If you serve as a cross-cultural worker somewhere in the world, you probably encounter missionary stress. It might arise from conflict with co-workers, family members, or even locals. Perhaps you feel lost in a major city – or overwhelmed by the prospects of learning another language. Regardless of the cause, how do you cope with missionary stress? What has been your most helpful way of sublimating or draining that stress from your mind, heart, and body? For example, does it help you best to sit down on a Zoom call with a family member or friend back in your homeland? Or do you drain it during a jog or on a rock-climbing wall? Or do you write it in a journal or play an instrument for relief? What works for you? Maybe it’ll work for someone else. Thanks for any tips you can give.
2) What’s Your #1 Way of Relieving Missionary Stress?
I have come to realize that when there is stress in my life, I am living in the flesh. Romans 8:6 says the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Only a spirit of humility and repentance for living according to the flesh can transform me from from a life of stress and unrest to a life of peace and joy.
Stress is indeed a part of missionary life. No way of getting around it. I have discovered in my 46 years of ministry with 26 of those 46 years as a missionary in Kenya and France that practicing the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude and keeping sabbath helps me to keep my stress levels down. Our problem as missionaries is that we live a “hurried life”. Dallas Willard wrote: “We need to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives.” When we live that “hurried life” it is so easy to have our times alone with Jesus to be “squeezed” out of our daily rhythm of life. Jesus modeled for us the “unhurried life”. We read in the Scriptures that He often would get away to a place of solitude and silence to be alone with His Father. I am continually encouraging our teammates to make sure that they are taking care of their souls.
The levels of stress differs according to where one serves and who to. My wife and I served 10 years in Mozambique among Mus1ims, and 11 years in Malaysia in leadership and training. That taking a weekly sabbath is very important, as is spending lots of time with the Lord every day in prayer and in the Scriptures. We also like to take an extra day off every six weeks. These serve as “islands of relief” to look forward to, to get away from everything.