Set a New Direction

When you’ve had a mission, you can never go back to a job.

I’ve experienced it. Returning home after living and working overseas is a major challenge.

Part of you has been left behind. The horizon looks like an unknown twilight. The exact path forward is unknown.

Now you must develop cultural competence - this time in your passport country - specifically related to the globalized workplace.

Your key concern is to find meaningful work that has purpose and aligns with your values. You desire the best person / position fit in your new "post–mission" context.

You've been out of the loop on the home front – and you'll need to objectively translate / reinterpret your unique skills, overseas experience and International IQ to the best opportunities here.

HOW HARD IS IT?
The Reality of Reentry is that more than sixty percent of former missionaries returning home find the experience negative – even devastating. Marion Knell, Burn-Up or Splash Down: Surviving the Culture Shock of Re-Entry

“Most missionaries feel that re-entry is the greatest challenge of the entire missionary experience.” Belinda Ng, Too Valuable to Lose - William D. Taylor (ed.)

“On the eve of reentry the question, ‘Who am I?’ may perplex a missionary…[w]ho would ever expect to feel like a stranger in his own country?” Kelly O’Donnell, Mission Member Care Author and Psychologist with YWAM Frontier Missions.

Reentering Mission workers ask:

• “Do I still have a calling?”
• “Will I make a difference here?”
• “Where will I work?”
• “Where do I fit in here?” (“I feel like such a misfit”)
• “How will I cope?”

As a returning cross-culture or mission worker, you know the incredible emotional investment you’ve made in your overseas work. It was very significant. It was comprehensive. It deeply affected all the family members like no other job. Returning home can be traumatic. Very few can understand your reentry experience. And not everyone navigates it well.

Returning home is a major turning point and you will need to allow the process to take its time. Grief will be a huge emotion during this time and it must be allowed. Great opportunities are over the horizon. You need faith. You need encouragement. Beware of the tendency to short circuit a healthy transition.

Reentry means reestablishing on the home front. It means reacculturating. In today's world, it means rebranding.

There are two things that can make your reentry better:

1. A specific career program that is geared to your situation.
2. An empathetic and competent person who's been there to be a career guide.

The good news is that returning overseas workers already have many strengths that align to the needs of a global, diverse, dynamic economy. You already understand the significance of Mission and Ministry, but there is another concept that is front and center today - Market. A market not just in material things - but spiritual things - soul matters. See Right Brain for Reentry.

For the full program details and cost, see my 4 Phase Program

If you are a Sending Agency, please see here.

Email me about scheduling a free 1 hour consultation.