So you wake up one morning in X country and it feels a bit like a hangover. You have been here a few days and it is all sinking in - I'm really doing this!

So once you have had your coffee and are back in the real world, the question is, "What do I do now?"

Well this is a big question with many possible answers. But here are a few things that you should consider.

1. Hopefully the mission you are with has given you a mentor or someone to work with as a new missionary, but if not - FIND ONE QUICK!

2. Write a lot of notes and study everything. Read everything and synthesize what you are learning into key points. Go over them with your spouse, teammates, friends, or the sherpa on the corner.

3. Set some basic goals and share them with someone - even someone back home. Make sure that someone is asking you about your progress.

4. Pray hard - Ask God to help you tackle the huge learning curve and give you wisdom as you connect with a new culture.

5. Make some friends in the community. Whether it is the guys playing chess in the park, the local grocer or the kids playing basketball nearby, you need to get some contact going.

6. Allow down-time. You can burn out so fast if you feel that you have to accomplish everything in the first day, week, month. Make sure you pace yourself for the long haul.

Just some thoughts. We will see what Mike Dworak has to say when he checks in. 

Imagine opening your eyes in the morning and being flooded with a million new sounds, smells and sights. INTENSE!

That is what it can be like when you arrive in a new place - whether it is for a week, a year or a lifetime.

You need to be ready for overload. When everything is new it takes longer to process and to figure stuff out. So the key is to give yourself time but quickly begin trying things out.

Its like a little kid stepping out on the frozen pond for the first time. The quicker you take the step, the quicker you will begin to figure out what is going on and how you can fit in.

Mike made a great point in his comment to yesterday's post. He mentioned going to MTI (Missionary Training Institute). This is a place that helps get you ready for a new culture.

When you are looking to go into missions, make sure you ask what kind of cross-cultural training the ministry is going to provide. You are going to need it!

It is so critical to come in with the right tools so that when overload hits, you can handle it. 

We live in a funky shrinking world that defies all explanation. So as you leave to go on your missions experience you face a weird reality. You have to say goodbye at the airport, but within days most missionaries are online with email, Skype, Internet and calling cards. So then you have to say hello!

The key is to take the time with your family and friends before you leave to provide good closure. You want them to feel comfortable with what you are doing, where you are going and what life will be like for them. You also need to set expectations for how often you will call, email etc. The danger of technology is that your old life can eat into your ministry life if things don't change enough. Expectations are the key.

Mike Dworak is going to be responding to these thoughts with his very recent experiences of settling in to Prague as a new missionary. Come back within the next day to see how he responds to this reality. 

This week we are going to have a fun interaction. Each day we will talk a bit about what you need to consider as you arrive for your missions experience. Then Mike Dworak, HCJB World Radio sub-regional director for Central Asia, will answer. He's the right guy for this discussion because they have just arrived in Prague a few months ago.

The topics will be:

Day 1 - Saying goodbye / Saying hello

Day 2 - Get ready for overload

Day 3 - Where to start

Day 4 - Building relationships 

Lets begin the conversation. 

G K Chesterton said, "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."

His quote has a very simple application to anyone preparing for missions. But relax, it isn't "If it ain't broke don't fix it!" :)

Instead it is this, when we enter new cultures things are complex. We jump in and we want to solve things, but they are never as easy as they look. We have seen that with the struggles in Iraq. Hundreds of years of strife make for complex solutions no matter what way you approach it.

The same will be true when you get into missions. You will see an issue but it will take a lot of research, talking with people and prayer to understand what is going on under the surface.

Are you willing to invest the time to know why that fence was built in the first place? 

The word "willing" is very open ended. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation. That usually scare us, but as missionaries, it should do something more than scare us - it should challenge us to serve our King!

Ty Stakes, program producer for HCJB World Radio in Australia and the voice/producer of our upcoming Missional Hands podcast has this to say. 

"I think the most important characteristic for a missionary in the 21st century is to have a willing mind.  But that's a multi-faceted thing...it looks like this:

• A willing mind says to God, "Whatever you want is OK with me...wherever, whenever...I'm yours!"
  
  
• A willing mind is open to new things that God is doing, and new directions that He gives by His Spirit and His Word.  A willing mind could very well stay the course in a certain ministry, or it might be led into something totally radical and new...but whatever the direction, it is willing to listen and follow.
  
  
• A willing mind is positive...it sees the world through the lens of the God who lacks nothing, is absolutely sovereign, can overcome any obstacle, can endure any suffering, and will not ever leave you stranded.
  
  
• A willing mind is creative, because God is creative.  It is willing to engage its context and make the Gospel speak in that context.
  
  
• A willing mind has time and space in perspective.  This life is short at its longest, and fragile at best.  But, this life is the gestation period for eternity, and a willing mind lives in time and space knowing that our experience here is our cocoon for the eternal.  A willing mind wants to makes the most of it!
  
  
• A willing mind  knows the value of each individual...God is not willing that any individual should be lost, and a willing mind is totally engaged in making sure that everyone hears about Jesus!"

So are you willing to serve today?

Be careful - saying "yes" will open up a new life! 

It used to be that one of the main skills needed in missions was the ability to adapt to a new culture. We defined successful missionaries by their willingness to shed their own culture and to look at the world through new eyes. That is still true but I think that we need to say it differently today.

In a globalizing world, cultures and people groups overlap and are always being introduced to new situations. We have refugees, business people, natural disasters and modern communications to tie it all together. The skill that this requires is an ability to overlay many cultures and pull out of that analysis some basic ground rules.

What do I mean? As you sit in a suburb of Paris, you must understand French culture, overlay the cultures of various immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East and then you must understand the youth culture in France that is impacting the very young population. That scenario might require you to overlay 4-6 cultures in order for you to understand what is going on and what it means for your ministry.

Are you willing to heighten your awareness?

What will your missions experience look like as you overlay the cultures that are swarming around you?

One blog entry has created some good discussion. It was part of the missional church series I did a few weeks ago.

The key issue that we have to grapple with in missions is how we relate our individual calls with the activation that the Church is tasked with. Who's the boss?

What happens if we are called and our church doesn't have a mission vision? What happens if our church has a heart for missions and we don't?

Read the blog entry and the discussion and jump in. Lets talk about this and engage each other on how the 21st Century church and the 21st Century missionary connect.

Do you have stories of how this happens? Share them!

As you think about how missions happens, think about the impact of the church on how missions has changed. What is good/bad/confusing about what your church expects of missions? 

We have been blogging about what it takes to be a missionary for almost a year!!! That's a lot of talk, so what are some of the highlights so far?

Check out some of the organizations that have shared their thoughts:

Wycliffe Bible Translators - Vital Hands

TEAM - Hands that Collaborate

SIM - Humble Hands

Life Words - Hands in Community

GCM - The Hands of a Fanatic

Campus Crusades - Expectations for your Hands

YWAM - Authentic Hands

Book of Hope - Hands in Motion

Take time to read them all 

One of the realities of working in missions is that efforts are decentralized. What does that mean? It means that even within one organization, you might have people in Asia who don't know those in Africa. The ones in Africa may not be communicating what they should to those in the main office, and the chain goes on and on.

Many times the right and doesn't know what the left hand is doing. In this world, you have two choices:

1. You can live frustrated with a world where everyone is not on the same page and things are not aligned the way you would like.

2. You can learn the system and spend a significant amount of time communicating.

That's right, in missions, get ready to spend a major amount of time on Skype, on email, on the phone, in one-on-one meetings. Its part of life. If you don't like interacting with others, think long and hard before you jump into missions.

So are you ready to communicate?