by Tricia Paulichen
You do not realize how much of life you take for granted until you become a missionary.
Back “home,” you knew how everything worked. Paying bills, getting groceries, tracking down deals? Routine. Booking a doctor’s appointment, navigating paperwork, following traffic laws? Second nature. You knew how to handle emergencies and navigate social situations without thinking twice.
Now, imagine waking up on another planet.
Suddenly, nothing makes sense. The strange one-eyed blue aliens around you speak only gibberish. Their rules are different. Their systems are foreign. What used to be simple tasks now become monumental obstacles.
That is what it feels like to move overseas. You are still an adult, but your brain turns to mush, and you function like a toddler… and often, you are treated like it. Most people back home have no idea.
“When we cross cultures, we leave behind parts of who we are and must rebuild a sense of identity in a new place.”
– Sarah Lanier, Foreign to Familiar
You were once articulate, but now you speak like a caveman with confidence issues. Your ability to communicate determines your independence, and in the early days, you have none. You avoid conversations out of fear, but that slows your progress. The frustration builds—knowing what you want to say but being unable to express it—until you find yourself nodding along just to end the interaction.
Grocery shopping, once effortless, becomes a scavenger hunt. Baking soda? Only sold in pharmacies. Molasses? Available, but in greenhouses as fertilizer. (No kidding.) Opening a bank account requires stacks of notarized documents, multiple visits, and an abundance of patience.
Even something as basic as using a public washroom can go hilariously wrong—like walking in, only to realize, too late, it is being used by both genders as an election voting booth. (Yes, really.)
No one tells you these things outright. You learn through experience, sometimes painfully. And when you misstep, you might never understand what you did wrong. It is trial and error, and each attempt brings a new complication.
Contrary to popular belief, missionary life is not all fun and adventure. Sometimes, it is just exhausting.
You expect an adjustment period, but no one tells you how deep the exhaustion runs nor how long it lasts. Even after months or years, the challenge of culture shock still sneaks up on you. You miss the ease of shopping, the rhythm of daily life, the comfort of blending in. Building relationships takes effort and, even then, you often feel like an outsider. As my immigrant father-in-law often said, “Once you leave your birth country, no matter where you live, you’ll never fully fit in again.”
So why do we do it?
That reality is hard to explain. But underneath the exhaustion is a deeper sense of purpose—one that keeps you going, even when you feel clueless. At first, every day feels like a battle. But slowly, you change. One day, your brain is not fried by 2 PM. Life gets easier. And eventually… you adjust.
Fall 2025