I’ve gotten way behind in my blogging so you will probably be hearing about SPLICE topically rather than chronologically. To start off, SPLICE stands for Spiritual, Personal, Lifestyle/Language, Interpersonal, Cultural, Endure/Enjoy. SPLICE is the second course we are taking at Mission Training International and focuses on cross-cultural and interpersonal issues that missionaries face as they hit the field. We are the end of our second out of three weeks of SPLICE . . . . a lot has come up and the days have been emotional and exhausting.

Yesterday we talked about the stages of transition. Transition takes you from a settled place (your comfort zone) to an unsetted place (as you approach the change) and then into full blown chaos as you launch into change, back to unsettled and then settled once again into the new familiar. They approach transition using the picture of a bridge, conveying that these steps carry you from one place to another.

As I said, yesterday’s topic was Transition. And talking about transition with other pre-field missionaries was like coming home. To find others who are feeling the same emotions at many of the same levels was such a gift. For many of us we are at the end stages of unsettlement and beginning chaos. Our worlds and realities are completely changing. We can’t keep up. The facilitator asked us to list words that described chaos and suggested for those who haven’t begun to experience it yet that we pull words from the experience of the transition stage of labor which is a short term experience of chaos. Words on the board: scary, sense of anticipation, dependence, confusion, information overload, pulled in every direction, painful, breathless, helpless, never-ending, lack of control, among others.

We then went on to talk about losses, because for everyone there, chaos as they enter the field involves significant losses. We talked about the obvious losses; comforts such as food, beds, safety, healthcare, freedom. We talked about losing space in the relationships we have here and now, losing emotional investment from those we leave behind. For us that is particularly painful; some here may think that we are choosing to leave and we can feel them detaching. But for us it is not a choice we make. God has told us what to do, we trust Him and do it. It is hardest to make that choice in the knowledge that significant relationships may never recover.

I find myself crying here frequently. God is continuing to show Himself to me in new ways as He shows me myself in new ways through the experiences of significant unsettlement and chaos. I am learning more and more the depths of my desire to find safety for myself, to surround myself with what feels comfortable and secure. I realize more and more how much I try to protect myself. How hard it is on the gut level to surrender to Him. And yet I am so blessed to have Him slowly but surely continue to reveal these things and teaching me not to try to become whole, but to live in my brokenness. He IS making me whole, but it will be a lifelong process. The temptation is to live in such a way that those broken, painful, vulnerable parts of me are hidden deeply away. Safe from open air, the light, and the view of others. Yet He is calling me to something much different. He is calling me to continue to give those broken places to Him, knowing that they will remain broken, but He will redeem them. It is not through my strength that He will shine forth in me, but rather in my weakness. As I go to the Babwisi, I go as their equal; a fellow broken, hurting human with no hope in myself . . . . what could I possibly offer them?? I realize more and more that my bringing them anything is foolishness. I can only go and live among them, incarnationally ( entering their world), and letting Jesus shine out of me, a flawed human - just as they are . . . . but indwelt by His spirit, claiming his power, forgiveness, and peace.