Life on the mission field can be unpredictable and stressful for so many reasons. Change is a constant of life overseas. Missionaries often tend to have a “pioneer/adventurer” spirit. But expecting stress and change is one thing, and actually experiencing it is another. In general, people become distressed when faced with instability, and they tend to become more distressed as the instability affects more central aspects of their lives. So what happens when someone experiences change stress in things basic to their identity, such as the culture they live in and the language they use to communicate? Or things basic to their environment, such as the climate they live in and the diseases they are exposed to? Or things basic to their social system and support network, such as leaving friends and family behind and getting new neighbors, a new work team, and a new church/social community all at the same time? Now let’s add some common mission scenarios on top of those already world-rocking changes. Mission vision changes, affecting job responsibilities. Housing situations change, causing more transitions for the family. Unexpected emergencies strike, turning life upside down temporarily or even permanently. High workload, inadequate staffing, poor work-life boundaries, and pressure to produce results push us toward the cliff of discouragement and burnout. Both physical and mental/emotional health are critical to keeping cross-cultural workers resilient and productive. When we suffer in the body and/or mind, it is difficult to remain focused on any job, including our ministry. Earlier in the survey, we discussed the physical health challenges that missionaries encounter most commonly, and we saw hints about mental health factors there. In this section, stress and mental health impacts were the focus of questioning. We measured the frequency and strength of influence on the return decision for the following statements considered to be mental health factors:
Results The following table summarizes the results for each question by providing:
Discussion of Quantitative Results
More than half of the stressors in this section were experienced by more than half of the missionaries surveyed:
It is noteworthy that given the high numbers being reported for each of these stressors, there is considerable overlap. Families are subjected to not just one stressor at a time, but find them accumulating and compounding the effect on their well-being. A family may be struggling with isolation, transitions, job dissatisfaction, burnout, being robbed/assaulted, and facing serious health issues all at once. It is not surprising that anxiety and/or depression can be the result when facing so many difficult circumstances beyond one’s control. We also see a high number of factors in this section that were a serious consideration in departure decisions. The proportion of people who experienced the factor and also reported that it was a part of their decision to return to their home countries were:
Some of these factors also had strong effects on return decisions, as seen in the strength factors. This section of mental health factors had the highest concentration of significant strength factors than any other section in the survey.
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