Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Living Simply and Humbly in Ministry
By Samantha Baker Evens
August 2009
Conclusion
The role of the mission agency and missionary leadership on the field in most circumstances is less to legislate than to set a vision and to help the missionary family in making decisions while they are still young in the culture. Often, I have found that when I am welcoming new missionaries I have a desire to “soften the blow” and try to make cross-cultural adjustment easier for them than it was for me by inviting them over for Western meals, DVDs, or setting up their household for them.
Other missionaries I have seen have the opposite reaction and take on a “it-was-tougher-in-my-day-so-what-are-they-complaining-about” attitude. Neither is helpful to the new missionary. As leaders, our primary goal for first-term missionaries is to give them every chance to bond with the host culture, acknowledging that it will be difficult no matter what we do and that they do not need to have the same experience that we had, while offering lots of grace in the process.
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Helpful Resources: Althen, Gary, Amanda R. Doran, and Susan J. Szmania. 2002. American Ways: A Guide for Foreigners Living in the United States. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Intercultural Press. Bonk, Jonathan J. 2007. Missions and Money: Affluence as a Missionary Problem…revisited. Maryknoll, New York, USA: Orbis. Brewster, E. Thomas and Elizabeth S. Brewster. 1982. Bonding and the Missionary Task. Pasadena, California, USA: Lingua House. |
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Samantha Baker Evens has been a member of the InnerCHANGE community for the last eleven years in San Francisco, Australia, and (currently) Cambodia. She is married to Chris and has two small sons. |