Velvet Ashes

10 Ways to Survive Your First Year Overseas

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by Elizabeth

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I worked at a lot of summer camps before moving overseas. Camp work is hot, sweaty, and tiring, and I always loved that last shower before “lights out.” So before moving overseas, I told my husband that I’d be able to handle anything during the day in Cambodia as long as I had a clean shower and clean bed at night (with a fan!).

And for the most part, that’s been true. Besides the nightly shower, however, I’ve picked up a few other survival skills from my first year overseas. My best advice still lies in the Preparation Phase, but today I want to share tips you can use once you get to the field. Here they are:

1. Figure out your Absolute Necessities, and do whatever you can to install them in your home or in your life. For myself, I needed curtains in my bedroom and gates on my stairs. I had to be able to dress and undress in private, as well as spend time with my husband in private. I needed curtains pronto! Thankfully a friend supplied me some hand-me-down curtains three weeks in to our Cambodia adventure. They may or may not have matched my sheets, but they gave me the privacy I needed.

A close second for me was the safety gates on our treacherously steep concrete Asian stairs (for my then one-year-old), obtained five weeks in to Cambodia life. Those were my Absolute Necessities. You may need something different. Certain kitchen equipment, perhaps. The point is, figure out your two or three Absolute Necessities, and obtain them if at all possible.

2. Funny YouTube clips are your best friend. Some weeks it was all I could do to get to Friday, when my husband and I would watch Fail Blogs on YouTube. Another favorite was Mitch Hedberg (FYI his language is sometimes questionable).

We’re big fans of Brian Regan’s “I Walked on the Moon” (mostly clean, with occasional bad words). And of course who can’t help loving Jim Gaffigan (also mostly clean, with even fewer bad words)? We loved NFL Bad Lip Reading, but buyer beware: a lot of Bad Lip Reading videos are not kid-friendly.

3. Find spiritual nourishment. I can’t tell you enough how much I love our international church and the spiritual food I receive there. But I know not everyone lives in a city that offers English-speaking church services like I do. Nowadays, though, overseas workers have access to sermons and podcasts on the internet. My husband, for example, likes listening to Andy Stanley sermons. Figure out which teachers feed you, and set aside some time to listen.

We all need to worship God in song, so if you don’t have access to worship services in your heart language, remember you can purchase worship music on iTunes (artists like Bethel, Hillsong, and Matt Redman are some of my favorites). I know some of this depends on your internet quality and won’t work for absolutely everyone at all times; still, it’s an improvement in resource availability over times past.

And don’t forget your own personal morning quiet time – it’s worked wonders in my life. So no matter what your options are, I do believe you can find the spiritual nourishment that you crave and that you need. You just might have to be creative about it.

4. Closely related to spiritual nourishment is finding community. You might be able to find that at an international church or on your team, as I’ve been thrilled to find. (Although I personally have had to guard against being oversocialized.) Finding community might be trickier for you if you live in a really remote place, with few other workers.

One of the best things you can do is pray for God to bring you a kindred spirit or two. Yes, the goodbyes hurt, and sometimes God brings people into our lives only for a season, but I do believe God answers our prayers for friends. Sometimes we have to get creative in our search for community as well, and another option is online community. Velvet Ashes and A Life Overseas are two options for Christian expats.

If you’re married, it’s far too easy to forget that you and your spouse can provide built-in community for each other — but that only happens when you spend time together. Maybe there’s no money to go out anywhere, or nowhere to go out, or maybe you don’t yet have babysitters you trust. You can still have coffee at home. You can still put the kids to bed early. You can still find fellowship with each other; in fact friendship is a vital part of a thriving marriage. Our first year we went up to our roof after our kids’ bedtime a couple times a week, looking out over our city and just talking to each other. It was peaceful and bonding, and I cherish those memories.

5. Your old coping mechanisms might not work at first. Don’t sweat it too much. I love to read, but my mind was too tired from language learning and culture acquisition to read much that first year. I’ve had other friends whose beloved piano playing went by the wayside their first year. Don’t lose heart – these things will come back later, when your brain isn’t so tired from the onslaught of culture and language.

6. Your body and mind may feel weaker than ever. Take care of them. You’ll probably get sick with strange illnesses. (The first two years are the worst for that, until your body adjusts.) But I’m not just talking about illnesses here. Before I moved overseas, I’d never struggled with mood swings, due to either hormonal shifts or low blood sugar. Now I deal with both, and not only do I need to be aware of them, but I have to be diligent in alleviating my symptoms.

Living cross-culturally (especially in a developing country or a very hot country) drains your body of its resources. So you’ll have to feed and water it regularly. You’ll need to de-worm regularly, take your vitamins, go to bed at a good time, and exercise. Exercise is not a coping mechanism you can afford to relinquish. You may have to get creative for this one too. A lot of people don’t like using videos for exercise (you can access a lot online if you don’t already own some), but if you don’t have access to a gym or decent running paths, you may be forced to exercise in your home.

7. Fall in love with something in your host country. In the beginning it’s too easy to love everything or to hate everything. But as with everything in life, the truth about your country is probably somewhere in between, a mixture of both good and bad. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered God in a sunset or a palm tree, in a rice field or a painted sky. When I need a reason for why I stay in a dirty, stinky, crowded city, I simply go to my roof and meet God in the clouds and banana leaves. You won’t be able to love everything where you live, but if you want to stay, you can’t afford to hate everything, either.

8. Some days you’ll only be able to accomplish one thing. You might feel like a failure for that, but you need to celebrate that one thing. You might not be able to shop for furniture and groceries in the same day, and that’s OK. You can always try again tomorrow with something else. You’ll get more efficient at this life, and eventually daily living won’t wear you out so much. You need to give yourself this grace. And you’ll need to continue giving yourself that grace, because to a certain degree, living cross-culturally will always wear you out more than living in your passport country.

9. If you home school your children, don’t be afraid to drop it for 3-6 months. Your kids will be ok, I promise. I didn’t believe that at first, either, even when my missions coach assured me of it. But she was right; it turned out ok. Not only does it save you sanity (it’s hard to home school kids and study language at the same time) but your kids really do catch up later. Plus, they need to adjust to overseas life, too. We don’t want to overload our kids with too many expectations.

10. And returning to my first point, if all else fails, don’t be afraid to put yourself in time out in the shower. Go to bed early. You can try again tomorrow! Grace grace grace. You’re gonna need to give yourself a lot of it this year, so just starting doling it out now.

Jesus Loves Me, This I Sometimes Know {Velvet Ashes}

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This article by Elizabeth was originally published at Velvet Ashes, and is reprinted here in full, with permission.

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I used to think trusting God meant trusting Him for the circumstances of my life. I used to think it meant trusting God for my future. But this past year God has completely overhauled my understanding of Trust.

I’m married to a man who has all the gifts. Seriously. You name it, he’s got it. And as he and his gifts have grown more public these past few years, I began to believe nobody valued my gifts or even noticed them. Nobody saw me, I told myself; they only saw him. I convinced myself the world didn’t want anything I had to offer; they only wanted what he had to offer.

I felt myself disappearing, fading into nothingness. Very soon, I told myself, I would be invisible. Am I important? Do I matter? Does anybody see me, truly see me? In agony I flung these questions into the cosmos, only to have them answered time and again with a resounding NO. No, you’re not seen; no, you don’t matter; no, you’re not important.

I was certain the problem was my marriage. If only I weren’t married to such a massively talented man, I wouldn’t feel this way. If only he would stop shining, I would feel better about myself. I accused him of erasing me and told him I wanted to die. We kept repeating the same irrational conversations.

Then one Sunday last fall I awoke with the sudden realization that the bitterness I held toward my husband was actually directed at God. None of this was my husband’s fault — it was God’s. He was the One who hadn’t given me the desirable gifts. He was the One who was withholding from me. This was no longer about my marriage: it was about my trust in God’s goodness.

Why does the Giver of gifts seem to pick favorites? Why are some people more highly favored? If God loves us all equally, why are His blessings so unequal? Since (by my reckoning) God hadn’t given me the good gifts, I concluded that He must not love me.

That sounds ridiculous, I know. Learning that Jesus loves us is one of the first things we do in Sunday school. When we belt out Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, we’re supposed to believe it. Except here I was, and I didn’t believe it.

I prayed a half-hearted prayer: God, please, meet me at church today. I’m not even sure I meant it. Then at church the speaker began talking about how God doesn’t pick favorites. From my seat I remember hearing, “He doesn’t like Ernie more than Ann.” I looked up in astonishment and told God, I think You just answered my prayer.

God had spoken to my mind that morning, but my heart still had its doubts. My solution was to try grunting my way into belief. I thought if I just.tried.hard.enough, I could force myself to believe God’s love for me. But head knowledge has a hard time filtering down into heart knowledge, and I was groping in the dark.

A few months later I found myself in a counseling office to debrief my first few years overseas. Conversation soon came to a standstill. I was stuck. The counselor wisely handed me some colored pencils and asked me to draw. I’m an abysmal artist, but I did as she asked: I drew a purple mountain’s majesty, a part of Creation that draws me closer to God.

The counselor asked me what that mountain might say to me. The first words that came to me were “Just Sit.” Then she asked what else that mountain might say to me, and the word “Believe” immediately flooded my soul.

“Believe what?” she asked.

Through tears, I croaked, “Believe that God loves me as much as He loves my husband.”

And with that one word from God, months of striving to grasp His unconditional, all-surpassing, non-partisan Love evaporated. God used a poor colored-pencil sketch to short-circuit my rational brain and reach inside my heart. It was a breakthrough of belief that took me deeper into the love of God than I ever dreamed I’d go.

Shortly after my time with the counselor, I encountered I John 4:16 in the New International Version: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” I stopped cold. For me, knowing God’s love came first, and relying on it came afterwards. How could this verse so perfectly sum up my experience of God’s love when it had been written some 1,900 years earlier??

I loved this verse so much I looked it up in other versions. The English Standard Version reads, “And so we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us.” When I looked it up in the Greek, I discovered that “know” implies a personal experience, and “believe” means to trust. I John 4:16 is most definitely my story. First I had a personal experience of God’s love, and now I find I can trust it.

My Brute Force Method had failed. Trying to trust had failed. It was only when I let go and stopped striving that I could actually trust His love for me. So maybe trust is more of a release than a grip. Maybe it’s more of an invitation than an instruction. Maybe radical Trust in God isn’t about my circumstances, but about His love.

Psalm 13:5 declares, “I trust in Your unfailing love.” Trust in His unfailing love is life to me now. I no longer believe the lies that tell me my husband is more valuable than I am. I know I’m loved, and I no longer need to slice through my husband’s heart with my perfectly-practiced, precision-cut lies.The most broken part of our marriage has been made whole. I never thought I’d be able to proclaim that.

I am daily living Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:17-19. I’m experiencing the love of Christ, and He is filling my life with His love. I’m trusting in Him, and He’s making His home in my heart. I feel my roots growing down deep into God’s love, and I trust its width, length, height, and depth like never before.

This is the cry of my heart for you today. I pray along with Paul, that “Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

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Further resources that helped me know and rely on the love God has for me:

The life and ministry of Rich Mullins, especially his song “The Love of God”

Anything by Brennan Manning, especially “Reflections for Ragamuffins”

Beth Moore’s Beloved Disciple Bible Study or book

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What is the thing in your life that makes you doubt that God loves and values you as much as He loves other people??

What is God inviting you to trust Him for?

What To Do About Women’s Roles {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today for their discussion on Roles.

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I’ve sat around the table and been told – on more than one occasion and on both sides of the ocean – that what I’m doing is not Enough. That I am not working Hard Enough. That what I’m doing with my children is Too Small. That I’m not Properly Serving the needs around me. And all the while, I’d been following, to the best of my ability, what I thought God had for me in that season of my life.

There have been times I’ve been beyond frustrated at the state of church culture. A culture that seems to honor and esteem men above women. A culture that grants men more options in where and how to serve God than it grants women. A culture that judges women for the few options they do have, no matter which ones they choose. You stay at home with your children? You should be working all day. You work all day? You should be staying at home with your children.

Sometimes I wonder why men are privileged to choose their ministry emphasis, but wives are pigeon-holed into their husband’s jobs. Is there no difference between the way God fashioned the two parts of a couple, that they might possibly be able to serve in different capacities?

I have cried so many tears over this.

I’d love to see a Christian culture that places fewer unattainable expectations on women. I’d love to see a Christian culture that ties up fewer heavy burdens on women’s shoulders. I’d love to see a Christian culture that lifts a finger — or five — to ease those unbearable demands.

The reality is, we may not be able to bring cultural change across all of Christendom. We may not be able to exert organization- or church-wide influence. But we can attend to the one thing we do have influence over: our relationship with God.

Click here to read the hopeful conclusion.

Something No One Told Me Might Happen {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today, talking about how she unexpectedly found her gifts overseas:

About five years ago I said “yes” to the adventure of living overseas. I didn’t know all that might entail, but I knew I loved the God who had asked me to move, and I was determined to follow Him. I didn’t, however, know exactly what to expect.

I heard a little bit of what to expect at our pre-field training. There, someone warned me that stepping on a plane wouldn’t turn me into a different person, or magically make me a superhero Christian. No, I would be the same person as always, possessing the same old faults.

And that’s true — I didn’t turn into a different person. In fact, stepping off that plane and entering an unfamiliar culture had the additional effect of revealing my faults, of laying bare my sin problems and defects in character.

But something else happened, too. Something surprising and unexpected, something no one told me might happen: I discovered gifts I’d never had before. They were new and previously unknown gifts. But they were never meant for me – they were meant to be poured out for others. More importantly, they were meant to be poured out for Him.

You can read the rest of the post here.

The Journey to Feel Starts Small {Velvet Ashes guest post}

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by Elizabeth

Today I’m over at Velvet Ashes, sharing a story of emotional healing. In case you haven’t heard of Velvet Ashes, it’s a website that provides encouragement, inspiration, and online community for women serving overseas, and it has blessed me tremendously in the last year.

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Before my husband and I moved overseas, we met with a pastor who specializes in counseling ministers and overseas workers. At the very first session, he launched into ideas like pain, connection, and empathy. I was both unfamiliar and uncomfortable with much of the emotional language he spoke, but I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about. So I just sat there, nodding my head silently.

As we continued with the counseling sessions, however, I realized that the reason I didn’t understand the language of the heart was because I had shut off my own emotions. I didn’t know how to deal with emotional pain, so I simply turned off my ability to feel — thereby avoiding the pain altogether. Our counselor described this phenomenon as an “intellectually-locked heart” or a “head-heart-disconnect.”

You can finish reading the post here