up.

And then when I finally did finish shopping, I felt like an idiot as the clerk tried to help me use the chip card machine. Shoot, I thought I was doing well by just remembering how to use a credit card, and then they go and change all the rules on me! “Sorry,” I mumbled to her. “I’ve been living overseas a really long time.”

Ah, going home. We dream about it. We long for it. We count the days until take off. But when it finally arrives, the reality just doesn’t match up. And we find ourselves in the midst of adjusting, all over again, to a place that we thought would feel like home. We find ourselves struggling with disillusionment and discouragement.

So why can visiting home feel so hard? Here are some thoughts.

People move on. When you leave home for a just a few weeks or months, it’s easy to slip back into the same routines of life. Friends, social events, and jobs all come back together just as they were before—just with more stories to tell. But when you leave for years, life goes on without you. In your mind, time stood still back at home, but in reality, your friends have gone through hard stuff and happy stuff, and you were not there to experience with them. And all those people who sent you overseas with much fanfare? They are a lot busier now, and might forget to roll out that red carpet you expected.

You are a different person. Spending years in a different country changes you. You’ve adapted to new ways of speaking, interacting, shopping, sleeping, and raising kids. There are literally new pathways in your brain. It’s not so easy to just drop all of that on a 14 hour flight and expect to become the same person you once were when you get back home. You are not going to see the world the same way ever again.

Read the rest hereat A Life Overseas.