FOR THE SPOUSES OF SHORT- TERM MISSIONARIES

Preparing for your spouse to come home
from a short-term mission's trip

Observations & Suggestions by Darwin Anderson
INTERNATIONAL MESSENGERS

Listed below are a few observations that may help you understand what your spouse will be experiencing during this upcoming missionary outreach. We will try our best to prepare your spouse, in the training provided, to come home and apply what has been learned and to adapt again to the home culture. Crazy as this sounds, this can be quite difficult. Take some time to read these through. Please take seriously our suggested preparation steps so that the Lord can accomplish the maximum good from this ministry experience. Thanks.
• Short-term trips are an emotional, life-changing event
  • The English camps are even a highlight and pinnacle experience for career missionaries that have done 30+ camps and live in the country of the ministry
  • Being away from familiar settings for the first time in a while is faith-challenging and stretching
  • Relationships build quickly among the team members as they must depend on each other daily
  • Communion with God is close, fervent, and intense
  • There is the thrill of seeing God work in people's lives and being a tool in that work
  • Leaving this usefulness, newness, and close communion with God is emotional and difficult The returning spouse may have a new agenda for life and will certainly have a ton of growth experiences to sort through

• God chooses moments when we are vulnerable and available to Him to teach us. While sometimes uncomfortable, we look back on these moments and the people who were with us during these times with special fondness and as cherished times in life. This is the Evangelistic English camp experience most of the time, even for veteran alumni .The closeness of the returning spouse to team members can be threatening to the spouse who stayed at home

• God built us to be most fulfilled in life when we are being used by Him in the lives of other people for the sake of the Gospel. This is common at the English camps. The one type of couple that most rarely has trouble with the "after-trip syndrome," is the couple that has been involved in ministering to each other and to other people as a purpose for their lives and marriage here in the States

• When we leave home and experience personal revival, the adjustment to coming home can be tough.
  • The mate at home doesn't understand what was wrong with life the way it used to be.
  • The mate returning now has a new definition of a meaningful and fulfilling life and resents those who would not desire a change in daily perspective to accomplish that life

• Spiritual warfare has some part in the adjustment difficulties upon returning home. Much more of the problem, I think, is the magnification of those communication and/or appreciation shortcomings in our marriage relationships that come into view as all of this is processed after the trip
  • One pastor returned to his bride of 20 years and told her he had discovered unconditional love for the first time in Eastern Europe.
  • A woman, married 20+ years, returned to a husband that rarely took the time to listen to her. She decided that sharing about what she had experienced in Poland with him was akin to putting a pearl earring on a sow! She wouldn't do it!
  • A missionary director that I know well, hurt his wife so badly on a short-term trip that it took 18 months for her to recover. The communication issues that she got hurt over were not new but old issues that should have been cared for years earlier .
  • A church elder, married for 30+ years, took his wife on a trip and they "team taught" together. By the third day of the camp, their different styles of communicating had caused a real problem between them that extended even to the home front. They sat in my office and wept after the trip at the rift that this had brought between them.
  • A wife of a returning short-termer called me after her husband returned and asked me to come and give her back her old husband. The new one was a little too radical for her and she was uncomfortable with his spirituality and new goals in life.
  • A home office missionary couple went on a winter trip and had no problems but on their return home had the worst six weeks of their 20-year marriage. It took the husband washing the feet of his wife one night, with towel and basin, to break whatever the dynamic was that had happened.

• When we leave home and experience personal revival, the adjustment to coming home can be tough.
  • The mate at home doesn't understand what was wrong with life the way it used to be.
  • The mate returning now has a new definition of a meaningful and fulfilling life and resents those who would not desire a change in daily perspective to accomplish that life

  All this is to say that difficulties between marriage partners after short term ministries are not rare.
  The enemy will give his time and attention to any "unprotected" area of your marriage
  relationship to hurt you and cut short the impact of this trip for the Kingdom.

Here are a few principles that your mate will most likely
start to understand on this short-term missions experience:

• The "One Another" principles in our relationships with other believers are critical to the impact of our witness to unbelievers.
• Prayer needs to be a deep foundation of our lives and ministry .
• God desires our hearts He wants us to know Him.
• We must spend time with God to understand His daily will for our lives.
• Daily focus on "ministry as a lifestyle" brings both fruitfulness and fulfilment to life.
• God only needs our availability.
• God loves the lost immensely.
• God will greatly reward every small step of faith we take to accomplish His will
• An intimate relationship with God is not possible if we miss His great heart toward the lost around the world and around us.
• True obedience by faith usually involves some risk
• Walking through uncomfortable territory with God brings growth in our faith.
• Investment of our time in relationships gives God the ground on which He can use us.
• Well-maintained marriages are primary and critical to survival as people in "ministry as a lifestyle."
• Truthfully, as believers, seeing God actively at work around us is the greatest experience possible here on earth.
• Servanthood is always God' s carrier for an effective witness.
• No sincere effort to reach the lost with God can be in vain or a failure in God's eyes.
• There is a battle raging around us that we can either choose to ignore or choose to enter into in the name of Christ. The rewards and trials are great if we choose to enter that arena. The risks of standing on the sidelines are often greater than. we understand.

PLAN A NIGHT AWAY WITH YOUR SPOUSE PRIOR TO THE TRIP.
Invest some time before the trip to get away and talk about your marriage relationship. If there are unresolved issues, pray through them in this time. Realize the possibility that they may jump up and bite you if you don't. (Take in a Marriage Enrichment Conference if there's one in your area.)

DATE YOUR MATE REGULARLY FOR THE LAST EIGHT WEEKS BEFORE THE TRIP (IF YOU DON'T ALREADY!)

Don't think that merely giving your spouse permission to go is enough. Work on your friendship before the trip. Pray together. Spend time talking and dating. Rekindle the flame of your relationship.

PRAY TOGETHER DAILY WITH YOUR SPOUSE FOR THE LAST EIGHT WEEKS BEFORE THE TRIP ABOUT MINISTRY AS A LIFESTYLE.

If necessary, start to correct your lifestyle to include ministry to each other and to people as your main reason for existence. At least realize the possibility that this trip may give the spouse that goes a new definition of a meaningful existence in life. Set aside a prayer time in the morning before the day hits to pray together and offer yourselves to God for His use.

JOURNAL EACH DAY WHILE APART

Write down the major events of your days apart as they happen. This really helps the communication process when you get together again.

SCHEDULE A TIME AFTER YOUR SPOUSE RETURNS FOR BOTH OF YOU TO SHARE ABOUT YOUR TIME APART .

Before the trip, sit down and schedule two dates, in the first few days after the trip, for both of vou to share about the weeks you were apart. Be sure to give adequate time to this process without kids or interruptions.
Give each other a lot of room to process all of the emotions from the trip and all the happenings of staying home without your spouse. Be sure to give adequate time to rest after returning.
It would be wise for the married members of the team and their spouses
to meet two or three times during the last eight weeks prior to the trip,
if possible, to pray and encourage each other in these areas.