· Your Sending Church. If you do not feel like you have a sending church, ask a church to play that role for you. Tell them you want to be “their missionary,” and ask for care from them. You may even want a coalition of churches geographically near each other to be your “sending church” and furlough in their area. Tell them that re-entry and furlough are difficult, and you want their help especially during that time. Tell them that you need letters and phone calls while on the field; then tell them when you are getting too much e-mail so that they will not expect immediate, personal replies.
· Other Missionaries. Form support groups with others on your field in your agency or nearby. Meet regularly for Bible study, prayer, and general care for each other. Form accountability relationships with two or three others.
· Your Agency. Tell your administrators when you need care. Ask them to find someone to give you regular pastoral care if they do not already have someone playing that role.
· Member Care Specialists. Some organizations specialize in supplying on-field care for missionaries. This may involve a cost, or the care may be free. Other organizations provide care in sending countries, places where you can temporarily withdraw from the battle and receive help from mental health professionals.
More information about member care is at http://www.missionarycare.com/brochures/br_membercare.htm.
Reentry
As missionaries approach the end of their time of service, they are excited about going “home” to the country and church that sent them to another culture as a missionary. Of course, they will miss the people they have been ministering to while they have been in their host country, but they begin to daydream about what it will be like to be greeted by friends and family when they arrive home.
This is usual for everyone who has been away from home a while. However, many times missionaries’ expectations are so high that they experience high re-entry stress. When they get “home,” you may find themselves feeling lonely, isolated, disillusioned, misunderstood, depressed and irritated with people back home as well as with their own culture. Therefore missionaries should look at how they can prevent some of these feelings by leaving well, entering well, and being aware of some of the pitfalls in going home.
Leaving Well. One of the things that may increase re-entry stress is not leaving the mission field correctly. The last part of Acts 20 gives us a good example of missionaries leaving well. Paul had spent three years in Ephesus and was headed back to his passport country and headquarters in Jerusalem. Dave Pollock is fond of saying that to leave well persons should build a “RAFT.” How did Paul fulfill that acronym?
· Reconciliation. When leaving, you may try to deal with tensions in relationships by ignoring them, hoping they will just disappear. However, they do not. We carry them inside, and they interfere with new relationships. If we ever spend time with the other party again, the tensions will still be there and even harder to settle. Paul reminded the Ephesian elders how he had lived among them the whole time he was there and that he never even took support from them but was always giving.
· Affirmation. Let others know how you respect and appreciate them by telling them how important their friendship has been and how you enjoyed working with them. As you acknowledge how people have blessed you, you will become aware of what you have gained. Paul commits the Ephesians to God’s grace and warns them of potential difficulties.
· Farewells. Say good-bye to people, pets, places, and possessions. Take pictures and small reminders of the good things that have happened to you. After Paul was done speaking, they all prayed, wept, embraced, kissed, went to the ship, and tore themselves away.
· Think destination. While saying your good-byes, begin thinking realistically about where you are going. Think of it as a visit to the place you used to call home and imagine realistically what it will be like there. Paul wanted to be in Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost, but he also realized that there were hardships facing him there.
One thing that is particularly difficult is being forced to leave the field before missionaries really want to. This can be because of health problems in the missionary or family members, difficulty with a teenager, and a host of other things. In such cases feelings of failure, depression, discouragement, resentment, and guilt may surface. In such cases it helps to acknowledge grief, face present realities, draw a healthy line on the past, and commit to the present task.
Traveling. Airplanes are wonderful for getting home in a hurry, but they provide little time to “leave” a host country in an individual’s thinking. There is little time to grieve losses and anticipate arrival when flying home, and sometimes people are still “traveling” in their thinking even when their bodies have arrived back home. In one sense many people are still transitioning for several days or weeks after they arrive home. They unpack their suitcases long before they unpack their minds.
Although Paul was in a hurry to leave to get home in time, he had time to think as he traveled. Remember that he was covering more than 600 miles by ship at the mercy of the winds, and he had to make a “connection” (find another ship headed his way) after the first 200 miles. People back home may not understand and think it is extravagant, but a week in Hawaii or in Europe on the way home is a good way to transition more effectively.
Re-Entering Well. Of course, the first steps to re-entering well are to build a good RAFT and allow some time to transition on the way home. Then missionaries can find out if their expectations are realistic or not. Their expectations form the basis for evaluating everything back home, and everyone has expectations even if they deny them.
Unfortunately expectations may be based on what was true one, two or four years ago. However, during that time everything has changed—individuals, their friends and family, their church, and their culture.
· You have changed. Before you left, you drove your car to the corner store, threw away food, and discarded plastic bags without thinking. Now you walk half a mile, take food home from the restaurant, and hoard bags. Paul had changed, and he told the people in his passport country about persecuting followers of the Way, being struck blind on the road, and then being sent to the Gentiles (Acts 22)
· Your friends and family have changed. You used to belong to the group, know where you fit with everyone, and friends confided in you and listened to you. While you were gone, new people came into the group, and your friends are involved in different activities. You now feel like a marginal person, do not understand the jokes others laugh at, and misinterpret some of the things they say and do.
· Your church has changed. When you left, it may have seemed to be such a mission-minded church, but now no one seems very interested in missions. When you try to talk about your mission experience, people may listen politely for a few minutes, then launch into an excited conversation about how the local football team is doing. When Paul came home from his first term (Acts 15) of missionary service, people from the church maintained that his converts were not saved. At the end of Paul’s third term (Acts 22) people in his own denomination were excited. However, when he went to the big church in town, the people basically listened politely until he mentioned his missionary call; then they called for his death.
· Your culture has changed. Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock to point out that cultures now change so fast that even the people living in them can barely keep up with the changes. People gone for several years often return to a culture quite different from the one they left. Something as simple as walking into a store and buying something can be overwhelming.
More information about Reentry is at http://www.missionarycare.com/brochures/br_reentry.htm.
Debriefing
Some may say, “I already know about debriefing because I’ve been through it several times. As I left for home, the field director asked me to rate the adequacy of my housing, whether or not I felt overworked, how my kids got along in school, how many people came to Christ under my ministry… Then I did nearly the same thing again at headquarters with someone there.”
That is one kind of debrief, an organizational debrief. That is necessary for the agency to gather information, and it is done primarily for the good of the agency. However, even more important is a personal debrief, one done primarily for the person’s own good. This debrief may be done individually or as part of a group of people who have been through similar experiences, such as a traumatic experience or returning to a passport country. It is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of personal experiences as well as changes within one’s personal life and that of his/her family.
Jonah, an early cross-cultural missionary, had just been part of a city-wide revival in Nineveh, but he was filled with anger. God himself debriefed Jonah, asking him, “Do you have a right to be angry?” Jonah apparently did not reply but went off to sulk a while. After more things went wrong, God again asked, “Do you have a right to be angry?” This time Jonah finally let all his anger out so that God and he could deal with it together.
Of course, debriefing is also good after a great experience. When the 72 returned from their evangelistic campaign (Luke 10:17), they were filled with joy and enthusiastic that even the demons had submitted. At this point, Jesus cautioned them not to get carried away with the power they had experienced, but with the fact that their names were written in heaven.
Why Debrief? This personal debrief is particularly helpful in times of crisis or transition to help bring closure to an earlier chapter in life and to help leave behind any emotional “baggage” that accumulated during that time. The debriefing time helps missionaries do three things.
· Verbalize. Expressing thoughts and feelings verbally clarifies both. As you talk with others, you may find that you do not like what you hear yourself saying.
· Normalize. Whether in a group or with someone who understands your situation, you are likely to find that you are not alone in what you think and feel. You will come to realize that such thoughts and feelings are normal, that others have the same ones.
· Contextualize. A good debrief helps you put your experiences into the context of your life. You can relate those experiences to earlier events in your life and see how God is using them to prepare you for the future.
Missionaries may not be angry like Jonah was, but their experience may have left them frightened, discouraged, exhausted, emotionally drained, or any number of things. Here are several questions that will help.
Where are you? God asked this question of the man in the garden in Genesis 3:9. Since God knew where the man was, why ask the question? To get the man to express where he was—not where he was geographically, but where he was psychologically and spiritually. Note that the man answers by telling what he experienced (heard God), what he felt (was afraid), and what he did (hid).
Ask yourself the following BASIC questions.
· Behaviorally. Are your actions what you want them to be?
· Affectively. Are you satisfied with your feelings, your emotions?
· Spiritually. Is your relationship with God alive and growing?
· Interpersonally. Are your relationships with your family and/or colleagues positive?
· Cognitively. Can you concentrate, thinking clearly and logically?
What have you done? God asked this question of the woman in the garden in Genesis 3:13. As with the man, God knew what the woman had done. However, he wanted her to say it, to confess. She did, but she blamed the serpent for her wrong actions. If people have done bad things, God wants repentance, not rationalization or projection.
In Luke 9:10 we find the apostles returning from their first short-term evangelistic assignment and reporting to Jesus what they had done, good things. Again, Jesus did not stop them from reporting what had happened because it was good for them to talk, to verbalize it. It was also good for them to hear what the others had to report as well, to normalize their own experiences.
After the first long-term cross-cultural missionary assignment, Paul and Barnabas told their sending church and other churches they visited on the way to Jerusalem about the conversions taking place under their ministry (Acts 14:27; 15:3).
Where have you been? An angel asked Hagar, “Where have you come from?” (Genesis 16:8). The angel was not puzzled about finding this woman along a road in the desert and was not simply wondering what village she was from. The angel wanted Hagar to know where she had been emotionally, and Hagar realized that.
Hagar replied, “I am running away from…” Sometimes missionaries run away from people who mistreat them when they try to help. In fact, it is often those people help the most that turn on them and hurt them the most.
After missionaries have talked about their experience, they may find that sometimes God wants them to shake the dust off their feet and leave, and at other times he will say, “Go back….and submit,” as the angel told Hagar. However, God always wants verbalization (confession) and submission it to him.
As people think about where they have been, they need to consider how these past events fit in with their life story. How is God using them to make them into the persons he wants them to be?
Where are you going? The angel went on to ask Hagar, “Where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8). Hagar did not even attempt to answer this question. However, the angel told Hagar where she should go and what she should do. Hagar obeyed.
At the end of Acts 15 Paul suggested to Barnabas that they return to the towns they had visited on their first term of missionary service to see how their converts were doing. Paul had some ideas about who to take, where to go, and what to do. However, as you know, the future was dramatically different. He took Silas, went to Europe, and planted more churches.
It is good for us to think about where we are going and make plans for the future, but we must remain open to other plans God may have for us. If he wants us elsewhere doing other things, he will stop us. Then he will send us to a different place to do something different. In chapter 16 the Holy Spirit stopped Paul from going particular places and gave him a vision of where he was to go.
What has God done with you? This question is not one we find directly asked by anyone in Scripture, but it is a question we find returning missionaries answering to particular groups.
· When Paul and Barnabas returned to their sending church at the end of their first term of missionary service, they “reported all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27). During missionary service God works in people’s lives and changes them. The Greek word “meta” is used hundreds of times in the New Testament and is the simple word for “with.” Just as Jeremiah talks about what the potter does with the clay, we need to become aware of what God has done with us. (Unfortunately, a few modern translations have translated “meta” as “through,” but it basically means “with.”)
· When Paul and Barnabas reached Jerusalem, they again “reported all that God had done with them” (Acts 15: 4). They had seen God work and were firmly convinced that anyone could be saved by grace, even without following all the Jewish customs.
Note that Paul and Barnabas reported this to their sending church and to the leaders at headquarters, but they did not report this to the people in the churches they visited along the way. Some things are better shared only with others who understand what God does with people who serve him in other cultures.
More information about debriefing is at http://www.missionarycare.com/brochures/br_debriefing.htm.
Conclusion
Mental health fits into our Christian perspective right opposite physical health. Since it involves mental processes, it fits well under the Godlike aspects of human beings.
The leading systems of psychology have all developed theories of personality to show how all aspects of persons are interrelated. These theories serve to explain behavior, both normal and abnormal. In addition, they suggest ways to help cure psychological disorders when people display abnormal behavior.
Psychologists and counselors who hold all of these theories provide member care. It is often confusing to know which kind of therapist to see, but it is good to know that most people holding these positions are helpful. The major variable seems to be finding someone in whom individuals have confidence and in whom they can confide.