Ladies Luncheon

Week before last, there was a gathering of the Christian expatriate ladies of Nampula (those who speak English) that me and another lady had the privilege of organizing, initiated by a group from South Africa called the Mozambique Hub. We had over 40 ladies who attended, and it was a neat time of fellowship and sharing. Our speaker, Nicky van der Merwe, shared from her 16 years of experience living in the bush in Mozambique, and we were grateful for her exhortation of looking for joy even in our difficult situations. Quite a few of the ladies here face daily struggles of all kinds, and it is easy to get worn down. Recently, AIM sent out an article written by Ruth Ann Graybill titled the Emotional Needs of Women on the Mission Field, and this was distributed to the ladies, and is something I have been thinking about a lot. Here is a list of some of the needs:
1. Intimacy and Close Friendships
2. Validation and Affirmation
3. Healthy relationships among co-workers
4. Spiritual nourishment and support (including mentoring, pastoral care, biblical teaching and quality worship)
5. Time alone/privacy
6. Maintaining close contact with separated family members

These are all needs that are common to women around the world, but those living in cross-cultural environments face some barriers to getting these needs met, like the high mobility of missionaries, language barriers, lack of safe environment, physical isolation, busyness, constant requests for help from nationals, sexual harassment in public, etc. It seemed like a common theme among the ladies was loneliness, and indeed it can be very hard to make friends when you have few choices of who to make friends with, have trouble getting out of the house, live far from others who could be friends, there are few or no people who speak your mother tongue, and everyone is so busy with ministry (or sick all the time from malaria, flu, or other illnesses) that they don't have time to be "girlfriends".

One thing that was clear, however, was what an extraordinary group of people attended. Those who leave their home countries and come to "make the world a better place" are a group that I'm privileged to know.

I just want to encourage those of you on the "home front" to reach out to those ladies who are living and working overseas, all over the world, to share bible study resources and biblical encouragement, to let them know you think of them and pray for them, and want to understand the things they face.