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The Cross Cultural Fishbowl

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Did you feel like you were living in a fishbowl while you were preparing for overseas service? Your board seemed to look over your shoulder at every move. Potential supporters felt they had the right to know all about your prospective work. Although that was uncomfortable, nothing can really prepare you for the shock of cross cultural fishbowl life.

Now people are curious and seem critical of every aspect of your life. At home you knew what questions people were likely to ask. Overseas you cannot even imagine how they will expect you to think, speak, and act. After 22 years of experience on our field, I am still amazed from time to time by the scrutiny of our lives by the nationals.

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Battle Against Fear

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Crashing like a tsunami wave, choking like tough kudzu vines, or seeping in like fumes through the cracks; fear comes. Whether young or old, home or overseas, rich or poor, healthy or ill none of us is exempt from fear.

All kinds of situations can open the door to fear. A scary diagnosis can seemingly wipe out every support we trusted in. Rumors of political unrest can tie us up with fear. Our own doubts fill our heart insidiously with fear.

After the door is open, then our thoughts become frantic. We make unnecessary contingency plans. We fight phantoms all day. Resources for our important activities become exhausted, and we find ourselves irritable with others. We examine ourselves minutely trying to understand why this is happening to us. The result–Isolation on Terror Island.

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PWs Sharing and Caring

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My husband and I just returned from a wonderful conference in Budapest designed for educational support for those serving in the Europe, Russia and Central Asia. While there, I led two workshops for the ladies. One was on understanding our roles when working overseas, and the other on helping our children feel at home in their host culture.

I would like to take time to write whole articles on these topics, but for now, I’ll just give you the highlights. Think about these points and if you have some thoughts, please email me and I’ll use your ideas, when I write longer articles sometime later. [Read more…]

Love That Builds

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It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate love. So it’s a good time to think about our husband and our home. At Valentine’s Day we usually think about romance, gifts, or special meals. But instead, let’s look at the atmosphere of our home. Is it a peaceful, joyful, welcoming place for our husband? What can we do to make it a refuge and a place full of love? If Valentine’s Day is about gifts of love, this could be the best gift of all.

Proverbs 14:1 tells us, “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.”

There are many ways we can build our home. When we dust and clean and declutter, we make our home pleasant. When we cook nutritious and appetizing meals, we make our home satisfying. But we can do more than chores to build our home. The attitudes we practice affect the atmosphere.

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