“It’s definitely hard and won’t get easier, Jia. Foreign place, unfulfilled expectations, it will and has taken a toll… There have been many changes and things to adapt to too, some days it all adds up and feels unbearable. Often time, systems in developing countries can be frustrating from Day 1. It’s really okay to feel vexed. ”
This week has been nothing short of trying.
After the honeymoon period of being enchanted by everything new and novel, comes the slow sinking in of reality. Some missionaries had warned me this would hit me maybe 3 or 6 months down the road, but when it hit me at the 5-week mark, missionaries I had been keeping in touch with confessed, “Actually the frustration can start from Day One.”
It’s a bit like getting married, really. The falling in love part is easy- everything quirky is unspeakably cute. Then when bad habits become routine and not nipped in the bud, they can become a hot point for explosion. When we first arrived, everything that met with delays and inefficiency was greeted with a chuckle. There is a certain excitement and high about starting a new chapter of life, in spite of its challenges. New assignments, roles and even the chance to be interviewed for a documentary came as a pleasant surprise.
But when the weeks went by, and there came delay after delay after delay due to unnecessary bureaucratic rules, whole-day affairs of having to be somewhere faraway in person to submit certain documents which had been overlooked by someone else other than you, exhaustingly long waits, draining discussions still ending in unjust ends, exorbidant fees that reek of corruption, it does grate on you, even just a bit.
So my first meltdown happened at the 6-week mark, after numerous accumulated incidents of endless waiting, numerous hollow apologies, no-shows, and unexpected delays, when I sat on the floor crying one morning for hours, wondering what it was I was doing here and how thankless an endeavor this all was.
There was nothing romantic about missions at that point, trust me. I was bitter about how I had been treated with flippancy and disdain, angry with people whose blatant oversight had cost us greatly, in time, money and emotion, without restitution or compensation on their parts, frustrated by exchanges of deceit and inefficiencies but most of all, ashamed by all these feelings I was experiencing.
I felt trapped, not being able to put into words the utter vexation and loneliness I had been feeling, a far cry from the photos of happy servitude and beautiful landscapes on Facebook, which painted a picture of easy and convenient servanthood from afar.
Weren’t we called here to love people? Aren’t we supposed to be a blessing? Isn’t this just part of the cross-cultural adjustment period? What was the big deal and what had I expected, for this to be a bed of roses?
Truth be told, I was most bitter and frustrated with myself. I thought about what many missionaries had shared with me about, that the country God has led you to will be initially wonderful and amazing, but there will come a time where cross-cultural adjustment shock goes into overdrive, and suddenly everything you once found peculiarly charming will become irritating, a cause for anguish and simply, painfully vexing. Most people experience that months down the road. I’m assuming, that because of the intensity of my nature, my multiple roles of volunteering at the health institute, being involved in bible school training and community projects, and dealing with transport/ visa/ accommodation issues all at once, in a very early stage of our settling in, the opportunities for disappointing and vexing incidents naturally increases exponentially.
It was two close friends who have served as missionaries for years in the hard grounds of the Middle East, however, who shared candidly with me they understood everything I was experiencing because it happened to them too.
“Hang in there, Wai Jia, and be very patient, very. Bitterness comes when we make comparisons and think of ‘what it should have been’. There were countless times I asked my husband why things were like this or why people behaved as such, but almost always we had no answers. The 1st 6 months are never easy because of the initiation issues of getting settled. There are so many adjustments to make!”
She was right. My mind simply couldn’t get around certain things, nor could my eyes see through lenses of a different color. When people no-showed without informing me in advance, changed a meeting last minute, or made countless promises without delivering, I interpreted it as “deceit”. It brought to my mind a book I had read before about Cross-cultural Servanthood, that this happens to people from cultures who worship time. Time is of essence to us, and we express our value for other people through our respect of others’ time, and our keeping to it. In cultures which are more “event-based” rather than “time-based”, however, an unexpected burial is more than sufficient reason to skip a day’s work without notice; a busy day of events is enough reason to delay a promised delivery; bad traffic is a legitimate excuse (I mean, reason) to be hours late.
This, is just one of many cross-cultural differences we are learning, and learning to adjust to. In a new environment in a developing country, unexpected mishaps and hiccups happen with great frequency and regularity. When it happens a few times, it is easy to laugh off. But when they happen repeatedly, often at the expense of something else, it becomes harder and harder to chuckle at something that has cost you dearly. Hair-tearing moments ensue, often looking like me in Cliff’s arms, with him being totally understanding and saying over and over, “It’s okay. It’s just different, here, the way things work.”
By noon I got up from the kitchen floor, wiped my tears and joined the Paediatric clinic to see adolescent patients with HIV.
That night, however, I awoke at 3am unable to sleep, ridden with frustration, anger and bitterness. Having texted a few close friends to ask for prayer, I turned over in bed to pray.
“Remember, our Father’s heart is about using you as a surrendered vessel to impact others and He is working on you, what a privilege! Solve each stage as it comes, and whatever you can’t, God will intervene- He will not send you somewhere where He will not provide for you. Feel free to cry and be upset but present all your emotions to God and healing and comfort will come. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to perform, He is the one who will do exploits through you.”
I awoke the next day, afresh, and went for 4 meetings with Ugandan friends and colleagues with peace, and much joy, by God’s grace and grace alone.
“For how obedient you and Cliff have been to God, and how brave you two have been to have gone thus far and through so much, I’m so proud of you. Things won’t get easier and the cultural differences, injustices and inefficiencies are likely to go on without end, but I believe God’s grace to be sufficient for you, in each circumstance big and small. For what you and Cliff have left behind, and for how you have coped, you both have done remarkably well.”
I am learning, in all that we do, it is not us who chooses the place or form or mode of our own crucifixion, walk or martyrdom. God chooses the method of our refinement, and it is we who must obey and submit to His working in us. When we do, the tears become the dew that nourishes us, and the heat, the sunshine that makes us grow.
Months and years down the road, we shall discover that it was not our enthusiastic self-chosen service and our ingenuity that gave birth to projects and blessed people; but our simple, quiet, yielding obedience, wrought out in anguish and brokenness by God to be moulded into His likeness, that brought Him glory, and that touched lives.
It is never about us, what we gave up, or what we can do. But it is always about our weaknesses, where we fall short, that God’s power enters in and remoulds us into vessels worthy for His use and purposes.
Wherever you are, and however you’re feeling, remember, God is God.
“Mind, or soul, is the way the personal spirit expresses itself in the body.
We have to lose our own way of thinking and form Jesus Christ’s way.
‘By your patience, possess your souls’ (Luke 21:19).
It takes time and discipline.
When we are regenerated and have the life of the Son of God in us,
God engineers our circumstances in order that we may form the mind of Christ.”
– “So I Send You, Workmen of God,
Recognizing and Answering God’s Call to Service”,
by Oswald Chambers