Last month I wrote about some of the best parts of being a missionary. Of course, there are many more things to love about life as a missionary but no one really wants to read a post that long. This month I would like to get into some of the worst parts of this life. I would like to reiterate that this is from my personal experience. Everyone sees and feels things differently.
Learning
Learning is hard. This may sound silly. Of course, as someone passionate about education you would like I am all for learning. And I certainly am. I love to learn new things but it can also be the thing to break you. When you are in a different country and culture, you have a lot to learn. In life, you are never done learning and that is even more true in this scenario. They say that you have levels of culture. You can change your surface culture and others can learn about it. But then there is deep culture. That is the stuff about you that you don’t even realize is culture. It is almost impossible to change about yourself and hard for others to learn and understand. Culture is one of the hardest things to understand. I make cultural mistakes daily. It is exhausting and can be frustrating. Just when you think you have things figured out, you fail. Language falls in the same category. Of course, this is something you can learn and grow in. But learning a language is hard, y’all. I spent more nights praying and crying over kreyol than I can count. But it is so important for me to be able to understand and communicate with others. There’s a joke that goes something like this: “What do you call someone who speaks two languages? bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks three languages? trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks four or more languages? polyglot. So what do you call someone who only speaks one language? an American.” Now don’t let that offend you too much because it is the truth. As Americans, we don’t typically teach our children more than one language as they grow. Most other countries do. Maybe this is why it is so hard for us to learn a new language as adults, maybe not. That is an educational debate for another time. The point is, learning a language and culture is hard. These things will break you down and make you feel almost worthless.
Loneliness
This is the big one! Or at least it is for me. I am a social person, I like being around people and talking to others. I enjoy having different groups of people to go around. You know, you have your family, the people you work with, the people you go to church with, and maybe a few friends outside of this as well. Maybe you have even more people, I don’t know. And yes, I do love my missionary family and the people I work with. But I think they all can agree, it gets a little old only seeing each other all the time. There is no going out and meeting new people. There is no go to the movies or bowling or whatever you do. There is no new restaurant to try every week or so. You go to work with these people, you go to church with them, you do social events with them. I love living on my own (with Otis, of course). I like the freedom it gives me to kind of do what I want when I want. But that also breeds another form of loneliness. Eating dinner alone seems so small and insignificant but it always reminds you just how alone you are.
Part of this loneliness is another one of the worst parts of our lives. The disconnect that we feel from the people we knew in our home countries. People no longer have the time to involve us. We no longer know every little bit of that close friend’s life. We are no longer involved in what is going on in the community. And even with those that try, we still sometimes just feel disconnected from that life. I think we should a little. It may sound harsh but we don’t live there anymore. Yes, let’s do our best to try and keep up those relationships. But let us also understand that we have to live our lives where we are present, not trying to be a part of everything an ocean away. There is a balance to this, I am sure. I wouldn’t say I have found it yet but maybe I will one day. This all comes as part of your transition. (If you know someone going through transition, check out this article to better understand them: https://www.thecultureblend.com/why-transition-is-like-puberty/) There comes a point when you realize that visiting the states on furlough is just that, it’s visiting. When we move to another place to serve, we change and we don’t fit right back into where we were. That is a hard and lonely spot to be before you realize that it is okay, you have a new home.
The last hard part of loneliness that I feel important to talk about is people leave. Missionaries leave. Not all missionaries live in the same place until they die. So they leave. People from the place you serve also leave. Of course, this happens everywhere. People get new jobs or other things come up and they leave, they move away. It’s hard to deal with, y’all. When a missionary leaves the field, a lot of thought and prayer goes into it. It doesn’t happen overnight. And while you know coming in that people don’t stay forever, it still breaks you to your core sometimes. I believe that because we lead such a different life from others, we band together even more. So when one of your closest friends, your family, leaves…it is an indescribable feeling. The aftermath can leave you feeling lonely.
Tarantulas
One of the worst parts of life for me is tarantulas. That’s it, I just don’t like tarantulas. I don’t even like to go outside after dark because of them.
Love You to Haiti and Back 