My letter to future goers:
Taking two years of your life to move to a new country and serve people in the name of God is no small matter. Here are some things I wish someone would have told me before I moved halfway across the world.
Start by doing your research. I don’t just mean googling the easy things to find about your host country. Try to find a local in your hometown from that country and take them to coffee. Start reading books by people from the area to which you are moving. There is no better way to learn about the culture than hearing the voices of those who have lived there and are different than you. Make the effort to read a book written by a local from the country to which you are moving, at least once a month until you leave.
Next, do some deep internal work about what is means to be from your culture and the power that holds. For example, regarding passports, to where you are traveling does not matter as much as from where you are coming. Holding an American passport means you are roughly able to travel to 160 countries without a visa. America only accepts people from around 27 countries without a visa. Most of the missionaries that come from America are white. Find out if the country to where you are moving was colonized by white people and if and how has race been used to harm people. Remember, over the next two years you will have to do things that might be uncomfortable to you in order to make locals feel conformable. This means making scarifies in order to win people for the gospel.
While you are serving overseas you will probably be sending email updates to your family and supporters. Start now to think about how can you honor the people in your host country through your email updates. Make sure you do not use their poverty to make your mission look better and do some research about ethical story telling. Get in the habit of asking permission to use people’s photos and stories.
Let’s be honest you probably need your new host’s country more than it will ever need you. Every day in this new country should be viewed as a gift. At any time, foreign relations could change, you must know that your time there could end abruptly. Think about finding locals in the area who could be doing what you are doing and how you could empower and train local leaders to do the same work.
Be prepared that after your two years is over, you will never be sure where your home is. When people ask you where you live, you will not know how to answer. You will not know whether to give them your address in your new host country or do say the address to which your accent belongs. It’s important to know when you return to America, your birth home will feel a bit strange and foreign to you.
This is not intended to scare you into not going, but instead is a way to prepare you. The bottom line is if God is calling you to go, you MUST go. No matter how difficult the choice is. No matter how scared you are of the change. Make sure you go with a humble attitude and an educated mind. Serving overseas is a tremendous privilege - it really is. It’s a massive mixture of pain and joy that I wouldn’t trade for the world. If you choose to go, I hope God will give you the opportunity to go. I’ll be cheering for you.
Click here to read my blogs for the past two year: https://us17.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=274daf5c4dfad4398c2dc2442&id=2019efc0d6