My daughter was recently assigned a biography assignment in her sixth grade English class. She was asked to read a biography of someone aspirational of her choosing, and then write about their life and what they found inspiring and worth striving for.
For her biography subject, she chose a book on Gladys Aylward, a pioneer in global work in Asia. Gladys’s story is one worth knowing and has been regaled in great detail around my kitchen counter over the last few weeks. My daughter, despite living in Kigali with her global worker parents for the last decade, is now coming in contact with “another worker” for what seems like the first time. She is enthralled, and we couldn’t be more excited for her.
While preparing dinner one night, my daughter was recounting to my husband the parts of Gladys’s story she had read that day. “You know, your mom and I, our family, we are global workers too,” he responded to her. “How does that make you feel?”
“Well, it doesn’t really feel like the same thing,” she responded.
And you know what? She has a point.
When our family made the choice to move indefinitely to Rwanda, we didn’t do so with our belongings in a coffin. We knew what time our flight was landing, and who would pick us up at the airport—unlike Gladys, whose arrival was delayed by months and whose liaison gave up and went home after she didn’t show. We left things in storage units, and arrived with mandatory evacuation insurance and a planned rhythm of travel back to our passport country. Yeah, it doesn’t really feel like the same thing.
Yet, when I am faced with the hardest, darkest, most challenging days of living life abroad, I am counseled to look to the lives of historically successful and aspirational cross-cultural women like Gladys for comfort and encouragement. While I can find some of that, my daughter has a point—it doesn’t feel like the same choice, the same sacrifice, the same reality. The world of cross-cultural work, the world that we live in in general, is quite different than it was then.
It’s easy, in light of all this, to feel like an imposter. To decide that I am not sacrificing enough, not going deep enough, not accomplishing enough to call myself a global worker too. Like my obedience just isn’t worth what it might’ve been a century ago.
But in the Kingdom of God, the measure of success has always been obedience. That is all that has ever been asked of us. To hold ourselves to an arbitrary standard of ministry vitality based on centuries-old models is as unwise as it is to go into a new culture, guns blazing, for our own definitions of cultural Christianity. We ought to know better!
I spent the last week meeting with other leaders in my agency’s home office. One of the things I was struck by in these meetings was how many different assignments we have people doing on the field. How varied the work is, yet all under the same vision of building the kingdom for Christ:
The youth workers in Thailand
The church planters in Mexico
The agriculture ministry in Zambia
The BAM leaders in Germany
The international student ministry in Ireland
The house parents in Malawi
The sports ministry in Costa Rica
The wound care clinic in Zimbabwe
The disability ministry in Asia
The cycling ministry in the USA
The Bible school in the Philippines
The social workers in Romania
The school chaplains in Australia
The entrepreneurs in Central Asia
The WASH ministry in Kenya
The conservation safari ministry in South Africa
. . . and so many more.
The portrait of a global worker continues to grow more colorful and varied as time goes on. When we understand this, it’s easier to identify ourselves as part of that picture—a kaleidoscope of God’s children, practicing obedience to the unique global calling the Lord has set before us.
When we struggle to feel like we belong in the “M club,” when the imposter syndrome kicks in, we must gently remind ourselves of the only One we are working to please.
Friend, may you be rooted in a deep peace in your identity as a beloved follower of Christ. May the only approval you seek be that of a loving Father, who leads you into obedience. And may you know how important your work is in this tapestry of God’s kingdom.
What’s your story of obedience? Have you struggled with feeling like you are an imposter as a global worker?
