Bonnie (my wife) and I have spent many hours facilitating two-day reentry retreats with hundreds of missionaries returning to their passport countries from their years of service in other cultures. We have also met with scores of others as individuals or couples in one-day debriefing sessions. As a result of doing this we have written several books about the reentry transition, books to help missionaries prepare for their transition and to become a part of their passport cultures again, as well as books for children and their parents and for people who have served short-term.
We have been part of orientation programs for hundreds of missionaries as they prepared for the transition from their passport culture to their host culture. We have visited and talked with hundreds of other missionaries ranging from those serving in countries that are open to the gospel to those serving in countries where they can never use the word “missionary.” We have also talked with missionaries who have returned to their passport country to work there or to retire there. In all these situations, we have found that missionaries repeatedly go through transition after transition. As a result of these experiences, I have written many short brochures about these transitions.
This book contains material from, and references to, these books and brochures as well as new material written specifically for this book. I strongly recommend reading the introduction first. After that, the chapters may be read in any order because each one stands alone. The book is written in the order missionaries face transitions through their lives, but each chapter is independent of the others.
Of course, everyone goes through transitions in life, but missionaries have major specific transitions added to the general ones that everyone experiences. Leaving one’s passport culture and living in a different host culture for several years, perhaps indefinitely, brings major changes in all areas of life. Leaving that host culture and returning to one’s passport culture makes more changes, some unexpected. A glance at the contents shows that this book is primarily organized around changing cultures. Then its secondary organization is about smaller transitions within these major ones of changing cultures.
Short-term missionaries and people who work for mission agencies while living in their passport culture are welcome to read the book if they wish. However, most short-term missions are not transitions between cultures but more like intermissions between parts of a continuing life. Many people on short-term mission trips never get out of vacation mode and never fully enter another culture. Of course, sometimes a short-term trip leads to beginning the transition into becoming a long-term missionary.
The material in this book is most relevant for long-term missionaries, but people serving short-term may find some things helpful to them.
I want to acknowledge the invaluable help of two people editing this book. Art Nonneman gave excellent suggestions chapter by chapter related to the content of the book, and Yvonne Moulton did the final editing, making sure that my grammar, punctuation, and so forth were corrected.