My mother has been giving me advice since I came, always along the same theme. Learn to be content with your circumstances. I've been fighting to accept it as wisdom I should follow but I think after 3 months of struggling, I'm ready to give in.
They don't tell you that missionary life is hard. Well, they do, but generally in terms of you could lose your life or be tortured kind of hard. Anything less than that just feels like you are complaining because really, you have so much compared to others. You have food to eat, shoes to wear, and a solid roof over your head so what gives you the right to say you're having a difficult time?
I used to think I was the queen of adaptation. I smiled smugly at monoculturals who, bewildered and confused, muddled their way through multicultural interactions. They couldn't understand why people would do things differently than them while I sat like a Buddha in my corner, calmly dispensing cultural nuggets of wisdom.
Until I left my first-world sterile reality and dropped into a complex cross-cultural scenario of my own. I was suddenly no longer the smart teenager who was comfortable in a swirl of ethnicities and languages. I began to realize that I had certain expectations and they weren't being met. This made me very frustrated.
I had lost control of my surroundings. I had to eat food someone else prepared, live among languages I didn't know, and interact with cultures I didn't understand. Ironically, some of the expats were the hardest to relate to while others became my closest friends. I expected mercy but I was having a difficult time extending it to others.
Returning to a childhood home as an adult missionary is a completely different experience. You have to learn how to manage on your own now. Nobody is going to cook your food, drive you places, or wash your clothes. Your responsibilities extend beyond home schooling and household chores. Now you're the grownup and you can't hide.
In a way it's exciting. Now you can come home after midnight and nobody will demand to know where you've been. The freedom is greater but the responsibility also expands. And the biggest challenge of all is learning to be flexible and adapt to the situation.
Recently, I have been praying to find joy in my life. Today I decided that I don't want to spend the next 9 months crossing off days on my calendar. I want to wake up every morning with joy. I want to end the day with peace. And I want the moments in between to be filled with knowing I am doing exactly what God wants me to do and that He is giving me the grace and mercy to accomplish those tasks to honour Him.
Sometimes being a missionary isn't winning a thousand souls in one day. Sometimes it's doing the little things faithfully as a quiet witness to God's love. Sometimes it's letting the hope shine through the shattered stained glass window of your heart. And sometimes. . .joy whispers.
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