*** Warning ***

This is not a feel-good, sugar coated post. This is from a deeper place of the heart, but if you know, support, love, correspond with, or are interested in an overseas worker, please, read with a commitment to pray for them more. Again, I am NOT writing these things to garner your sympathy or make you feel pity for us. I just want to offer a perspective on those who've given a portion of their lives to living and working overseas that you may not have thought about like this before.


Thank you for reading!!

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“An overseas worker’s life is one of perpetual grief”, someone once told me. Not the trouble kind of grief like when your dishwasher goes out, or the doctor’s office keeps hounding you for payment, but the heart-wrenching grief that comes with loss- over, and over, and over again. We did not experience this kind of grief-inducing loss the first time until around our 1st year when we went to our first out-of-country conference.

The kids had a wonderful, Spirit-filled week making new friends who “got it”. Ones they could talk for hours with about eating disgusting food with a smile on their faces, who understood what each other was going through in the painful process of learning how to do things all over- learning new rules, new customs, going without the luxuries they’d come from… all that. They laughed together, played in the pool, prayed for each other, sang familiar songs together, and then… cried together when it was time to say good-bye.

It wasn’t the kind of good-bye that comes with a “see you later”; in our world, you never, ever knew if you’d see that someone again. There was always the hope that they (and you) would be back to the next year’s conference, and in between there might be e-mails or a VERY occasional phone call, other than that, the kids were left with a photo or two, memories stored and treasured in their hearts, and a great ache in their soul.

This happened year after year after year. Sometimes Providence would indeed send a few of the same faces, but more often than not, the cycle would start over again; more good-byes, more pain, more scars. These are the things your overseas workers often never talk about. If I were to be brutally honest, I’d have to say that many are too afraid of their supporter’s (or family’s) reactions; sometimes they are an honest assessment, sometimes completely unfounded. Either way, the sad reality is that a lot of the pain never gets talked about outside the “agency family”- these are the things you will likely never hear directly from them.

The topic of “hard work” has so, so many facets- some of it is just plain hard physically, and that’s the easy stuff to adjust to over time. It becomes a new reality and, after a while, doesn’t seem so hard. The vastly harder work of living overseas is seeing your kids suffer the pain of loss, and trying to be a comfort when you’re attempting to deal with that same pain yourself.

With the permission of my older daughters, who are the ones who most acutely feel the sting of loss, I am able to share a bit of our struggles. Sometimes, overseas workers are not even aware of the extent of how deeply their children are affected until their return. I guess for some of us, we don’t recognize the scope of their feelings until the tears flow… sometimes months, and now even a year later- some things are just too painful to lose, or face, or change.

After some discussions lately on what triggers the deep-seated feelings of grief, we’ve identified a few. One is the very real feeling of having “divided” loyalties. They simply don’t feel entirely at home in either world, and at the same time are comfortable in either. Whereas some things they see as detestable in their current “world”, other things that most of their peers see as strange or “weird” is perfectly normal and part of who they are. Of course, as their parents we see a lot of good in this, but they are definitely feeling the pull on their hearsts to have the best of both worlds in their here and now, yet knowing that will never be.

They understand this outsided-ness they deal with day to day, and another thing that brings them sadness is the general lack of interest in a lot of the people around them to want to broaden their worldview. One thing we were warned to do when returning was to prepare a 1 minute, a 3 minute and a 30 minute answer to , “So how was your time over there?” 99% of the people who ask that really don’t care so much about the lives you helped bring change to, nor how it really changed us, so we find ourselves giving the 1 minute answer before the other person moves on to the weather, the latest sitcom, or the NFL scores. Learning about another worldview seems automatically discharged as heathen or “wrong” even if the Word of God gives room for a culture to have other priorities and values than what we currently embrace this week or year. It is frustrating to see such narrow-mindedness and unwillingness to at least entertain the thought that other cultures have some pretty amazing ideas and beautiful traditions.

Perhaps the most painful thing they face is the feeling that some of their good-byes were incomplete. Admittedly, in those last few weeks and days, there was simply not enough time to say farewell individually to each person, place and thing we wanted to. You may find it surprising that “places” are on that list, but it is likely that those beloved places they played in, shared friendships in, or even escaped danger from will likely never be seen again. And as many times as you say goodbye to your childhood pet, it’s just never enough times, is it?

To offer an example, one time a boy of about 13 was asked in a group to tell where he was from. His reply, given with a sarcastic "pffft", "Like you mean, where we were born, or where we're living right now, or where we lived before this....?" Obviously these kids have a real lack of rootedness and will often have wanderlust for their entire adult lives.


A life of grief- I think that’s a pretty accurate term to describe the one overseas workers lead. Of course, the pain will fade over time, but the scars will remain forever. They make us who we are, and we have a story to share made up of all those things we faced for 10 years. And it goes without saying that in that patchwork of our stories a weft of joy, victory, blessing, and perspective. The Lord knows what we store in our hearts and dwells there within!!