Wait Training

In Acts 13 we see the church of Antioch sending Paul and Barnabas. What do you think they did to prepare for their journey?

I would bet prayer would be at the top of the list. But what else?

When we moved to Europe almost ten years ago we got held up having to wait on our visa to be approved. We were planning on leaving in the late summer but ended up leaving three months later. Someone called this “wait training“. We tried our best to do some things in our preparation phase that would help us when we moved to Europe.

Three biggies for me:

1. We got rid of some stuff  that we just did not need.

2. We went from having two cars in the northern suburbs of Atlanta to one car. This was no small feat to pull off (stress was involved) but it really helped us regarding transportation and communication with each other. We had to talk to each other in order to know who needed the car.

3. We moved to an apartment to help us get use to the change of living space and proximity to neighbors.

Three things I wish I had done more of before moving overseas.

1. Get a better jump start on the language.

2. Take public transportation more.

3. Watch BBC or other news outside the US context.

Since that time I have talked with a lot of people who have had made the most of their time preparing to go to the field.

I recently caught up with Kyle Goen. Kyle and his family live in Brussels. I am so impressed with this family. They are a part of Lifepoint Global. We work with Lifepoint as a Sending church at Upstream. In fact you can read  a full conversation on the Goens preparing to go to the field here.

Read this from Kyle

I am asked often, “So, what did you do to prepare for moving to another country?”  That’s an incredible question and I have an incredible answer for those who are asking.  A word of caution though, what my family did is not the only way to prepare for a huge move across the ocean. It worked for us and I definitely think there are some points of wisdom in this list. While we were accomplishing these processes during our wait to move, we had the feeling of forward motion. We weren’t just sitting and waiting. We were actually accomplishing things and thus getting closer to what we saw as the coming new reality.

You should really read his entire article but here are two  of my favorites from our conversation.

Open Your Home
Romans 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
1 Peter 4:9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
We began to have people in our home more often. Hospitality became a focus for our family. Inviting new people into our home became the new outreach for our family. Our family has always enjoyed our home as a private space to relax and retreat. Our experience has been when we invite someone into our home their walls begin to break down and they begin to share who they really are. Learning to show hospitality was a major growth area for me personally and pushed me way outside of my comfort zone.

Home has always been a private and personal space for me as an adult. I enjoyed going home and retreating from my fast-paced, people-oriented job and ministry. As we began to learn about hospitality and observe people who practice this discipline we realized how powerful it is in the lives of believers and nonbelievers. Opening one’s home to another in Christian hospitality reveals an authenticity that demonstrates the love of Christ in tangible expressions. People live fast-paced and impersonal lives today that makes hospitality difficult to practice unless a family makes it a priority.

I had to reorient my thoughts of home, my expectations of privacy, and my rush for retreat. God gave me a home for inviting people into relationship and for meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people. I am glad we started this training in the US. Walking through the initial discomforts I felt in practicing hospitality in a familiar culture has proven invaluable as we invite people into our home here in our new country.

Learn the Language Early
Learning a new language is difficult, stressful, and time consuming.  Our family began taking French classes to familiarize ourselves with the language while we were living in the U.S.  Our church planting team pooled their resources and hired someone to teach our team one night a week. We were far from fluent at the end of six (6) months, but it gave us a taste of what was to come. We rented and watched French movies. We bought a popular computer program to practice language, and we labeled everything in our home with the proper French words.  Again, we were far from fluency.  Correctly practicing the proper pronunciation of words in the context of the language makes for fluency. It is difficult to practice French correctly in Middle Tennessee. But, we were familiar with basic phrases and words. The practice helped our family to not feel completely lost in our new culture. I am still learning language as of this writing, but my brief experiences with a new language in the States has greatly benefited my learning here in the new country.

Your Turn

If you are currently living overseas, how did you prepare? What would you do over if you had the chance?

If you have not yet moved overseas what are you doing to prepare?

What happens when you have to wait for various reasons.

example on our first time

example of Goens going to the field