Three years ago, we had carefully packed our bags so that our pared-down Christian literature wouldn’t be obvious if we got stopped in customs.  We’d read and studied about life overseas, and in the country we would call “home”, but had never been overseas together as a family.  Three years ago, we had never personally experienced overt propaganda, had our phones bugged, or lived in a communist country.  We had never heard the Muslim call to prayer, seen someone bow down to an idol, or seen a woman in a burqa.  We used to wear shoes in our house, have sturdy toilet seats, and always drink our tea cold.

In three years of living overseas as a family, we’re still “new” in many ways, but we now have experiences and perspective that we didn’t have when we first left America.  Here are a few observations:

Overlooking a city in Central Asia

Each field comes with its own set of inherent difficulties. Many factors have contributed to this, but we have experienced Christian living in many different contexts in our three short years.  Large cities are very different than small towns, even if they are only 50 miles apart.  Closed countries are quite different than more open ones… in some good and some bad ways.  The religious culture (Buddhist, atheist, Muslim, socially progressive) greatly affects the work and daily life of the Christian worker, and not always in the way you expect.

An open, socially progressive culture can be harder ground to till than a closed, seemingly religious culture.  Life in an isolated village can be “easier” (because of the community and friendship you experience there) than life in a city with all the modern conveniences at your disposal.  Even different neighborhoods in the same city can be radically different.  And singles have different challenges from young families, who have different challenges from couples without children.  Circumstances are not always what they seem, and we must be cautious to speak about or judge situations that we don’t understand and haven’t lived.

Children are a door-opener; yet simultaneously, it can be quite difficult to raise Christian children overseas. Our children have been a great ice-breaker and conversation-starter.  The people we’ve encountered love children, and we have experienced a different level of receptivity from our neighbors and friends from what others without children have experienced.  Certainly, children are a blessing for a family reaching out to other families abroad.

A Central Asian Family

And yet, navigating the world of parenting in a completely different context from what books, blogs, and buddies experience in American Christian circles is not an easy thing.  The advice we hear from trusted sources back “home” can be difficult to apply when you’re trying to get language, live in a decidedly non-Christian community, and make in-roads with neighbor women who have very different parenting norms and opinions than all the advice.  When your aim is to be around unbelieving families in your free time, your life and the lives of your children will look very different from those back home who are very involved in a church community and whose children have constant reinforcement of what they’re hearing at home.

There is scriptural wisdom to be had, and godly wisdom in many books and resources, and yet, trying to “eat the meat and spit out the bones” can be difficult for someone in the midst of culture shock, sadness from leaving family, and uncertainty in hitting new parenting stages.  Praying in faith for God’s wisdom to be imparted (as He promises to give us, in James 1:5) has been a critical part of our parenting journey overseas.  God is faithful to us AND to our children!  He knows and has planned the places and circumstances He calls us to.  He will lead us into all wisdom, and He has proven Himself faithful to our family again and again in our times of need.

His sanctifying of us as believers (which includes workers) often happens more through sickness than health, more through difficulty than ease, more through our weaknesses than our strengths, more through the surprises and unexpected than the things we train and prepare for. So, how can we submit to God in this area that feels so very painful?  We are learning not to shirk back from difficulty, not to operate only in our area of strengths, but to allow Him to stretch us in our weak places, and not to think that the things that are unexpected by us are unplanned by God.

These last three years have been foundation-shaking… and yet our Rock has held true.  They have been perspective-shifting, and yet the One who sees all has not changed.  We have faced much uncertainty and despaired, and yet none of it has taken Him by surprise.  The thing we have learned most of all is that He is faithful.  Praise be to our God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever!