There’s a lot of talk among international workers regarding the subject of resiliency, and specifically, how to acquire it. After all, becoming field-hardy and rugged makes a lot of sense in light of the difficulties of cross-cultural training and service.
In studies done on international workers, 9 factors for resiliency keep showing up:
1) Growing in self-awareness.
2) Becoming aware of God’s presence in the midst of their work.
3) Rooting one’s identity deeply in Christ.
4) Growing in one’s calling from God.
5) Openness for mentoring.
6) Developing resources to persevere (this one seems drop-dead obvious to us).
7) Facilitating a team in which there is mutual respect for one another’s gifts, skills, experience, and contributions.
8) A longing to participate deeply in one’s new community; motivated to constantly increase language fluency and trusting relationships.
9) Developing humility and an attitude of service.
For Team Expansion workers throughout the world, we’ve noticed that if all of these factors are in place — and if there’s a good fit between the person, the ministry assignment, and the team — life is really good. Would you pray with us today that God would raise up an entirely new generation of cross-cultural workers who are willing to pursue these factors in serving Christ cross-culturally? Then pray for our organization as we try to be fit partners to walk along with them in this quest.
(Note: Thanks to Kelly and Michèle O’Donnell who recently wrote to tell us about Eric and Laura Adams’ March 2018 report on their resilience research at http://membercareassociates.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Attrition-Resilience-Interview-Summary-with-Weighting-1.pdf .)
