I was just talking with a short-term worker the other day about the challenges of trying to adjust to life in a new place and culture. There are the obvious things: like trying to get around by a new mode of transportation. Maybe you used to hop in a car and drive everywhere in your home country and now arriving in someplace, like Japan, you have to walk miles and miles (well, here they are Kilometers), ride a bicycle along a narrow one lane road dodging pedestrians, and navigate complicated and confusing train lines, numerous platforms and crowded stations. 

But there are other challenges and adjustments as well; ones that you might not think of and that will catch a new worker off-guard. Such as feeling excluded and lonely because you can’t connect and communicate. Or not feeling useful in ministry because your conversation gets stuck after a smile and nod.  You might find yourself just standing there, not sure what to do or how to help.  Or trying to figure out what to do during your free time or day off. At home you had fun activities, outings, hobbies, friends and family. Now you have to figure out what you can do that is restful and refreshing in a totally new world, and often on your own. 

In other words, you end up needing to re-evaluate and re-invent daily and weekly life, along with trying to foster brand new friendships with brand new people, who are most likely from a totally different place and speak a totally different language. 

 

Whew! No wonder learning to live in a new country is difficult!

 

I re-experience this and am reminded of these challenges as I lead new workers. 

Culture Shock 

(which hits you at first like a brick wall) and 

Culture Stress 

(the ongoing every day stumbling over bricks of trying to figure out who you are in a new place, and how you will connect with new people and find out a totally new way of doing things, when you are still aren’t too sure about it, yet you are really trying to get on-board with everything). 

It’s not easy and it can be really disheartening. 

 

Cross culture life is not for the faint at heart. I’m still stubbing my toes on those pesky bricks and stumbling often on the uneven path. I need encouragement, just as these new workers do, to keep hanging in there, doing their best and giving themselves grace that God graciously gives us. We have to remind ourselves that the Lord has allowed these new-country-adjustments as opportunities to grow in trust and humility, Godliness and character. Along the bumpy, uneven brick road, we know and experience that God is good and faithful. And best of all, He is walking this steep and rutted path of cross cultural life with us.