Remember the Goal

Re-entry like being a hurdler requires patience and persistence. Remember the goal.

Most global workers take the time to train and prepare when launching their cross-cultural living and ministry experience. But very few take the time to prepare and train themselves for re-entry. This may be because the global worker and even the agency and/or sending church has the belief that the global worker is coming back to familiar territory – familiar people, language, and culture.

The rub of frustration is caused from knowing what you want to do because of the familiarity, but not being able to do it because things are now different and nuanced. The result being slow progress.

A hurdler must develop a more event-specific flexibility, strength, and muscle memory which is a gradual process that takes time and is often frustrating and arduous work. It is also a process of mind training, or a re-training of the body to hurdle in the new way that you are trying to teach it and not how the body naturally did it before.

In re-entry you need to do mind training, to teach your body and mind the new way of doing things when living back in your passport country. Your default may be to do things how you previously did them and lived before, but now you are different, your passport country is different, and the people are different. Be patient with yourself and with others. Be persistent by pacing yourself to build endurance and strength.

REMEMBER THE GOAL!

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Shannon's Corner

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