COLORADO

Serving as missionaries in Bolivia was a wonderful experience, but of course it was not stress-free. We faced stress from life events (moving internationally with kids), daily hassles (strikes, random outages of  electricity/water/gas/shortages of certain foods), situational factors (rainy/dry season), traumatic events (Micah's birth), and personality (time-oriented people in a event-focused culture), just to name a few!

As a part of our transition from life in Bolivia to life in the United States, FH encouraged our participation in a missionary debriefing and renewal program in Colorado designed to help returning missionaries reflect on our experiences, to take a "critical pause" during a time of many changes, and to prepare for the next chapter of our lives.

Here is a list of some of the basic stresses that missionaries face:

-learning a new language
-being away from family
-illnesses and limited medical help
-difference in sanitation
-constant moving
-loneliness
-different foods
-worries about finances
-adjusting to new coworkers
-cross-cultural work setting
-new job responsibilities
-physical danger
-change in climate
-concerns for supporters "back home"
-giving up a hobby or recreational activity
-limited privacy
-feeling a lack of purpose or effectiveness
-concerns about the mission
-marriage stressors
-concerns for the adjustment of children into a new situation

We were grateful for the opportunity to attend debriefing sessions with missionaries from around the world who have faced similiar stresses and understand what we're going through as we transition out of life in the developing world. We were able to process our thoughts with trained professionals, study examples from the Word, and consider how to seek balance in our lives.

A few things we learned from our studies that may encourage you today as well:

1. God comes alongside us during our hardships.

2. Passages in the New Testament that teach about comfort and suffering also describe patient endurance and perseverance.

3. Paul was a person who was doing exactly what he felt that God wanted him to do and he still suffered. He had to have asked himself "Why me?" Paul's writings show us that he believed that he was growing and becoming more reliant on God through his sufferings. Am I willing to allow my own painful experience to help me to grow in my faith and depend more on God and less on myself?