How sending agencies are trying to bring overseas workers off the perfect Christian “pedestal” and into a counseling chair.
The long-standing stigma around mental health care has faded from many American churches, but has the shift made its way to the ends of the earth?
When you’re an overseas missionary, a season of deep depression, panic attacks, or chronic anxiety can seem to put your ministry in jeopardy, keeping you from the work you are being called and paid to do.
Yet missions workers are extra susceptible to such conditions. They experience culture shock. They witness trauma and fear persecution. And they often live in places where access to mental health professions is difficult to impossible.
For years, supporters have been trying to open up more conversations about mental health and to get workers on the field the help they need, but missionaries still fear the repercussions of coming forward with their struggles or their family members’.
Just over half of missionaries say they have an issue they worry could jeopardize their work in the field, according to a survey conducted this year by Global Trellis, an organization that supports cross-cultural workers. Emotional and mental health struggles were among their top concerns.
The ministry asked nearly 400 missionaries, many of whom had spent 20-plus years in the field, “How do we keep senders from putting missionaries on the pedestal, and keep missionaries from feeling like they have to stay on the pedestal?”
“We help people have language to talk about things. So, normalizing rest, normalizing growth, and just normalizing change,” said Amy Young, the founder of Global Trellis and a former missionary to China.
Other research has shown that missionaries’ stress levels are double to triple those of the average American, reaching levels that can lead to …
