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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Peter Jordan
Read between
August 17 - August 20, 2020
It is imperative before you leave the mission field to take time to properly assess how much you have changed, and how much things have changed back home.
Nothing stays the same, neither you nor the people you left at home. Humans exist in a state of constant change in which they are seeing and learning new things and adjusting to them.
a much greater understanding and acceptance of people from other races and ethnic groups.
is a change in emotional attachments in your relationships.
no longer as closely bonded to certain people.
Time away can alter the way you think and feel about many of those relationships. You change and form new emotional attachments to people in your new setting. But so do those you left behind.
This doesn’t mean that you are no longer friends, just that the level of emotional attachment in the relationship has diminished. Likewise, you may discover that new relationships develop with people to whom you were not previously close.
The important point to note in returning home is that people often are not prepared for these changes. As a result, misunderstandings and hurts can occur. People may think you are snubbing or ignoring them. It may take some time for them to realize that both of you have changed, so be patient.
If you have experienced things that have changed some of your political understandings or views, keep them to yourself. Don’t go home and announce that your country’s form of government or foreign policy is wrong, especially if you know it will stir controversy.
the right opportunity arises for you to share some of your political observations, do so humbly and without contention. Your aim should be to help others understand why you have arrived at your conclusions, not to try to show others how much superior and enlightened your views are compared to theirs.
you may find it difficult to see people at home who have prospered financially while you seem to have gone backward as a result of going to the mission field. You may well have to overcome your own resentment and jealousy.
she had to make a deliberate decision to remember that God is just in all His ways, and that the most important thing is to live in obedience to Him.
Friends and family may even resent having to help you financially. So be prepared for some testing in this area.
Don’t be caught unaware. Take some time to contemplate how the changes that have occurred at home in your absence may affect you and your re-entry.
When she did arrive, most of the family and friends had dispersed, so she had to work through the stages of grief largely on her own.
If a significant person in your life has passed away while you have been on the mission field, be prepared for a flood of emotions to hit you when you arrive home, even if a considerable amount of time has elapsed since their death.
The life you leave behind on the mission field is very different from what you will encounter upon your return home.
From being primarily concerned with the spiritual to being primarily concerned with practical matters.
daily surrounded with Christian encouragement and fellowship to deriving your fellowship and encouragement from Wednesday evening...
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fixed and measurable goal to perhaps havi...
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high degree of self-motivation to searching for new motivation.
somebody special in the culture in which you were serving to being nobody special.
serving with people who have a world perspective to being with people who, in many cases, do not care much for...
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Start to think about these changes and their implications in your situation. Pray and ask God to reveal to you some strategies that will help lessen their impact upon you.
Re-entry stress can take the form of feeling disorientated and out of place; feeling disillusioned; feeling irritated with others and with certain aspects of your culture; or feeling lonely, isolated, depressed, and misunderstood.
the nature of your relationship with the host culture you have been working in; your relationship to your own culture; personal characteristics; and the amount of change that has occurred in your life and at home.
Work through the points. Read them. Think about them, then write down your answers and observations in your notebook or journal. You may also want to have each member of your family work through the points. A Personal Assessment Host Country 1. How long have you been away from your home country? 2. In what ways have you identified with the host culture? 3. In what ways are the host culture and your culture similar and dissimilar (e.g., climate, geography, language, religion, standard of living, ethnic groups, politics, dress, customs)? 4. How fulfilled do you feel in your overseas work and
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Be assured that God is greater than your greatest challenge.
“I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake nor let you down, relax My hold on you.—Assuredly not!” (Hebrews 13:5, Amp.).
Many people find that as their attention is drawn toward returning home, they begin to feel distanced from the mission field. Their thoughts begin to revolve more and more around going home—what it will be like and what they will do once they get there—and less and less around their work on the mission field. This is natural. It is part of the process God uses to wean people from their present circumstances and prepare them for the next step He has for their lives. So if you are planning to return home, and you find yourself becoming less emotionally involved in your mission work, relax! Begin
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Given the re-entry stress you are going to experience upon your return home, your relationship with the Lord needs to be stronger than ever.
After your arrival home, you become a tangible link between the people and culture you have been working in and the Christians in your home church and other churches in your area. You can be a strategic bridge through which God can bring greater awareness, understanding and insight of another culture, as well as motivating other Christians to go to the mission field. With this responsibility in mind, begin thinking about ways you can accomplish this.
It is likely that as you plan your return home, God will reveal to you many insights to guide you along the way. These insights can be recorded in your journal, and will become a solace to you when you feel no one understands you or the things you’ve been through. It will be your companion through the time of re-entry adjustment. When your faith is wavering, it will be a constant reminder to you that God promises to “give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). Your journal is also a good place to record practical information about life on the mission field which you want to remember after
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the degree to which your church welcomes you back is in a large part dependent upon how you left.
You can greatly enhance the reception you receive from your home church by planning for your homecoming. This may sound premeditated or even presumptuous, but if you do not plan and share your expectations with people at home, most likely things will not work out the way you want them to. Notice that when Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, they called the people together.
If you will be arriving home sick or burned-out, let your church and your family know so they can properly plan for your return. People are not mind-readers. If you don’t share your expectations, they are not likely to be met, and you may feel bitter and disappointed at God, your friends, and your family. If you share your expectations with others, they will soon tell you if they are realistic or not.
The length of time for which God has called you to serve is not important. What is important is that you serve diligently to the best of your abilities. When that period comes to a close, it is time to pass the baton on to the next person God has called.
That is closure. It is ending your leg of the relay and handing your ministry responsibilities to those who follow.
You’re now four hours out over the Pacific, and your mind switches from reviewing how things had been in Indonesia to contemplating how things will be when you get home.
You finally make it through Immigration and Customs and into the terminal concourse, but there is no thronging crowd to greet you. In fact, no one is there for you.
There’s no civic reception either, only an evening at home with your family.
your mother comments that you haven’t really changed, because your room is still as messy as ever. At that point, you begin wondering why you bothered coming home at all. At least in Indonesia, people appreciated you and your ministry. The way everyone seems to be just going on with their lives here makes you feel strangely superfluous.
You feel as though you’re someone who has come back from the dead; your friends and family have buried and forgotten you. You wonder if people really want you around at all, or if they would even notice if you just disappeared.
do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:17-20).
Wasn’t He pleased with what they had done? Yes, I think He was. It was their first venture, and many wonderful things had been accomplished. Jesus wasn’t negating that in any way. But He recognized that they were attempting to derive their identity from what they had done, so He moved to address that issue. He indicated that their identity came not from what they had done, but from the fact that their names were written in heaven. Or put more simply, their identity should come from who they were (children of God), and not from what they had done.
We are sons and daughters of God. Whether we were missionaries or not has nothing to do with how God views us. He may be pleased with our diligent service, but that doesn’t elevate us to the status of a privileged child. He is an impartial God and loves all His children equally.
Learn to derive your identity from the fact that you are a child of God, not from the fact that you are a missionary.
You have no rights; you surrendered them to the Lord Jesus. You went to serve on the mission field out of obedience and because of your love and devotion for Him. If you went for any other reason, it was the wrong reason.
We are God’s children; we do not need the approval of others for what we have done. His approval is sufficient.
Resist the urge to impose the way you did things on the mission field onto the way you do things at home.
