The Truth about "Saving the World"

July 2, 2014

Robynn Bliss writes about life as a missionary overseas: “I didn’t expect a rose garden, but neither did I expect that the disappointments and the pains would be so relentless, so incessant, so continuous.”

So, here’s the thing nobody likes to talk about: being a missionary is not all about saving the world. Just because you pack up your life to move across the planet and are planning to help people doesn’t mean your own life stops having trauma and pain and sorrow. In fact, I would argue it gets worse and more intense. And then, when missionaries have these traumatic or painful things happen to them, we don’t want to tell anyone or talk about it because we feel like we are failing at being a missionary, at doing this one thing that we have been sent to do. We compare our own sufferings to those of the people we are working with and then feel selfish for experiencing pain and suffering, because it’s nothing compared to not having running water or consistent electricity or a bed to sleep in. But the truth is, pain is pain, trauma is trauma, and discounting your own story because it’s not traumatic or painful ENOUGH is a bad practice. Our experience is our experience and just because it’s not the same trauma as someone else’s does not make it any less real.

I was talking today to several other missionaries about how we feel like we can’t be real with people because our supporters or families or friends have these images of us out there, strong and capable and “saving the world.” But, I think that is an unhealthy and ultimately, untrue, view of what we do here. Yes, of course, our work with homeless, stateless, exploited and abused people is important. It’s the reason we are all here, after all, the reason we get out of bed in the morning and fight day after day, to see change happen, to see people get citizenship, to see women escape trafficking, to see children graduate high school and break the cycle of poverty. And all that is good to share. But, I think it’s just as important to share our personal ups and downs so that people know what life is really like, that they don’t just get the rose colored glasses version of things and so they know how they can really support us.

When we come back to our home countries, it’s often very difficult for us to relate to people because no one can understand what life is like in this position unless you have lived it yourself. We are often bombarded with people telling us how much good we are doing, and asking how rewarding it all is and how we must feel so great that we are fulfilling our purpose in life. And, while all that is true, it also makes us feel like we can’t be honest about the disappointments we face when someone who has been making great progress backslides, or when someone we have trusted implicitly as a confidante betrays us. On days or weeks like that, we question what the point of it all is, just like people in “regular” jobs do.   We question ourselves, are we doing enough, working hard enough, working too hard, giving too little, giving too much, spending too much time on this area and not enough in another. And at times questioning whether God made a mistake in sending us here.

If we can’t feel free to express these natural emotions on the rollercoaster of life, we can feel very alone and lost. It’s so important for our supporters to be able to encourage us through the hard times as well as the good and to remind us that what we are feeling is normal and that we will get through it.  

Personally, the past year has been very painful. I haven’t posted much about it because I was worried about what people would think of me. I thought I had failed at everything: as a parent, as a missionary, as a person in general.

In June of last year, just when I thought things were getting on a much better level with Sophie and me, she announced she wanted to go live with Ning and Faa at their children’s home. This floored me because it felt like it came out of left field with no warning whatsoever. She couldn’t even give me a reason why. She just said she missed living with people of her culture, and I couldn’t fault her for that. Since I hadn’t technically adopted her, there really wan’t much I could to do stop her, especially since every other person who she pulled into this conversation was supporting her moving out rather than advocating for her to stay at home and work through her problems.

So, two weeks after that bombshell, she moved out of the house. It was basically the most devastating thing to ever happen to me emotionally. I had spent two years fighting to keep her alive, keep her in school, get her citizenship, adopt her, and then with no warning whatsoever, she just decided to bail. Maybe it was all too much for her, the structure, the language, the culture, the chores, especially with her background of absentee parenting. I don’t know, but all I know is that it felt like my heart was being ripped in half as this child that I loved as my daughter and thought would be a permanent part of my family decided she didn’t want to be that anymore.

Over the next few months, as I tried to repair our relationship, she pushed me further away and things got worse rather than better. Finally, about two weeks before Christmas, she said she didn’t want a family, didn’t want anyone to be responsible for her, didn’t want to be responsible to anyone, just wanted to make all her own choices and she didn’t want to live with me anymore. She instead wanted to live with the people she had stayed with while I was in the US last time. She ended by basically saying “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Which she didn’t for about 6 months.

Then, out of the blue in April, just before her birthday, she called to invite me to her birthday party.  It was like nothing had ever happened and everything was normal. Since then, I’ve seen her every few weeks for a movie or dinner and things have gotten better. They are not where I would want them to be, and I still worry about the fact that she is not experiencing any natural consequences of her actions, due to all the other adults in her life catering to her every whim, but I have to accept that it’s not my responsibility to make sure she learns those lessons anymore. It’s just my job to love her unconditionally, as her mom, even if that isn’t what she wants me to be anymore.

So, that is the main reason I have not written anything of substance in my blog for the past year. Fear of people knowing the truth, of judging me as a bad parent or a bad person in general. It’s one of those situations where it’s impossible to know what it’s like unless you have gone through the same thing. Everyone has an opinion, and while they all mean well, most advice I have gotten just makes me feel worse. What I really need is for people to just say: “Man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”  I am so thankful for my parents, sister and pastor who said almost exactly that and really helped me get through this year (well, my mom doesn't like the word "sucks" but she said something similar.) Despite all of the anguish and pain this situation has caused, I would still like to foster and adopt kids in the future because I think every child deserves a home and a family.