“Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear. Your heavenly father knows what you need. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, as well. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Jesus, Matthew 6

I remember Matt saying back in July that I needed to prepare myself not to make it financially past December of 2011. We had several donors need to drop our monthly support, just days after we had signed a year lease on a house in a better {but more expensive} part of town for our family {You can read about that transition here.} We had moved to Thailand with a business plan for a secondary stream of income, which, unfortunately, also hadn’t worked out, and car issues and unplanned expenses had depleted any shred of margin.

And, so, for the past 11 months, we’ve been sucking in and holding our breaths. Paying with change sometimes and freaking out a lot of the times.

But, we’re still here. Somehow. We did make it past December, all the way till nearly -June. And honestly, I’m not really sure how that happened. We haven’t launched a clever fundraising campaign, and we’ve actually been terribly inconsistent in our donor newsletters. We haven’t traveled home to raise our support, and try as I might, I just can’t figure out how to make this writing-gig pay much, either. But, by the grace of God and the hair of our chinny-chin-chins, we haven’t declared financial bankruptcy or had to leave Thailand.

And it isn’t all about the money, either. I’ve also learned a lot about near-emotional-bankruptcy this year, too. I’ve tasted the close-breaking of hope and faith and joy because the supply in the account was woefully short of the bills due throughout the day–

The needs of the kids and my marriage. The spiritual weight that has constantly pressed down. The darkness of what people can do to each other. The depressive fog of finding purpose and schedule and community.

Realistically speaking, I haven’t had what it takes to make it much past December of last year, either.

But, somehow, I have, we have – survived, stumbled upon just enough. By grace, only. No, really, Only.

And I was writing in my journal this past week, I wrote God a list of what I needed for the day– financial help, a meeting for Matt, friends for the kids. I was feeling desperate– an emotion I’ve become well-acquainted with during the past two years. And over coffee and by a rice field later that morning, I was reading Jesus’s words about birds of the air and flowers in a field, about seeking first the Kingdom, and about how “the Heavenly Father knows what you need.”

And I was gently reminded– He’s got a list for me, too.

And his list of what I need, what I absolutely must have to survive the day ahead of me in terms of money and emotion and spirit, is probably quite different from the one I’m typically quick to write. His list might not include a best friend or a different car or living in America. And it might not have a date night or being close to family or that ministry “success” I feel like we need to see. His list is probably smaller. But it’s much truer, too. Because He. Knows. Me.

And while this God I’m following is sometimes a God of daily, daily manna, he’s also been known to never let a bird go hungry, a flower be naked,

Or a missionary starve.

“Oh, the differences that often are between, everything we want and what we really need.” – Gratitude, Nichole Nordeman

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What are the things on your “I-desperately-need list” today? What ways has God shown up lately in your world?

And for my support-living friends, what has living on the financial gifts of others taught you about trust?

I loved reading through the comments and engaging in the discussion last week about the value of Short Term Mission Trips {STMs}, their effectiveness and their costs. And as I answered people and asked others questions back, I think I recognized the quality I’ve been battling since I hit the ground here in Asia- cynicism.

And since the best way to fight ugly cyniscm is with determined positivity, I’ve written eight practical ways that we can do STM better as a community of Christians. These are not new ideas, nor are they necessarily groundbreaking ones, but if you are new to the discussion, if you are sending or going on a STM trip this summer, perhaps they will encourage you. Because, like so many of you commented, STM trips do change people, are typically birthed from a heart of love, and have ripple effects throughout entire lifetimes that are intangible, regardless of their price tags.

8 Ways to Do Short Terms Missions Better

1. Deep, Not Wide. One commenter {Kelly @ Love Well} last week said that her church focused on two different ministries– one in Eastern Europe and one in Haiti.  Their church has developed deep relationships with the missionaries and the locals in those locations, since they send teams to the same two places several times a year. This is a brilliant and effective strategy. So often, churches or even individuals, spread their resources and energy so thin that they lose their ability to connect with a ministry on a deeper level. If a church sends its people to 17 different countries and new ministries every year, their influence might be “a mile wide and an inch deep,” but what’s the good of a really big shallow puddle, anyway?

2. Listen More, Talk Less. Our general attitude towards missions needs to change. Instead of “I’m going to save them from hell and give them all this stuff and rescue them from poverty, while I’m at it,” our attitudes need to seep with a humility that listens and learns, first. We worked with a group who titled their trips “Exploratory Trips,” instead of “missions trips” because they wanted to communicate that the purpose of the two week trip was to learn about the culture, encourage the local missionary, and get a better understanding of the social and spiritual issues that were on the ground here in Asia.  When we head overseas with a bad case of the White Savior Complex, we trample people on the road to inflated self-esteems.

3. Beware of your P.R. Hollywood sells. And oftentimes the missionary {both long term and short term} does, too. I’ve written about this before– the challenge of communicating honestly and effectively to the folks back home. When we stand in front of a church, and we make a claim to plant 12 churches or effectively fight human trafficking– in 6 days, without the language or culture or local relationships, and then say that “God told us to go,” we capitalize on the dramatic to raise the money. And there is something a bit car-salesmanish about this, isn’t there? The sender should not expect this, nor should the STM missionary deliver it.

Check out your recent fundraising newsletter, do you have the words “learn, encourage, pray, support?”  Or, do you have language like “save, rescue, do, build, evangelize, teach, tell?” Not that it’s bad to do or communicate those things, but we need to be careful not to sell a “product” we can’t {and maybe shouldn’t try to} deliver.

4. Ain’t No Shame in Going Local. I love that one commenter said that their church was committed to taking their youth especially on local missions trips first. They have found that it is much less expensive and that it still effectively “shocks” people out of their comfort zones. In some ways, this is a brilliant first step because it practically opens students eyes to the poverty and injustices right in their own backyards. My husband has taken youth teams on trips to Washington and Los Angeles with Center for Student Missions, a fantastic organization that organizes intentional missions trips primarily in the United States. New Tribes Mission also has an alternative missions experience where students and adults can taste cross-cultural missions without every leaving the U.S. {Check it out as a more cost effective summer learning trip: New Tribes Mission Wayumi.}

5. Buy In. Another commenter spoke of a policy their church had of requiring students to pay 1/3 of the trip costs themselves. This is an excellent idea because it promotes ownership of the experience. When an individual chooses to give up buying a new iPod or working extra hours at Starbucks so that he or she can travel to Africa the following summer, that experience suddenly carries more weight, and it also gives their fundraising a different tone, as well.

6. Before and After. A STM trip should be a broader experience than just two weeks in the summer. Teams can greatly increase their effectiveness and understanding of missions with quality training before the trip and debriefing afterwards. A little cultural or even language training can go a long way, too, in reducing the clunky shoes we often trudge into another culture wearing.

Jamie, The Very Worst Missionary, tells a story of students giving out sweaty hugs in Costa Rica, a nearly-offensive “ministry” in the local culture. I blogged and videoed once a guy screaming in English on a street corner, a method that falls pretty flat in Asia where respect and avoiding confrontation are values {as is, obviously, you know, speaking the native language}. And we ourselves have fallen victim to our own amount of bumbling, due to a lack of training before we hit the field.

There are several resources now available that specifically provide resources for groups or individuals going on international trips. Consider checking out The Hub, an organization specifically designed to help STM be more effective. The book When Helping Hurts {as well as it’s new online community} would be an excellent resource, as well.

7. Props to the Long-Term Missionary. The STM team or individual needs to remember that it takes a lot of work for the long term missionary to host them. A. Lot. of. Work.  It may be obvious, but if the STM team wants to go see elephants on a sight-seeing day and needs a guide, they need to pick up the tab for the local missionary’s family.  Trust me, they’ve already seen the elephants, and they are going just to be nice to you. Be sure to cover all of the missionary’s expenses– gas, meals out, lodging for ministry, etc. Chances are pretty high that the long termer is probably not rolling in the dough, and their willingness to host a STM team should financially help, or at least not hurt, them.

A STM team can be a great help to the missionary on the ground by asking specifically what they’d like from home and then bringing it. We had some ladies ask us what we needed once, we told them a few new Wii games for the kids, and they showed up with, literally, like 20. The kids thought it was Christmas, and we felt practically supported by their visit. Our home church sent a team once who showed up with two huge suitcases of items which we couldn’t buy here in Asia, including two pairs of running shoes for me. Ask me if we felt loved and encouraged by their presence– absolutely.

8. Telling Their Stories. In some ways, one of the greatest values of the short term trip happens after the travel itself is over. When an individual begins to tell the story of the experience, including the stories from those on the ground, awareness and financial giving and burdens for a people or issue can greatly increase. With the power of social media, those going on the STM trip become ambassadors and reporters, communicating and connecting their worlds back home with this new one they’ve tasted overseas. The Compassion blogging trips are fantastic examples of this idea effectively at work. The Compassion bloggers travel, but they spend a great amount of time blogging/tweeting/facebooking/photographing their experience, giving their personal networks, and the world, a powerful taste of the “STM” trip.

It’s also important to communicate the stories of indigenous peoples with integrity and respect. Required reading before you send out your post-trip newsletter should probably be this article from Christianity Today– Kony 2012 and the Golden Rule {How We Tell ‘Their’ Stories} by Kent Annan.

* Pictured above are the teams from our supporting church, Woodland Park Community, our friend Ben Watson, and friends from our mentoring trip when we first arrived in Thailand.

Okay, what did I miss?  How do we make STM trips more effective? What resources can you share? What’s worked best in your experience hosting, going, or sending? What would you add?

Related. Short Term Missions and the TruckLoad of Cash  |  8 Reasons Not to Become a Missionary  |  5 Mistakes I Made My First Year on the Mission Field   |  Apology to all “NonMissionaries”

If you enjoyed this, I’d appreciate connecting with you via Facebook {sidebar}, subscription to this blog {sidebar}, or twitter {@LauraParkerBlog}.

I posted this photo on Instagram several days ago with some wisecrack about how a bird building a nest in our mailbox was evidence for our obvious popularity with the world, both locally and globally. At first, we thought it was mildly adorable– this smattering of twigs and leaves, obviously collected on purpose by some nearby feathered friend.

But, then, five days ago, what was the source of a smart-aleck photo caption became the source of anticipation for our entire family as we saw, first one, then two, then three, four, five little baby eggs in the nest, in our mailbox. Everytime we left home and shut the gate to our house, one of the kids would look and report the status of the eggs. We were waiting with baited breath for the moment we would peer into that box and see not blue spottled eggs but actual baby birds.

I was thinking, “Homeschool science!  Score!  Now I don’t have to plan anything for the week! Or watch another Magic Schoolbus episode!” But, apparently, the locals were thinking something different.

Yesterday, my precious house helper, Da, asks me about the bird eggs and whether white people {called farangs} eat them or not. My heart sank because I knew that perhaps the polite thing would be to offer them to her, especially if it was some kind of local delicacy. I asked her if she ate them, and she immediately said that she preferred chicken eggs.  Whew. I told her how excited my kids were to watch the eggs hatch and how we loved birds and the cycle of life and all that {Okay, I didn’t say the ‘cycle of life’ part– my Thai is not that good.}

And we went to grab dinner last night at this local place that ended up with more flies and fish-taste than anything, and when we drove back into the driveway, all five of us crammed on our scooter, I hopped off to open the gate and give the daily egg-check.

Gulp. Empty Nest.

And the kids are, “What happened?!  Did they hatch that fast? Did the mama bird move her eggs to a different nest?”

And I am all, “Sure, maybe. Maybe they are really-fast hatchers here. Hmmm . . . .”

And some neighbor somewhere closeby is all, “Free eggs for dinner!” 

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Ever employed the vague-parent-lie yourself? Or, perhaps the bigger question of the day, would you be tempted by some free eggs in a mailbox?

On another note, I’d love for us to connect via Instagram, if you’re using it. I, am suffering from Instagram-addiction of late, I must admit. My twitter and instagram handle is LauraParkerBlog.

Consider this: a group of 15 high school students {with four adult leaders} want to go on a missions trip to Africa. They write support letters, hold spaghetti dinners, call up grandma and gramps across the state line. The cost of the trip is 8 days out of their summer vacation and $1800 USD out of somebody’s pocket. Per person.

The goal of the trip is to paint the outside of a church, do a VBS for an hour four evenings, and “love the orphans” at the local orphanage {a.k.a. play soccer and give lots of hugs, since they don’t speak the same language}. The group gets called to the front of the church for a send-off prayer before and produces a killer video that makes their mothers get teary after. There are lots of Facebook updates and instagram pictures of the trip– rich American teens hugging on dark African orphans– which become the profile pictures of the participants for a good six months post-travel.

The church got painted, which locals could have done for about 30 bucks maybe.

The orphans got hugged, and then had to say goodbye to people that they’ll never see again and who promise to write, but never really do.

The four days of VBS got delivered. And included the same bible stories which  the previous four short term teams had also told. Through the mud of translators and with songs and hand motions that didn’t really make cultural sense.

And the grand total of this particular missions trip: $34, 200 USD. Ouch.

In a country where the average wage might be $2USD a day. That would be the equivalent of 17,100 days of work for a local. At that rate, the money could have gone to give 46 single mothers honorable employment for an entire year.

In this part of the world in Asia, it could provide clean water filters for 1,700 homes in village communities or it could begin a business to give hundreds of future prostitutes another choice or it could fully fund several national pastors for a whole year.

Ouch, again.

And maybe I shouldn’t knock what I myself have tried, and tasted the benefits from. I went to Jamaica on my first summer missions trip as a jr. high kid, and I still remember the stories. My husband has led a half-dozen missions trips for teenagers during his work as a student pastor. And some of our ministry here in Thailand has been based on the idea that there  is incredible value in the mentorship of young adults as they travel and volunteer internationally. {And we have seen that it has.}

I get it.

And I know that maybe that money wouldn’t have been given to support those other {more cost- effective} endeavors, anyway. I understand that  motivating a Westerner with an experience which could make him or her a financial supporter of missions for the rest of a career has value. I get that there is intrinsic value in letting the third world know that they are not forgotten by the first, and I can see that a missions experience for a teenager could translate into a lifetime of living overseas themselves.

Yet, yet. $34,000. For eight days? When people are starving and children are trafficked and pastors themselves don’t have access to Bibles?

It’s hard to swallow. Or justify sometimes.

Or, is it?

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Alright, short term missions senders or goers or proponents or hosters – I’d love to hear your thoughts about the value of the short term mission trip and how it relates to the amount of cash we spend to get it.

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Some other great resources: Jamie the Very Worst Missionary’s Series on STMs  |  Are STMs the Answer? by the Hendricks  in Haiti  |  Rethinking Short Term Missions series by Desiring God

I have snapshots of my mother stored away in the photo album of my 30-something-year-old memory.

There’s the picture of her singing resolutely “It is Well With My Soul” at a funeral- my dad’s, a 35 year-old father to four.  Then there’s the picture of a gaunt face and a bald head- hers this time, as cancer once again visited our family several years later.  And though disease stole breath from my father and a year from my mother’s health, she refused to let it steal her faith or her joy.  And I have the photos to prove it.

I scroll through, and I can see snapshots of her sitting in the early-morning dark in prayer, her cheering from the bleachers embarrassing-loud during games I often sat the bench, and her dramatically directing summer musicals for a rag-tag group of kids.

My memory album holds images of her reading aloud C.S. Lewis {as we all cried that Aslan really died}, images of her building forts on rainy days, pictures of her from the front seat dolling out complicated clues to mystery trips.  

I can see her teaching my sunday school classes, and I remember that time she literally stood with her heels on top of her marked-up Bible to tell a bunch of sixth graders that we should stand on the Word of God– no matter what.  

I see her in cream as she marries again and in pink when she holds her first grandchild– mine, a girl.

I have an image of her at airport after airport, as she died innumerable small deaths– deaths to her own dreams of watching all her grandbabies grow up close, of birthday dinners and soccer games and long conversations in the flesh and over coffee on normal weekends. And I’ve watched her die them with grace and trust and a commitment to the Kingdom that outweighs everything else.

Mom, words will never express how deeply grateful I am to have such pictures of motherhood over my years as your daughter.  My memory album is full, of you. 

Thank you that the photos you created were happy ones that encouraged me to always, always look up.

Mom and I {My Third Birthday}

Heads-Up:  The following is a more mature post about prostitution in Thailand, potentially inappropriate for younger readers. The girl in the story moved to the city to work in the bars, of her own accord {not being forcibly trafficked}.  She was born into a world of poverty, little education, and a culture that in many ways readily accepts prostitution as a lucrative means of income.  In some ways, you could ask if she had much of a choice, after all.

We both get ready for a night on the town.

I lean over the dresser and brush on mascara, while telling my kids to clean their rooms before the sitter comes.  I straighten my hair for the first time in a week, and I squeeze into that cute strappy-top and those jeans that are just a tish too small but do wonders for my back end– at least that’s what he jokingly tells me.

She peers into the mirror and swipes on lipstick–bright red because it makes her look older, at least the 18 she claims.  The girls crowd for mirror-space and chatter about makeup and last nights and family, back in the villages.  She curls her hair, like every night since she came to the city, and zips up that tight dress, which makes her look sexier– at least that what he’s told her before.

I kiss kids and then ride in the front seat beside a husband that’s put on cologne for me.  We linger over candles at dinner and treat ourselves to coffees afterwards.  We hold hands beside the plates, and brush feet under the table, and think of the Romance to come.

She dances on stage and scans the evening crowd–trying to catch an approving eye, an interested gentleman. She locks eyes with a European, 50′s she thinks, dressed in baggy shorts and a wrinkled t-shirt stretched over a beer-belly.  She watches as he motions for her to be brought to the table.  She’s number 14, the card pinned to her chest.  She sits beside him and rubs his leg and thinks of the night to come.

And I walk through my night as one born into wealth and education and opportunity.  I enjoy my date night as a woman whose husband fights for her happiness.

And she walks through hers born into poverty and survival and the pressure to provide.  She lives her nights as a woman whose parents expect money at the end of the month.

And my people look at her and say, “She always has a choice.  How could she choose that?”

And her people look at me and say, “I can not imagine that life.  How could she ever complain?”

And the night ends.

And I curl up beside a husband that protects me, thankful for my tomorrow with happy kids and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, again.

And she slips away from the sleeping stranger, glad she made quota for the night, thankful for the food that will be on her family’s table, back home.

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The above was inspired by a precious young prostitute we recently met.  Her name is Ariel*.  She says she’s 18, and she works to provide for her family in a remote village in Thailand.  She is one of over 2 million men, women and children in the sex industry in Thailand. Pray for them, would you?

*name and some details changed to protect privacy, reposted from the archives

It takes guts to step out, to begin the adventure. It takes a certain amount of bravery and courage to first look for the risk, and then to be willing to push off the shore.

Water is scarier than land, after all. But, it’s oftentimes more thrilling, too.

And it takes guts to climb the tower, too.  To stare up at the ladder that has grown much higher than it appeared from the other side of the dock, to put bare toes to rickety metal, anyway. To climb.

And, then, that look. down.

Terryifying enough to make you crouch at the top instead of stand with straight knees.  And you see the watchers– those observing from the safety of their benches, in the cool of the shade, over sticky rice and cokes. Quick to cheer, yes, but quicker still to laugh at the white kids who might not have what it takes, after all.

And the pressure mounts. The expectation, the follow-through, the eyes looking up. The gravity of the smaller steps you’ve made that have lead you to this colossal jump begin to weigh heavier with each moment your heart pounds in your ears.

So, you muster courage, close your eyes, and you leap. Flail through the air, limbs and lungs screaming.

And it’s adrenaline-pumping victory, for a few glorious, petrifying seconds. . .

But what if, what if.

After all of that, you hit pavement? You smack cement. The water was a mirage, and you find yourself shocked and shattered into a million different pieces, like glass on marble. What if there is no confident kick to the surface, no cheering crowd to greet you when you suck that first breath? No high-fives. No sighs of relief. No heroic story to tell on the boat ride back.

What then? Where is God in that? How is that fair or good? To have the courage to leap, but to be blindsided with epic failure?

Maybe, maybe, in that case, broken is what he was after all along.

And shattered becomes the path to greatness, instead of the heroic fanfare you expected.

Perhaps the real danger lies in the assumption that an unsuspecting leap to cement speaks of a God who isn’t able to put all things back together again,

better, and stronger.

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Related. Jumping, Not Falling  |  God the Cosmic Bartender  |  When Following God Doesn’t Work Out

Dear Homeschooling Mom Who Is Considering Putting Your Kids In School Next Year,

Even if you’ve waved the homeschooling banner strong in years past, you are not less of a mother for considering sending your kids to public school full-time. It is not failure to change direction mid-course, and it doesn’t in any way mean that your friends who still homeschool are proving superior motherhood.

You do the best you can for your kids, each school year. And you should have the freedom to decide that that definition of  “best” might just change from year to year, from child to child, from season to season.

It’s okay to backpedal, to sell your curriculum, to trade the pajama-days for the alarm-clock ones. And it’s okay to be looking forward to work outside the home again, or an easier relationship with one of your kids, or the space to really miss your children. There are a million factors to consider, and please, please give yourself the freedom to consider them honestly. While we can ideally head in a direction, life changes, and we have to figure the story out as we’re in the middle of the stage living it. Maybe you never expected this when you were deciding about that, back then. And that’s really, really okay. A mother is no fortune-teller.

Sometimes the lines we draw in the sand need to be erased, redrawn, or leaped over.  Maybe one of our greatest mistakes early on is that we drew them too deep in the first place.

But, God is a God who carries our kids, who works good in all things and in all places, and he is most definitely not limited by where our little ones spend their learning hours.  Truly. Just be open to prayer, follow your peace, allow for different paths for different kids, and really listen to your spouse.

Know that there will be things that you hate about sending you kids to school, just like there are things you probably hated about homeschooling. But, there’ll be things you love, too. And this is natural and to be expected– life is never all good or all bad.

And just like you homeschooled them because you knew in your gut that it was the most loving gift you could give your kids, be willing to admit that maybe sending them to school, this year, is an extravagant love-gift to them, as well.

With lots of love and grace for the line-jumping,

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Related. Favorite Homeschooling Books |  Homeschooling Stations  |  The One on Homeschooling

What ideals have you had to reconsider lately?

Thoughts on homeschooling vs. public/private school? Thoughts on why mothers are so hard on each other in their kid-decisions?

“I’m sad to confess that I yell at my kids most often when I am trying to finish a P90x workout video in my bedroom. It seems that regardless of how occupied they all appear to be before I push play, they descend on my exercise time like locusts on a fall crop. Suddenly, I have my preschooler sitting on me while I’m trying to do push-ups, and I’m pressing pause faster than I can break a sweat.  The older two are fighting. My daughter needs help with the computer. My son can’t find a snack in the kitchen. And while the skinny people on the video are squatting and planking and tricep-pressing, I am an irritated mom who’s morphing into a she-version of the Incredible Hulk {but, considering the Hulk’s physique, maybe that would work in my favor, anyway}.

I just want 40 minutes to myself.  What is their problem?!  Why can’t I just have access to a gym and childcare?

And so, I get angry. And unfortunately for my kids, my angry-self  is even less attractive than my working-out-self, if you can imagine. There is stomping and verbal “arghs” and frequent words I have to apologize for later.

We had a friend tell us once that ‘anger is oftentimes the result of a blocked goal,’ and I agree. . . “

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Read the rest over at {In}Courage today? Including the part where I share the idea that changed everything for me. . .

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And to visitors from {In}Courage, consider subscribing below to get a little overseas right to your inbox:

We just said goodbye to our closest family friends here in Thailand. It was one of those very rare relationships where everyone in the family actually enjoyed each other — the kids, the wives, the husbands. And it was community born of necessity, and desperation, and proximity. We iced Christmas cookies together, we babysat each other’s kids for appointments, we hid Easter eggs, we watched choreographed dances from the girls and cheered and video-recorded like we were watching Broadway. The men brainstormed ministry and the ladies ran a triathalon. We drank a million cups of coffee and quite a few glasses of wine over conversations that mattered, and we tasted what it meant to be known in a very-foreign place.

And, then, our friends took an exciting job at a church in North Carolina. And Tuesday, after virtual yard sales and goodbye dinners and one last lunch at their Favorite Place, we stood in the driveway around a truck piled high with black suitcases, and we said goodbye to people that mean the world to us, again.

And we know what it means to be the ones leaving, and we’ve tasted the being left, too, and I can’t really say which is harder. But I do know that it does a number on your heart, this digging-deep and this tearing-away. This goodbye followed painfully close on the heels of the hello.

When we first arrived here in Thailand, we were invited by another missionary family over to dinner. I remember standing in the kitchen, with fans blowing the heat into our faces, while the wife offered me my first piece of advice from the field– she told me to lie. When I told her I wasn’t sure how long we would be overseas, she immediately said, “Well, listen, just lie and when people ask you, say four years or more. Otherwise, you won’t ever get asked over for dinner or make friends.”

I gave her a nickname when we left, Bitter Missionary, and vowed never to fall victim to that kind of relational-cynicsim. {Though it was obvious when I first arrived that many others already had.}

But, just a few years in, I get it. I understand more where Bitter Missionary was coming from.  Because a heart can only take so many dramatic airport goodbyes before a natural self-protection mechanism creeps in and takes over. And while I’m an adult and have perhaps the capability to cope, I watch my kids’ reactions to the loss of friends, and I cringe a little inside. Because my son told me today that he didn’t have any friends in Thailand and asked why we just couldn’t “go back to America already, forever.”

We have some close friends who now live in another city in Thailand who’ve helped me to see the way through the brevity of many missionary relationships {I would assume similar to friendships in the military, as well.} The husband grew up here as a missionary kid himself, and he told us that his parents used to say to him about the frequent changing of friendships, “The relationship is always worth the goodbye.”

 The relationship is always worth the goodbye.

And I am finding this statement to be deeply, deeply true.  I look back over the year we did life with our friends the Stowells, and I don’t have enough fingers to count the gifts that their friendships provided to each member of our family. It was rich, to say the least.  And while the tears were hard and the gap they leave is large, the relationship proved every bit worth the goodbye.

 And while maybe I would prefer community that has deep roots like the oak tree, maybe the community I’m building is more that of an Aspen– more shallow and quick growing, perhaps, but strong nonetheless because of it’s connection with so, so many other trees,

spread out as they may be.

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Related. New Girl  | 8 Reasons Not to Become a Missionary | Injustice of Skype

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Have you said any hard goodbyes lately? And if you’ve said a lot of them, do you struggle with a tendency to not invest in relationships with people because of the past, or because they might not be around for very long?

I love Thai food. Not the boiled intestines or the congealed blood so much, but on the whole Thai food is pretty amazing. It’s spicy and fresh and has tons of flavor. And it’s about a dollar a plate, typically, which is an added bonus.

Two weeks ago, my friend Deb had one of the cooks from our favorite local Thai joints {video of it here!} come to her house and teach us a few recipes. The simplest was the recipe for Thai Basil Chicken, which we typically eat more than once a week. The ingredients are fairly easy to get, and even I can replicate it.

Not that I am all Barefoot Contessa, but I did a quick video with my daughter of how to make this dish. And I had just hopped out of the shower and I ramble, but in case you need a visual– there you go. {On a side note, I have learned that if I wait for everything to be “perfect” in a vlog–my hair, setting, clean space, kids busy, etc.– then said vlog usually just doesn’t happen.} Anyway . . .

Thai Basil Chicken

Ingredients: 2 packages of minced chicken, 10 cloves of garlic, 10 small green spicy peppers, oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, rice, a truckload of basil {small salad bowl size}

Directions: Chop the garlic and green peppers very finely. Saute in a little oil. Add chicken {or pork or veggie substitute} to pan and cook.  When chicken is cooked, add equal parts fish sauce and sugar {1.5- 2 tbls} and then 6 – 8 shakes of soy sauce. Stir a bit. Then add the basil until basil is wilted. Serve with jasmine rice.

What’s your favorite international dish to make? Share the recipe?

When I wrote about the top five mistakes I made during my first year overseas, I loved checking my inbox for the several days following the post. I loved hearing from missionaries all over the world, some of whom have logged decades overseas, some who are leaving next month, and most of whom said that missions had turned out harder than they expected.

Honestly, the comment thread on that post has become a treasure trove of advice.

But, as I was talking to a new friend {you know who you are- wink, wink} about the possibility of her family moving overseas, I noticed another piece of advice that was first out of the gate which is my mouth, admittedly a gate which stays open too often.

I advised her to leave home with a {shorter} term goal of time spent on the field, already set and communicated to supporters. Now most missions organizations will require this, so for many this is a no-brainer. But, for those of us who are independent, the idea of committing to a one year, two year, or three year term doesn’t rank high on our decision-list {moving a family overseas, you’re already making a million of those, anyway.}

I didn’t expect that defining a goal would be as important as I think it probably is. Because when you shove off the shore into the great unknown with the general assumption that you will be there long-term, whatever that really means, you could be poising yourself to feel like an epic failure if you don’t make it as a career missionary.

However, if you leave with a goal of staying overseas for two years, say, and then having the full intent of being open to more, it helps your heart when things get hard in your new country. Because you can do anything for one year or two. And when things get awful and disappointing, this knowledge that you are walking towards a goal is helpful. But when you accidentally commit and communicate that you will be living the missionary life indefinitely, then you’ll feel like an epic-loser when you pack up bags and head back home after two years– even if two years was all that was needed to accomplish what you felt called to do in the first place. And no one wants to leave the mission field in defeat. {But many do. There’ s a post on that coming soon.}

[Obviously, this advice only works on the assumption that you didn't feel strongly from God that you were to commit to a particular span of time overseas. Of course, in that case, you should obey that is the only pearl of wisdom I'll give.]

Now, I assume that many will strongly disagree with me on this particular piece of advice. They will say that the only way to survive the challenges of the mission field is to enter it with a long-term commitment. They will say that if you go with a short term mindset, you’ll not invest enough time in the language or in relationships because you will always be eyeing your exit strategy from the time the plane touches down. And there is definitely some truth to that.

And I get this. But, but. I think for independents and for parents with kids, especially, it is particularly important  to set a shorter term goal than you might assume you need from your homeland. While you might end up on the field for decades, maybe sometimes it’s better to start small. The idea that this new expat life does not have to be the one you signed up for forever might just be the encouragement you need to make it through those first culture-shocked months.

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What do you think?  Is it suicidal for a missionary to set a short-term goal for themselves? Or is it just smart?