Surviving in TINA
By Anna McShane —
Dear Pastor Jerry,
I got your note asking how Alex and Becky are doing. Thanks for writing and asking. We appreciate that you are checking in on them now that it’s been six weeks since Pine Creek Church sent them off. I can describe their state of mind in one word: survival.
We were able to visit them this week ourselves and are glad to report that they’re settling into a very nice apartment high up in a large complex. It is bright and was fairly clean when they got it, except for layers and layers of grease in the kitchen. Their shipment of goods will not arrive for another few weeks so at this point they are making do with the minimum.
Emotionally? I think they are at the stage where they are feeling pretty lost, even while they are beginning to find their way. Adjusting to a new culture has stages. There’s often a novelty stage at the beginning, and then a discouragement stage. From there one usually goes to learning to cope, and finally settling into the new culture and feeling at home. I suspect they went straight to discouragement and skipped novelty.
That’s partly because they arrived in the middle of winter to a city that isn’t pretty even in the best of weather. It’s gray, cloudy, and wet, and right now, raw and cold. Landing in this part of the world can feel like being submerged in murky gray water.
Discouragement is also normal when you come from busy, productive work where you are a skilled professional and you now are struggling just to survive and find your way to the grocery – where, by the way, everything looks different.
They stayed the first two weeks in a guest apartment. It’s old, smells of sewer gas due to no goose-neck traps on the plumbing, and is rather sparsely furnished. There are only two burners in the kitchen, and not much cooking equipment. While those of us accustomed to the country look at the apartment and think, “Great! Clean beds, all the plumbing works, Wi-Fi, heat, a place to sit and work, and only four flights of stairs to climb,” I don’t think that’s how Alex and Becky saw it.
They saw dingy lights, plumbing that looked different, a grimy neighborhood, and most of all, they were afraid for their little son to be toddling around in a place like this. They’ve come straight from America, and TINA – This Is Not America
.
They are on their own in a strange city, strange country, and they have to figure it out. They have no car and are hopping on and off buses, complete with groceries to carry, a toddler, and a stroller.
Add to that the fact that they are not very adventurous in their eating habits, and there’s no familiar McDonalds down the street. You just can’t live here and eat “American.” You can’t get the food, you don’t have the right kitchen to cook American, and most of all, no one else eats American. If you mingle with real people, you have to “eat local” and that is going to take them time to adjust.
Yes, they have co-workers to help them find the flat, navigate where to buy stuff, help them sign up for language school, and in general encourage them. But, even their co-workers who are their own age have a year or two of experience under their belts. One of them said to us yesterday, “This is a hard place to live but I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.” Alex and Becky will get to that point, but it will take time.
My greatest concern is that you will expect them to be reporting on ministry. After all, your fellowship sent them to reach out to unreached people and lead them to the Savior. Unfortunately, they can’t even begin to do that until they speak the language. It will take two years of HARD work for them to even feel comfortable, much less be fluent. There will be tears, frustration, mistakes, and discouragement all through those two years.
How can you best support them?
Finances are important, and that is what they need to live. The first two years, most of your money is going into preparation for ministry, not ministry. Most of all they need your constant prayer support and notes of encouragement.
Send them little fun notes of what’s going on in town, what the weather is like, what’s going on in your family. Like most of our global workers, it is not safe to send them much about Pine Creek Church because they are very restricted in discussing spiritual things on the internet. But they miss life and family and friends. They said to us when the first night we were together, “It is so neat to have someone here who knows the street where we lived.”
Encouragement to stick to it and make it work is the greatest encouragement you can give them. You aren’t there, and you can never quite understand what they are going through, but remember TINA – “This Is Not America” and it never will be.
But, after all, that is why they are here.
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