Culture shock is the experience of overwhelming cultural unfamiliarity leading to disorientation, disillusionment, and often abandonment. Sounds pretty heady, right? It is. Culture shock is very real, and knowing how to handle culture shock is one of the most important skills a missionary can possess.

Culture shock has been widely studied and most missiologists agree that it is comprised of four phases: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and acceptance. I’ll not deal with each phase here, but rather focus on how a missionary can handle culture shock when it really hits – in the frustration phase.

Upon arriving in a new country for a long-term assignment, at first the missionary will experience the excitement of new sights, sounds, smells, and most exhilarating of all – new people! While this is all very positive and eye-opening, the missionary must make some choices during this phase before the very real frustration phase sets in. When it does set in (and it will!), you can be more equipped to navigate it using these choices.

Choose to Maintain Identity

One of the things that I often see missionaries do to handle culture shock is to over-compensate by completely letting go of their own home culture. In fact, there is ALOT of literature that suggests that missionaries should completely let go of their own culture and “become one of the natives”. But I don’t find this perspective in the Bible. In fact, I find something different.

I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

1 Corinthians 9:22

In this verse, Paul describes his lived-out philosophy of missions – adapting to the culture around him to reach the people in it. Yet at the same time in Acts 16:37-38 and Acts 22:25-28 Paul claims Roman citizenship to the authorities. It’s clear from these passages that Paul neither flaunted nor buried the fact that he was a Roman. He maintained his identity and relied on it when useful, all while adapting so well to the people around him that many of them (evidently from these passages) did not realize he was of Roman heritage.

Paul never forgot who he was or pretended to be someone else. He adapted to other peoples while maintaining his identity. The truth is, no matter how a foreign missionary tries to integrate into the culture (and they should try – hard!) – even though they make great strides, they will always be a foreigner, an outsider, in some ways. To ignore this fact is to ignore reality. Missionaries make a mistake in assuming that they have the ability to completely metamorphose into another people group. They don’t. In the end, it creates silliness at best and confusion at worst.

Choose to Live Sacrificially

Things are not going to go as you want them to in a new culture. Things will not work the way you think they should. People will not respond to you in ways you think are “normal”. These situations are especially true for missionaries serving inter-continentally. If a missionary is moving from one Southeast Asian country to another to serve cross-culturally, there will still be differences in culture. The same is true for a European moving to another European country. Or an African moving to another African country. But the differences will be more pronounced for a European moving to an African country, or an American moving to an Asian country, or an Asian moving to an African country. If that’s you, the sacrifices will be even more apparent.

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

Luke 9:23

All of the cross-cultural difficulties and frustrations should be seen, rightly, as a sacrifice for the Lord. Jesus said that if we do not take up our cross daily we are not worthy to follow Him. For missionaries, this means experiencing daily things that you don’t agree with, you don’t like, and you don’t want to happen. By remembering that you are called to sacrifice your own desires every day – for the good of others – your perspective and subsequently your attitude will change.

In short, there will be cultural pieces that you will never adapt to, adjust to, or be able to accept as normal – choose to have a good attitude anyway and focus on the fact that this stress point is evidence that you are in the place God has asked you to be. A place of sacrifice. A place of service.

Choose to Rest

Culture shock is real. To pretend everything is normal around you when it isn’t leads to frustration, denial, and rejection. Life in a foreign country is hard, there’s no way around it. If you have moved from a “first world” situation to a “third world” situation, even more so. Things don’t work as they should. Tasks take more time and effort. Ministry is tiring in unique ways.

With this in mind, as missionaries in cross-cultural service, on a primary level we must first be resting and abiding in the Lord daily. That’s the baseline and non-negotiable.

We must also be observing regular Sabbath times to still our minds and bodies and be prepared for the next wave of ministry. We must control our schedules by learning to say no and using tools to help us maintain balance.

We must find rest in our families, our homes, and yes – even those people back in our home country. Technology makes it even easier to stay connected and find a send of home while you are far away.

Missionaries must be intentional about choosing to rest.