Resiliency

Jim and Kay served for 30 years in Taiwan prior to reentering to the U.S. in 2012. They now serve as Directors of the Reentry Care System at Antioch Ministries International in Waco, TX. They share from their own (rough!) reentry experience and from insights gained from ministering to scores of reentered field workers through the years. They have a great desire to help returnees move forward healthily in the challenging - and sometimes seemingly endless - transition of reentry. In addition, they also share key elements needed in building out an effective reentry care system.

Having served as Reach Global's MK Coordinator for the past 20+ now, our guest knows a thing or two - well, let's make it dozens of things! - about nurturing and training up your kids from tender shoots to strong oaks. Heidi is joyful, tender-hearted, highly skilled, and incredibly well-read. Best of all, she's an MK care professional who was also an MK herself from age 2-18. You're going to want to pause the pod and jot down some of the wonderfully practical counsel, coaching, and encouragement Heidi shares during this insightful and engaging interview.

We were created for connection and belonging, even as we desire to be effective in ministry. As our guests in today’s episode share their stories, time and again we hear how their commitment to learning the language has led to a deeper experience of belonging, connection to local relationships, and effectiveness in ministry—all predictors of resiliency.

Studies show that the level of stress that global workers face during the first years of living overseas due to cultural adaptation is enormously high. In this episode, co-host, Silas West, normalizes that stress and provides some insight into how to overcome our hardwired responses to discomfort and embarrassment in order to adapt quicker and reduce the stress common to the early years of ministry overseas.

30 years is how long Jeff and Christine have lived, loved, and ministered in East Africa. They have a career that has spanned vocational transitions, tribal unrest, and malaria epidemics. Their resilience has been forged by drawing deeply from their Quaker roots that taught them at an early age to posture themselves to listen and to lay down their own agendas in order for God’s will to be known and done.

Field-based professional counselor and pastoral care provider, Kyle J., shares about his own journey through depression, how to identify it, and best practices for those struggling with it.

Mike and his wife, Stephanie, were guests on our first ever (and most listened to) episode. Mike is back with us today to share how greater emotional awareness leads to increased resiliency. He reflects on how our emotions are with us but we are seldom with them - rarely attuned to what they are trying to say to us. Mike points out how teams and individuals who grow in their emotional awareness end up staying longer and see more fruitful ministry.

Clinton and Amber Garsee left Texas to live in southern Thailand because of one thing--they knew they were called. More than two decades later, they share with us how they learned from former missionaries like Amy Carmichael to "count the cost and then take your slate and add up the figures at the foot of the cross." Even as they share about their struggles, they reflect on how it is the cross that gives their suffering the perspective to keep going on. Still in Thailand, it's not the deep roots that they have put down that keep them there, it's because they were called by Jesus and He is worthy of the call. 

Dave M. and his family serve in the Mediterranean region. He shares with us his keys to resiliency often involve getting to know ourselves and the meaning behind our reactions better. He notes that there are treasures hidden out there-even in the lockdowns and isolation of the global COVID-19 pandemic. What we choose to pay attention to creates the "me" (us) of tomorrow.