CMS has made more mistakes in missionary work than most other organisations! That's a function of having been in the business since 1799. Hopefully that means we're getting a bit more competent at what we're doing.
We've learnt that contentment in relational status is a major indicator of a person's ability to thrive on location as a long-term cross cultural worker. If married, then happily married. If single, then happily single. Couples who have marital issues and are discontent, or singles who are unhappily single, tend to not last the distance in our kind of work.
It's easy to understand why. Living and working cross-culturally puts you under lots of stress and pressure. New language. Foreign culture. New relationships. Different Christian culture. Getting on with other missionaries. The list goes on and on.
If you're unhappily married or unhappily single, then there's no real relational 'safe space' where you can simply 'be' to process all that other stress. Things can quickly overwhelm you. Married or single, you may end up coming home a little bit more broken.
Part of getting ready to go as a missionary involves doing a realistic self-check on how you're going in your relational status. Am I happily married? Are we happily married and both united in our hearing God's call to go? Or am I happily single, and content to remain single as I go?
Some single people go hoping to be married one day, and perhaps hoping to meet someone overseas. That's altogether possible, but that scenario comes with a heap of complications. I would want our CMS missios to be thinking through them before they leave, not after!
If you're less than content with your relational status - work on that before you go, work on that before you decide to go - it's worth the preparation.
Click here for Part Two
