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Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Counsel for Missionary Wives · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host and I'm so glad
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  you were here with us. It is good to be here.
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  As we always do, we are setting out to look at the world, the
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  church, and the Scriptures through the lens of the historic
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  Christian faith. Right.
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  And for anyone new to the show, we should clarify where we are
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  standing right from the start. We approach these topics from a
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  Protestant Reformed perspective. We adhere to the Westminster
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  Confession of Faith. We believe that theology is not
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  just for the seminary classroom. It is for real life.
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  That is the core of it. Good theology leads to right
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  living. If what we believe about God
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  does not shape how we handle pain, joy, and community, then
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  we have not really grasped it at all.
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  The abstract must become concrete.
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  Which brings us to the mission of this deep dive.
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  We are opening up a chapter from the book Biblical Missions by
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  Mark Tatlock and Christ Burnett. Specifically, we're focusing on
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  a section compiled by Shelby Cullen.
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  It is titled Lessons from the Field Wisdom for Missionary
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  Wives. This is a remarkable text.
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  It is a compilation of interviews.
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  We are looking at raw, unfiltered data from women who
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  have lived on the mission field anywhere from 10:00 to 40 years.
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  This is not theory. These are field notes from the
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  front lines. I want to set the hook for the
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  listener right now. If you think this is going to be
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  a travel blog or a collection of adventurous stories about exotic
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  foods and beautiful sunsets, you need to adjust your
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  expectations. This is not that.
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  It is absolutely not. This is a case study in the
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  theology of suffering. It is a look at the practical
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  application of ecclesiology, how the local church actually
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  functions across borders, and it is a study in sanctification.
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  It shows us what happens to the human heart when every earthly
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  comfort is stripped away. We are talking about women
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  working in Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, Eastern Europe
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  and Western Europe. We're looking at the real lives
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  of those who have left everything familiar.
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  And you might be sitting there asking why this matters to you.
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  You might say, well, I'm at a missionary wife.
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  I live in the suburbs. I work a normal job.
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  It matters because the high pressure of the mission field
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  reveals things about the human heart that our comfortable lives
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  often hide from us. These women offer us a master
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  class in trusting God's rovidence when the safety Nets
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  are totally gone. They challenge our definitions
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  of home and comfort. Let us get into it.
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  We have a lot of ground to cover.
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  We are going to look at their profiles, their preparation,
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  their relationship with ascending church, the shock of
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  entry and their inner spiritual lives.
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  Let us start with the voices themselves.
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  Context is king, right? We need to know who we are
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  listening to. The source material introduces
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  us to quite a few women. I was struck by the diversity
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  here. We are not looking at a
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  monolith. That is correct.
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  You have women like Ada and Sandy.
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  They're both in Southeast Asia working in Muslim contexts.
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  Ava has five children, one of whom was born on the field.
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  Her focus is on church planting among unreached people groups.
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  And Sandy's is in a similar region, but a very different
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  setting. She is in a bustling metropolis,
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  and she has a graduate degree in biblical counseling.
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  I thought that was a crucial detail.
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  She is not just guessing. She is trained to apply
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  Scripture to the heavy emotional burdens people carry.
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  Then you have Glenna. Her story is quite different.
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  She did not go as a young newlywed.
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  She went when her oldest children were teenagers and her
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  husband was already established in a career.
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  They uprooted a stable life to move to Asia.
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  That has to be incredibly hard. I mean, moving teenagers is
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  entirely different than moving toddlers.
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  Then we have the African contingent.
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  Amanda and Rachel are in southern Africa.
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  Amanda's situation is interesting because her husband
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  is from a culture similar to the one they are in.
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  This adds a very unique dynamic we will discuss later.
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  Rachel has spent most of her married life overseas focusing
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  on discipleship and counseling. And we cannot forget Europe.
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  I think people often forget that Europe is a mission field.
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  It is a hard 1. Nina lived in a post communist
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  Eastern European country for 25 years.
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  She's dealing with first generation believers.
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  These are people who had no cultural memory of Christianity
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  whatsoever. And then Meg, who have been in
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  Western Europe, in French speaking regions for nearly 40
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  years. 40 years is a lifetime. It is, and here is the analysis
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  point I want us to grasp right away.
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  We have an urban metropolis in Southeast Asia, rural Southern
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  Africa, post communist Europe, and secular Western Europe.
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  These are vastly different geographies.
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  But the struggles seem identical.
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  They are the spiritual themes, the battles with pride, the
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  loneliness, the need for absolute dependence on God.
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  Those are totally consistent. Whether you are dealing with an
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  unreached people group like Ava or first generation believers
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  like Nina, the human heart's reaction to dislocation is the
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  same. That validates the idea that our
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  external circumstances do not determine our spiritual state as
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  much as we think they do. Well, let us move to the
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  preparation phase before they even get on the plane.
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  Theology starts meeting logistics.
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  This section of the source material was fascinating because
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  it exposes the tension between the idea and the real.
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  The primary tension these women identified was balancing roles,
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  God, spouse, children, home and ministry.
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  It sounds like an impossible juggling act.
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  It is this is where we need to slow down and look at a crucial
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  insight from Sandy. She talked about the concept of
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  dying to self. I mark that in my notes too.
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  She said she initially got it wrong.
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  She did. She thought dying to self meant
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  denying that she had any personal preferences at all.
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  She thought it meant she was not allowed to like things or want
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  things. Sounds pious.
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  It sounds like the ultimate Christian move, right?
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  Like I have no needs, I only want what God wants.
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  It sounds pious, but it is bad theology.
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  It LED her straight to burnout. The inside here is vital.
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  God created us as humans with distinct personalities, likes
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  and dislikes. Dying to self is not about
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  ceasing to be human, it is about acknowledging your preferences
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  and then submitting that desire to God if he chooses not to
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  provide it. That is a huge distinction. 1 is
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  dehumanization, the other is submission.
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  Precisely, if you deny the desire exists, you are
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  suppressing reality. If you acknowledge it and submit
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  it, you are worshipping. Meg, the veteran in Western
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  Europe. Added to this, she received
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  early guidance on learning to say no, you cannot fix the whole
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  world. You have limits.
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  Acknowledging limits is a form of humility.
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  Let us talk about the kids. This is the part that scares
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  parents the most about missions, you know.
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  What about my children? Rachel had a useful insight
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  here. She said parents instill a heart
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  for missions not by modeling anxiety, but by modeling joy and
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  trust during challenges. So it is not about the lecture
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  you give your 6 year old, it is about how you react when the
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  power goes out. Children were so observant.
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  They watch how you handle suffering.
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  If you are bitter, they will hate the mission.
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  If you trust God, they learn to trust God.
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  The practical tactics they mentioned were interesting too.
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  Ava involved her kids in selling their toys.
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  Imagine that telling your child we are going to do God's work
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  and part of that means we are going to sell these toys.
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  It sounds harsh to her modern ears, but she was involving
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  them, the sacrifice it made them participants.
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  Amanda taught her kids to call the future field home before
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  they even arrived. That is a powerful mental shift.
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  It reduces the comparison game. If the US is home and Africa is
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  the trip, you're always waiting to go back.
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  If Africa is home, you settle in.
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  But there was a warning from Glenna that is theologically
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  significant. She said not to burden children
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  with the expectation that they are the missionaries.
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  The parents were called. The children are following their
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  parents. If you put the weight of the
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  Great Commission on a child, you crush them.
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  Let kids be kids. They're part of the family, but
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  they are not the spiritual tip of the spear.
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  That is a freeing thought for parents now looking at their
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  preparation. There was one major gap they all
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  identified. They all wish they had more
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  training in one specific area. Biblical Counseling.
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  Why that? Why not language or cross
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  cultural communication? Because the biggest battles they
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  faced were not physical, they were relational and internal.
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  They needed to know how to apply Scripture to their own marriages
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  and to the conflicts within their teams.
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  Ava made an observation about why teams fall apart.
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  She noted that teams rarely fall apart because of external
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  persecution. They fall apart because of
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  internal conflict. This could be a lack of united
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  vision or interpersonal sin. That is sobering.
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  The enemy is inside the camp. It is.
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  That is why robust ecclesiology is critical for the mission
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  field. You cannot just be an
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  evangelist. You have to be someone who knows
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  how to live in the local church, even a tiny one made of just
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  your team. Speaking of the church, let us
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  move to segment 3, the sending a church.
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  This is where the rubber meets the road regarding money and
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  relationships. Support raising is the difficult
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  topic here. It is the thing everyone dreads,
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  the psychological hurdle of asking for money.
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  Amanda shared a story about overhearing a pastor's family
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  complain about missionary fundraising.
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  That is a nightmare scenario. You were in the vulnerable
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  position of asking for help and you hear the very people you
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  were asking treating it like a nuisance.
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  It reinforces the fear that you were just a beggar.
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  But Glenna flipped the script on this entirely.
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  She reframed it. She views fundraising as
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  ministry. This is highly biblical.
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  Look at Paul's letter to the Philippians.
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  He talks about their giving as a sacrifice, acceptable and
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  pleasing to God. When a missionary asks for
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  support, they are inviting the sender to participate in the
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  Great Commission. So it changes the dynamic from
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  begging to partnership. Correct, it is not please give
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  me money so I can eat. It is let us partner together to
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  see the gospel advance. The women had some strategic
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  approaches to Nina started networking years in advance.
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  Which shows incredible wisdom. You do not just drop a
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  newsletter on someone you have not spoken to in five years.
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  She built relationships with like minded pastors.
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  She focused on regions where her relatives lived.
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  That is smart logistics. If your support base is near
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  your family, when you come home for furlough, you are not
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  driving across the entire country.
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  You can actually rest. And she also spoke to non
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  financial groups, children's ministries, disability
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  ministries that keeps the focus on the ministry itself rather
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  than just the money. That brings us to the reality of
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  the relationship versus the bureaucracy.
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  This was a major tension point in the interviews.
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  On one hand you have the good stuff, like prayer groups Amanda
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  and Sandy mentioned, video conferences with other wives.
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  Being able to talk to someone who understands your context is
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  vital, but then you have the friction, the reporting
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  requirements. The paperwork.
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  Right. It can feel like you are an
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  employee filling out a timesheet When the sending church demands
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  granular data. It can feel like a lack of
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  trust. It feels like an administrative
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  burden that eats into the actual ministry.
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  And then there is the advice that is meant to be helpful but
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  is not. You mean people back home who
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  have never lived cross culturally telling the couple
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  what they should be doing? Yes, it confuses the calling
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  friends having their own plans for the couple's life.
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  Another pain point is when leadership changes back home.
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  You leave and your pastor is your champion.
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  Five years later, he retires and the new guy does not know you.
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  You feel completely forgotten. Let us talk about furlough.
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  It is not a vacation. It is physically and emotionally
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  exhausting. Why is that?
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  I think people assume it is a break.
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  Displacement. You are living in other people's
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  homes, you are borrowing cars, you have dietary restrictions
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  but do not want to be rude to the host you are emotionally on
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  all the time. You have to perform.
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  In a sense, yes, you are visiting supporters.
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  There is this constant fear of bragging, the women mentioned.
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  Struggling to share what God has done without sounding like they
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  are self promoting. And the outsider feeling at
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  home. This is the reverse culture
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  shock. You come back to your home
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  church, but it has been four years.
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  There are new faces. The people you knew had moved
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  on. You walk into the lobby and you
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  feel like a stranger in the place that sent you.
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  That has to be isolating. You do not fit there, and you do
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  not fully fit on the field either.
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  Which forces you to find your identity in Christ alone.
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  When you have no earthly place where you fit, you realize your
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  citizenship is in heaven. Let us move to Segment 4.
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  Hitting the ground. The humility of entry.
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  This is where the theology of rights comes into play.
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  The language shock sounds brutal, the humiliation of not
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  being able to answer the phone or buy groceries.
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  Think about it. You are a competent adult now.
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  You cannot read a label at the store.
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  You cannot ask a simple question.
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  You have been reduced to the capacity of a child.
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  That is a blow to the ego. It destroys pride.
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  It forces dependents. You have to ask for help.
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  The women noted that language struggles force them to build
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  local friendships they might otherwise have avoided.
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  Because you cannot do everything yourself.
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  You have to engage. Glenna had a theology of rights
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  that I found challenging. She talked about confronting
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  different cultural pieces. In the West, we value
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  efficiency. We want it done now.
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  In many other cultures, relationships come before
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  efficiency. Things move slowly.
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  Her realization was significant. She asked herself, Who do I
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  think I am? She realized that her
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  frustration was rooted in the idolatry of comfort and control.
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  She thought she had a right to efficiency, but she does not.
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  When you enter another culture, you surrender your cultural
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  rights. To demand they change for you is
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  a form of imperialism. It is saying my way is the
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  divine way. That hits close to home.
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  How often do I get annoyed just because the cashier is slow?
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  It reveals our heart. We think we are the center of
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  the universe. Then there is the physical
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  danger. We need to talk about Ava's
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  story. The Hornet story.
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  Her daughter was stung over 40 times.
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  And there was no ambulance, no emergency service coming to save
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  the day. I cannot imagine the panic.
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  That is the moment where your theology becomes real.
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  We say God is our refuge, but we usually mean God plus my safety
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  net. When you strip away the human
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  safety Nets, you are left with God alone.
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  The theological take away, she shared, was learning practically
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  that God is the great physician. It was not just a nice phrase
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  anymore, it was a terrified mother crying out to the only
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  one who could hear her. That is a level of trust that is
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  forged in fire. And then there are the daily
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  grind issues, cold winters, humidity, housing issues.
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  It wears you down. You can handle one crisis, but
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  being perpetually uncomfortable arose your patience.
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  And the Outsider label again. Accepting that you will never
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  fully fit in, you will always be the foreigner.
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  Amanda talked about the discipline of rooting out
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  negative comments. Avoiding the this isn't how we
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  do it attitude that is poisonous.
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  As soon as you start mocking or complaining about the host
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  culture, you build a wall between you and the people
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  you're trying to reach. You have to kill that critical
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  spirit. Let us go deeper into the inner
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  life. Segment 5.
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  The plague of loneliness. Cindy, define homesickness as a
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  form of grief. I think that is a helpful
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  category. You are grieving the loss of
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  familiarity. Nina shared a trauma that was
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  heartbreaking. She experienced A miscarriage
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  during her first winter. It was a brutal winter and it
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  happened just before she was planning to share the news with
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  her family. Imagine that isolation.
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  You are physically cold, you are in a post communist environment,
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  you lose a child and your support system is thousands of
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  miles away. You cannot just drive to your
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  mom's house. And the barriers to friendship
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  on the field are real. Rachel mentioned that in some
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  African context, the missionary wife is put on a pedestal.
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  This is a subtle form of isolation.
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  If everyone views you as a spiritual giant, they will not
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  be vulnerable with you. You are elevated, which means
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  you are alone. For Ava, the local friends were
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  warm, but they were not believers.
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  So there is no spiritual fellowship.
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  You cannot pray together. That creates a deep ache.
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  And Meg had her house burglarized 3 times.
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  It destroys your sense of safety.
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  Your home is supposed to be the one place you can let your guard
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  down. When that is violated, you are
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  always on edge. Let us talk about marriage.
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  They called it a pressure cooker.
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  The field squeezes out hidden problems.
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  If you have a crack in your marriage foundation in the US,
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  you can maybe ignore it. On the field you are stripped of
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  those buffers. The crack becomes a Canyon.
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  Glenna had advice on the fast versus slow spouse.
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  This refers to language and cultural adaptation.
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  Usually 1 space learns faster. The danger is leaving the other
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  behind, right? If the husband is fluent in six
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  months and loves the people, but the wife is struggling, you have
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  a massive disconnect. Glenn's advice is that you must
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  acclimate as a team. If one is slow, the other must
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  slow down. You cannot leave your spouse in
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  the dust. That is a picture of Christ,
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  like love, sacrificing your own success for the sake of unity.
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  There is also role strain. Husbands often ask wives to take
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  on work that leads to burnout. And the wife feels she cannot
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  say no. But she is human.
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  The wife has a unique influence here.
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  She can be her husband's greatest champion, or she could
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  be a massive burden if she is constantly unhappy.
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  The husband cannot function in ministry.
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  Amanda shared about her isolation her husband was from a
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  similar culture to the field. This is a specific nuance.
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  He felt at home. She felt like an alien.
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  She felt like a foreigner in her own marriage.
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  Because he understood the context intuitively and she did
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  not. She had to ask for overt
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  compassion. That brings us to the goal of
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  marriage on the field. The goal is not marriage
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  contentment in the worldly sense.
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  The goal is satisfaction in Christ.
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  If you look to your spouse to be your savior, you will crush
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  them. Only Christ can bear that
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  weight. Let us move to the theological
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  synthesis segment 6. We have heard the stories.
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  What does it all mean? It means we have to view
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  suffering as a tool. A tool for what?
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  Sanctification. These women view Hornets,
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  miscarriages, isolation and burglars not as interruptions to
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  their ministry, but as the means of their ministry.
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  God is working in them so he can work through them.
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  There was a comparison to military deployment, yes.
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  When a soldier deploys, they accept that the conditions will
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  be bad. They accept they might suffer.
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  They do it for the mission. These women view it as spiritual
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  warfare. You accept the suffering to do
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  the job. And the adaptability?
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  There is no single formula. The common thread is clinging to
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  Christ as the only true home. And the rejection of the
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  passport country as the standard.
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  That is the key. You cannot measure normal by
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  what life looks like in America. You have to find a new normal
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  defined by scripture. As we wrap up, let us summarize
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  the key lessons here. We have seen the movement from
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  the preparation phase to the hard reality of the the field.
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  We have seen that dying to self is not erasing your personality,
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  but submitting it to God. We've seen at the local church
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  is the lifeline support raising his partnership and we have seen
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  that marriage on the field requires A radical dedication to
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  team unity and Christ centered and satisfaction.
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  Here is the final provocative thought I want to leave with
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  you, our listeners. We have spent an hour looking at
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  women who had to strip away their cultural rights, their
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  comforts and even their sense of competence to be useful to God.
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  They gave up the right to be understood.
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  They gave up the right to efficiency.
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  They gave up the right to privacy.
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  So the question for you listening right now is this.
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  What rights are you holding on to that are hindering your
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  usefulness to God? Are you holding on to your right
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  to be comfortable, your right to be right?
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  Your right to your free time. Perhaps the missionary life is
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  not a special category. Perhaps it is simply the normal
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  Christian life lived under higher pressure.
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  It shows us what we should all be doing.
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  We should be denying ourselves, taking up our cross and
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  following Him. Amen.
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  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
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  It has been a pleasure. See you next time on reformed
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  thinking.