Cross-Cultural Living

Ten Reasons You Should Be a Missionary

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by Jonathan

 

10. You’ll get to try new things, like typhoid fever and amoebas.

No worries. Even if you’re the most vaccinated person you know, you just might get sick.  On the bright side, most of the time your illnesses will sound cool. And cool illnesses make people pray more.

But note: ulcers are not cool. If you get an ulcer, don’t tell anyone. Ulcers are too American.

Oh, and make sure your kids know how great all these new things are too. I was hanging out at an international high school once and overheard a kid say something about a student who was absent. He nonchalantly said, “Oh, he’s not here; he has an amoeba.” I wanted to grab the kid by the collar and say, “You know that’s not a normal sentence, right?”

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On Your High School Graduation: A Letter to My Third Culture Kids

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by Elizabeth

I’ve been watching parents in the international community say goodbye to their graduating seniors for a while now. I’ve been watching the seniors themselves say goodbye to their friends – fellow third culture kids like themselves.

Watching these parental goodbyes feels like a knife in my chest. I have to stop myself from thinking about it just so I can breathe again. Because I know that will be me, someday, saying goodbye to you.

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How to Transition to the Foreign Field and not Croak: Six Essential Steps

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by Elizabeth

I believe if a missionary family is happy and healthy, they will be more sustainable in the long-term. I also believe that the key to happy and healthy missionaries is preparation. One of the things I’ve learned these past two years is that there is a lot of heartache among cross-cultural workers. After a while, I noticed that often, people’s heartache had common characteristics, and could have been addressed before arriving on the field.

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The First Two Years Were Good (Or, How Missionary Life is Like Birth)

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-by Elizabeth

I’ll board a jet plane to go back to America soon, for the first time since January 2012. Over the past twenty-two months that I’ve lived in Cambodia, I’ve filled this blog with ups and downs (or, “yays and yucks,” if you prefer). But as I’ve prepared to return “home,” I’ve asked myself, what is my overall analysis of those ups and downs? In the end, which wins out? The good, or the bad?

So I listed all the positive and negative things from my life in Cambodia and compared them. What I found in that list was that, in the final evaluation of this term, the good things won out. And here’s why:

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Why Furlough is Sort of Like Dying

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When you're only three feet tall, the whole airplane is first class. Only cheaper.

When you’re only three feet tall, the whole airplane is first class. But cheaper.

by Jonathan –

After living in Cambodia for nearly two years, we’re preparing for our first Furlough/Home Assignment/Flee the Field, or whatever it is your people call it. We’ll only be in the States for two and half months, but still, I’ve noticed a sort of odd feeling. A premonition that something’s about to die. Oh yeah, it’s my first term.

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