Lonely Wanderer

Today was one of those days when reality is just a little overwhelming. We all have those days, for numerous reasons. Today's culprit . . . loneliness.

I want my blog to be true to life, not just sunshine and marshmallows and happy thoughts. I don't want to hide my bad days, I have spent to many years doing just that, for the sake of appearance. So I decided to be honest about today.

It was so lonely, and I am so tired of being lonely, that I bounced around from shop to shop just to have people and noise around me. It's ironic, in Albania I used to go to shopping centers to hide, and find solitude, in Durban I do the opposite.

When preparing to go into ministry or mission work, no one tells you about the loneliness, and other factors you will face. Well few speak of these things. They might touch on it by mentioning the scripture from Matthew 19 about being rewarded for giving up mother/father/family/house/brother/sister etc. But do we adequately prepared the missionary for the life they must lay down and leave behind? There are some organisations/churches that do . .  .but many fall short in this area.

For those who have not been long term missionaries it is difficult to know what it is like, because you haven't experienced it. There for you are not fully equipped either to be a support for the missionaries. I guess that is one reason I am writing about it tonight, so that it starts to create an awareness where perhaps there wasn't one before.

I remember the beginning days of going full time on the mission field. It was in Albania, a place I had visited many times for 3 months at a time. A place where I had established friendships and learnt the culture etc. . . but that did not prepare me for the shock of how different full time was. How isolating it was in the beginning. Being immersed in a different culture, language and people group. I was also doing it as a single missionary without a team, it was incredibly isolating.

I remember one day being on a bus surrounded by locals. I remember all to well being the outsider, the foreigner. I realized in that moment that even if i dressed like them, spoke like them and dyed my blonde hair dark, it wouldn't matter. I was not them. I would always be the outsider. It was exceptionally difficult.  But you push in and you push on, and you feel a bit like you are in a foster care system because this isn't the family/culture/spiritual family you know. You feel like you are cut from a different DNA. . . but this is where you are called? these are the people you love. For 6 years you fit your life into theirs, drowning out the voice of homesickness. Suppressing you own culture to adapt.  You forge a life and friendships here. You live to the fullest until its time to come home . . .

But home is no longer home. Home carried on without you. You step back into the familiar but as a stranger. New faces don't know you, and old faces remember you but are also not used to having you around. So its easy for them to forget you are back, unless they see you. And the loneliness starts all over again. But this time it seems harder, because its the place you should belong because its where you came from. You can't just slot back in, because you have been gone for so long [and often cause you need rest]. Home is not equipped to help you in your transition anymore than you are equipped to go through this transition. So many familiar faces, with fond emotional attachment because of shared memories but this doesn't equate to current/present relationships.

Ministry and Missionary work is tough, its not for the fainthearted. To many leadership books justify or pacify this. They teach that a leader, because of his character and calling, wont [shouldn't have many friends] etc. How does this coincide with the life of Jesus or the fact that God created us for relationship?  Missionaries are similar. Often your relationships are founded in ministry. there were times i longed for people i could just hang out with, people who didn't want me to do something for them or with them for the Kingdom. People who just wanted to be with me . . . just cause.

I still don't believe that is God's best or His true model. I believe its a lie we coated with a spiritual veneer to make ourselves believe that loneliness is godliness. to justify and silence our desire. i don't believe its truth though, and like all veneer, given enough time, the cracks will show.

And when you visit home, as a full time ministry, you too don't see how truly harsh and different moving back home will be. Because when you visit home, its like the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. People know time is short, so they make the effort cause they wont see you again, but also there is always ministry....feedback and preaching and prayer meetings etc. Because its like a resource passing through town. . . Coming Home, just like going full time after short term, is vastly different. The church, the culture, even your family, are not designed to deal with this.

Add to the equation that not only did I come home, but I came home AND out of ministry, its a whole different ball game. Because since i was 15 until i was almost 35 my entire life was geared towards ministry and I was involved in ministry.

Life is different now. I had changed, living in a different culture shaved off my rough corners. The problem is i was once a square peg in a square hole, now i have come back as a circle. The heart, the essence of me, is still the same, but some of my edges have worn down, and i just don't fit back as i once did.

It's easy to point fingers or pass blame or ask questions . . . the truth is there are no easy answers.

I don't write this as one looking for sympathy. i don't write this as one who didn't try reconnect either . . . but when most people turn down invitations time after time after time or 8 months later still haven't made good on the plans to connect, you eventually stop trying. As I said its easy to understand that you haven't been in their lives for 6 years, so its a new adjustment for them as well as yourself trying to reconnect, and life here is busy, there life has been here, involved for 6 years. It doesn't make transition easier.

So that means you have your bad days. Just like when you first moved into full time missionary work there were bad days, lonely days, isolating days. . . Just like the locals there didn't know what to do with you or how to help you settle in, the same applies to home. . . except now its no longer home.

I guess one way would be to stop viewing it as home and to view it as a new destination, starting from scratch, except that memories and faded bonds make that difficult too.

All I know is that I blindly follow Him, for He has eyes to see, He knows the begin from the end. He can make the path straight. He has knitted me in before, and He can do it again. He promises to give back what we give up. So to other missionaries struggling to adjust to a new world, or readjust to their old world . . . take heart. Yes transition is difficult, and tough and lonely. Yes, as a missionary wandering this planet of ours you often feel like a round peg in a square hole, like the pieces just don't fit, and like you have no true home . . . But hang in there. You are not alone. Other missionaries have had the same experiences. .  .and Christ truly is your Emanuel. He is God with you. He has also promised to give back what you give up, including relationships . . . it just takes time sometimes.

For those who know missionaries pray for them. Ask God for relationships for them. Understand it is a lonely place for them. It hasn't just cost them financially, they have literally given up everything, including relationships and to a degree who they are, where they came from, for the sake of the gospel. . . don't let them become an out-of-sight-out-of-mind cliche. Reach out to them. Encourage them. Find out how you can be supportive of them.  And to my fellow ex-missionaries, current missionaries, ex ministers and ministers. . . be real about the struggles and hardships, not just the persecutions and the triumphs. . . but the reality of what it has cost. People can't be supportive in your struggles if they don't know what they are.