Missions on the Frontline
a ministry of WorldVenture
Caring is who we are.
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SHOW SUMMARY Hans interviews Dr. Connie Befus, Director of the Paraclete Center. Dr. Befus talks about the care given to our Missionaries and how to keep healthy on and off the field.SHOW NOTES MOF_2010_02_03_Befus-web_nvr.mp3 |
SHOW TRANSCRIPT |
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CONNIE BEFUS: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
HANS FINZEL: Connie is relatively new on our staff and we’re just thrilled to have her after her experience with missionaries for her whole career. Let’s begin, Connie. Uh, what is The Paraclete Centre?
CONNIE BEFUS: Well The Paraclete Centre is our department that looks after the care of our missionaries on a number of different levels. Paraclete, of course, is based on the Greek word from the New Testament that means “an advocate; or an exhorter; an encourager; or someone who comes alongside.” So we come alongside our missionaries in a variety of ways.
HANS FINZEL: Paraclete – to come alongside. We at WorldVenture are known for taking good care of our missionaries and one of the reasons, or how we do that, is through your department and all of your staff. Let’s start with your background because you just came and joined us this summer and we’re so thrilled to have you on our staff. Give us a little idea of the experience-base that you’ve had in the past working with missionaries.
CONNIE BEFUS: Sure. I started September 1 and am delighted to be here because my parents were missionaries with WorldVenture in Africa. So I grew up as a missionary kid, a third-culture kid in the Belgium, Congo and then in Senegal, West Africa. And then I married my husband, David, and we went to Costa Rica and were involved in missions there, ministry to university students. Then I got hungry for more education. I realized I was involved in counseling and didn’t have enough background to do it so I earned a master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling, later got my Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and am a licensed psychologist. Over the years I’ve lived in three different countries in Central America; have been involved with about five or six different missions as a consultant; often helping them deal with their crisis cases. Sometimes sending people home or better yet, helping them thrive on the field. I’ve worked with Peace Corps as a consultant; I’ve been in private practice and most recently with Latin America Mission I was in charge of their member care for about nine years.
HANS FINZEL: I always think it’s neat when missionary kids, third-culture kids, come back into the world of missions as adults in their careers. So that speaks well of your experience growing up in the Congo and Senegal. Did you like being a missionary kid?
CONNIE BEFUS: I didn’t know what else there was.
HANS FINZEL: That’s the only thing you knew; that was normal.
CONNIE BEFUS: No, that’s what I knew. I would come back and be on service leave with my parents and kids would ask me, “Well did you see Tarzan?” And I didn’t even know what they were talking about because we didn’t have a T.V. so for me it was just my experience. But then as I went into high school and college I was really grateful for my broad, worldwide perspective and the experience of different cultures and even more than that, the depth of Christian experience that I saw lived every day in my family.
HANS FINZEL: Well you have a great family and a couple of your brothers are with WorldVenture…
CONNIE BEFUS: That’s right.
HANS FINZEL: Your parents are a legend here. They did an amazing job there in Africa. What languages do you speak, other than English. I’m curious.
CONNIE BEFUS: Well, when I was… Up until I was eight-years old I spoke Swahili but please don’t ask me to do that now.
HANS FINZEL: I won’t. I love to hear Swahili but I won’t put you on the spot.
CONNIE BEFUS: So I learned French because we were in French-speaking, former colonies of French-speaking countries and as an adult I’ve learned Spanish in Latin America.
HANS FINZEL: Wow. That’s pretty impressive.
CONNIE BEFUS: That’s my most fluent language besides English.
HANS FINZEL: Okay. Well that’s very useful, speaking Spanish here in North America. In case you’re just joining us this is Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture and you’re listening to Missions on the Frontline and I’m speaking today with Dr. Connie Befus, who is the director of The Paraclete Centre here at WorldVenture. And we’re talking today about missionary care – the care and feeding and health of missionaries because missionaries are not going to be successful over the long haul if they are not taken care of. Let’s talk about some of the pressures that missionaries face. I mean, we all know it’s tough to move overseas but, Connie, help us understand some of the unique pressures that missionaries face in their ministries.
CONNIE BEFUS: Sure. They experience all the tension and pressure and loss of life that any person in the United States feels. But then they are traveling, they are moving to a different culture so there are a lot of transitions in their lives. Any of you who have done a recent trip know that you have to remember where you put things, you have to learn your way around, and you are dealing with a different currency. Um, it’s stressful and they are doing that 24/7, for months and years on end. So there’s a level of stress just there. Um, many of them are living in, let’s say, “less comfortable” areas than in the States. They sometimes don’t have electricity, Internet connections, medical care, um, they are way from home and family so they are missing their homes and their family. And our WorldVenture missionaries are working hard at understanding the culture there so they are working at that, too, to adapt. So all of that can take a toll after awhile. We look for and, screen for, resilient people; people who have strong spiritual formation. And they come into the experience with balanced lives and skills for dealing with stress. So they start out really healthy, um, thank the Lord and they live in His grace so they are depending on Him, but they hit a lot more bumps in life than your average people do.
HANS FINZEL: You know a lot of people think it’s romantic to live overseas. I’ve seen this my whole career where they… Because people travel so much now and they visit these countries and when you travel and visit you never get beyond the tourist stage which is quite romantic…
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah.
HANS FINZEL: … and exciting and interesting. I just got back from China. I was there for a week and you know in a week, gee, it’s just kind of fun and exciting but it’s a whole different ball game when you are there permanently and you don’t even have a return plane ticket. So what is some of the fallout of this stress of being in a foreign culture? How does it affect the people?
CONNIE BEFUS: Good question. Um, there is just a higher level of stress that their bodies are always adapting to. So if they can’t find a place to have a good vacation, if they don’t incorporate really good rest, then they are going to have the ongoing effects of stress – whatever those diseases or symptoms might be. It could be headaches; it could be lowered immune system. For some of them it sometimes ends up being depression or burnout. This isn’t because, you know, they are not spiritual people it’s because they have extraordinary stressors. So we work hard at reminding them you’ve got to get your rest. You’ve got to take your vacations. Our International Ministry Directors, I love it that they are looking after our people. You know, they are trying to make sure they stay well and stay healthy. In spite of all these efforts, sometimes though, we have a person slide into a depression. Another piece of it is they don’t have as many resources. They maybe don’t have their pastor that they can go to just hash something over with. Um, they don’t have a therapist who is, you know, in their city. They maybe don’t have medical care that they trust as well. They’ll go if they have to but not as readily. So all of these things affect our population sometimes and…
HANS FINZEL: I was just going to say they don’t have a warm, loving, local church.
CONNIE BEFUS: Exactly.
HANS FINZEL: They are usually “the church” if they are in a place where they can even have a small, little, struggling church. That alone… You think about, those of you who are listening, what it would be like if you… There was no church you could go to and you had to live your Christian life without church.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah. Or if you had to be able to talk to your best friend just because you needed a good listening ear. You have to stay up late at night and hope your Internet connection works.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah, right, because you are going to have to Skype your best friend. Or how many of you like to go to Starbucks and hang out just to have some margin and peace well there’s no Starbucks in this country so, you know, no coffee shop. But margins a big thing; I know it’s a problem for missionaries. Uh, sometimes I’ve been in missionaries’ homes in certain villages, I was in Africa in the spring and from dawn to after dark the nationals are lined up at their front door. Have you seen that kind of dynamic?
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah.
HANS FINZEL: And they are there wanting… Well in some cases they just want to be there with the missionaries but a lot of times they want handouts; they want food. You know they are in need, they have medical needs, but I’ve seen missionaries just get worn down… Seven days a week; 24/7 with people knocking on their door.
CONNIE BEFUS: Which is cool because it means they are doing… They really are a light and they really are an aroma of Christ so people are coming to them but it’s exhausting. And in some of those countries, too, there’s a constant level of noise that we are not accustomed to. So this means they are missionaries who have to work a lot harder at making sure they get time for exercise; time for their devotions; time with their spouse and their kids if they are married. They have to be really intentional about it and it’s hard because their job is very seldom an eight to five job. You know, it doesn’t start when they go to the office and then come home. We in the states have enough trouble keeping good margins even with that. Their job is so huge. Some of them, you know, they are so dedicated and they are so aware of the needs for the care that they give and the Gospel that it’s hard for them to feel like, “Okay, I can stop now.” There are so many people with needs…
HANS FINZEL: Yeah.
CONNIE BEFUS: … so how can I stop giving? And we know, and it’s our job to remind them “If you can take care of the only instrument you have, which is your body and your soul, if you don’t keep it healthy, then you’re not going to be here any longer to meet these needs. And your family needs to be a very high priority, just because they deserve to be in the first place. And secondly, because your testimony and our testimony as a mission stands or falls on the health of your marriage and of your family.”
HANS FINZEL: And so that’s really, uh, your job description – is to help remind our missionaries…
CONNIE BEFUS: That’s right.
HANS FINZEL: … of issues of healthiness so that they are productive over the long haul. Another thing they don’t have is fitness centers – 24-hour fitness. I remember being in Pakistan a number of years ago and I used to jog a lot and it’s culturally inappropriate in a lot of countries to go out and jog; especially for women. There’s no way they could go out into the village and jog. For men, it’s weird but for women it’s totally inappropriate. I remember I was at a hospital and to jog I had to go around the perimeter of the inside wall of the compound of the hospital. It was very frustrating and just think, just for people who, you know, build up the margins in their lives and relieve their stress by exercise, that alone. It’s just a huge challenge.
CONNIE BEFUS: It is and so they need first of all to give themselves permission to make time for those things and they need to be creative… I lived in Columbia, South America for two years for two years before I came here to WorldVenture. And there wasn’t a safe place to walk or run so I developed an indoor exercise program and ran up and down the stairs in my building. You do what you have to do.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah, there you go! Like a stair stepper, huh? Not nearly as much fun as jogging…
CONNIE BEFUS: No.
HANS FINZEL: …out in the beautiful countryside and I know when I travel overseas that’s one thing that stresses me. The amount of people and noise and dirt…
CONNIE BEFUS: Yes.
HANS FINZEL: …you just can’t get away from it. We have such luxury here in North America, many of us, to just go out into the country side and enjoy beautiful forest or green grass and I’ve been in cities where there is no grass within dozens and dozens of miles. All of that takes its stress. What about marriage stress? How does missionary life affect marriages?
CONNIE BEFUS: Well, in a couple of ways. For one, with all this other stress that’s there, um, increases a couple’s … whatever their coping patterns are, they tend to get more rigid and less flexible under stress. And you know what we all do? We tend to take our irritability or our grouchiness on the person we most trust and are closest to which is our spouse, so there is that element. Another thing is that they are a lot more dependent on each other because there isn’t a nearby church, maybe, or a couple’s group, or mom, or brother-in-law. They are each other’s main companions lots of times so they need to keep that companionship healthy. Both in the sense of keeping cleared out and out of the way tensions and conflicts, knowing how to manage those, and then just having time for recreation together. And those of you here in the States know how challenging it is to find a good babysitter and get a free night. Just imagine if there is no babysitter and there’s no good restaurant. How do you have a date and just have fun together? You know, they do do it. It’s a tribute to their creativity and their resilience but they really have to work extra-hard at it to keep their marriages sane and balanced.
HANS FINZEL: What about the children? I know that… I think one of the greatest blessings of a missionary’s life is that you have more focus with your children when they are at home. I know that I was with a family this spring in um, where was it? Guinea! You are related to this family and they have two little kids and every night they play games together and then they all read books together because there’s no T.V. and there’s not all this Internet distraction and electronic distraction and T.V. distraction and movies that our kids here in America… You know parents lose control of their kids by the time they are nine or ten here in America, if not younger, but I just sat there and I entered into this family’s life for a couple of days and I just thought, “This is a treasure. This is so fantastic. They just sit around and read books and play games together.”
CONNIE BEFUS: It is, but that involves a very pro-active and intentional scheduling on the part of the parents because ministry kids suck you up.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah.
CONNIE BEFUS: That means they are keeping the people at the door…
HANS FINZEL: The gate is closed.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yes, they are saying this is sacred for our family. Which, good for them…
HANS FINZEL: Yeah.
CONNIE BEFUS: …because that’s what they need to do. Um, that being said, I remember, too, my parents… We would have devotions every night and we sang a lot of hymns which are a wonderful heritage for me to this day. Um, so if the parents manage the different stressors well, then, yes, family can be a tremendous strength. And our missionary kids, third-culture kids, come out with some real strength because they are aware – they tend to be aware of spiritual warfare and the power of God to transform lives because they see it a lot. They tend to cross cultures fairly easily and to be aware of the diplomacy and the skill that is involved there. That’s why… Do you know that a lot of third-culture kids end up in WHO’S WHO?
HANS FINZEL: Really?
CONNIE BEFUS: More than any other category.
HANS FINZEL: No kidding?
CONNIE BEFUS: Missionary kids. Not just third-culture kids but missionary kids have a greater proportion of showing up in WHO’S WHO than any other category.
HANS FINZEL: Hmm. That’s amazing because all that stress and what can be looked at as hardship actually creates very strong individuals…
CONNIE BEFUS: Yes.
HANS FINZEL: … and gifted. I know. I’ve seen so many missionary kids who grow up when I’m in homes of our missionaries around the world. One thing that always strikes me is the amount of books in this house. Where they just spend so much time reading and we know that leaders are readers and people that read a lot become very intelligent and gifted and that’s probably one of the reasons; just the sheer volume of reading that they do.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah. Well, our WorldVenture parents tend to be intelligent and readers and so that gets passed on. Another advantage is that those kids know how to entertain themselves. They are not dependent on outside programs or games.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah. They tend also to cross age categories more easily. Here in the States I’ve noticed that kids are comfortable with kids their age. But if you put them with older kids or younger kids, only if they have siblings those ages are they comfortable. Whereas missionary kids tend to be thrown together with all different ages and so they can relate to any of the ages pretty well.
HANS FINZEL: I’ve seen where they have like the one-room schoolhouse almost where they are …
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah.
HANS FINZEL: …they are sort of all in class together in a big room with different ages. In case you are just joining us, this is Hans Finzel and you are listening to Missions on the Frontline. And I am speaking today with Dr. Connie Befus who is our director of The Paraclete Center here at WorldVenture. What else would you like the listeners to know about member care and taking care of missionaries? What else would be helpful for us to know in this whole area of challenge of, yeah, how do we… And we have a lot of people listening who probably support missionaries; they pray for missionaries; their church supports missionaries. What else can we do to help missionaries be healthy and successful?
CONNIE BEFUS: Well I… It sounds like a no-brainer but I think it’s good to remember that your missionary is just an average person like you. Just because they have stepped up to the plate and said, “Yes, Lord…” and, yes, we do screen them and prepare them to be more resilient but just because they say to the Lord that they will go, doesn’t mean that He makes it easier. Whatever physical illness or emotional costs are there, affect that missionary as much as they would affect any of our listeners there. So pray for them in that regard; not only for their ministry but for their emotional and family and spiritual health because they get extra stressors. I think, too, um, our listeners and supporting churches can be helpful to the missionary when they come home on home assignment by being aware that while they really do want to share their story and let people know what God is doing, because it is such incredibly exciting stuff, they also need real time off. They just need to have vacations. Sometimes they could use help with housing for vacations. Cars. Places to go or the expense of it because our WorldVenture missionaries are well-provided for but they are far from wealthy.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah, that’s a great suggestion. Bless a missionary by giving them a vacation; a place to go; give them a week of your time share; let them use your cabin. What a great idea.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah.
HANS FINZEL: That’s what they need. I know my wife, not long ago, we were with a group of single missionary ladies and she provided massage and spa treatments for these four women who… I don’t know if they had ever been to a spa because they are conservative and frugal and they were so blessed…
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah.
HANS FINZEL: … just give them something they don’t normally get.
CONNIE BEFUS: Things like that! Like give a couple of missionaries – especially if they have little kids – help them, find somebody to take care of their kids and give them a couple of nights in a hotel…
HANS FINZEL: Yeah!
CONNIE BEFUS: … and they will thank you for a decade because they don’t usually feel like they can spend money that way and yet, what a gift that is. Or a gift certificate to go have a manicure or something like that; something they probably wouldn’t do otherwise.
HANS FINZEL: Yeah, or a pedicure. Yeah, that’s great.
CONNIE BEFUS: Yeah, something like that.
HANS FINZEL: Well, we’re almost out of time. I want to kind of end on a positive note because we’ve talked a lot about the stress and the hardship of missionary life but we’ve also talked about how resilient missionaries are and how they, for example, often end up on the WHO’S WHO list, missionary kids, but what are some of the other positive things you see coming out of missionaries’ lives that are, you know… This isn’t a bad thing for them; it’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful, rewarding career. What is some of the reward that you see?
CONNIE BEFUS: Well, first of all, it is an adventure. You know, I mean we’ve talked about how much stress there is and when you stay somewhere in the long-term, but it really is fun to go to these places and get to live there and especially, I think, to see God work. I just really like missionaries. You know they are just so well-balanced. They have a sense-of humor, they are fun, they are centered, and they are balanced. I just really enjoy them. So it’s a marvel to me, even though I’m here because there is stress and there are crises and we need to take care of these incredibly valuable people. The amazing thing to me is how well they do. How long they can survive in a resilient… And you know what? Not just a resilient but grateful spirit. To me that’s not only a credit to them but it just speaks for what God does. When we step up and obey He really does incredible things in us and through us.
HANS FINZEL: You know somebody asked me not long ago and I get this question occasionally, “Should we keep sending out missionaries from North America?” I always ask the people, “Well did Jesus resend the Great Commission?” No, absolutely not.
CONNIE BEFUS: No, and the fascinating thing is, God keeps calling people.
HANS FINZEL: That’s right. We get new people all the time here at WorldVenture and they are world-changers. They go out and change the world.
CONNIE BEFUS: Quietly. Humbly but they do.
HANS FINZEL: That’s great! Well, thank you so much, Connie, for being with me today.
CONNIE BEFUS: My pleasure.
HANS FINZEL: This has been Hans Finzel. You’ve been listening to Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions around the world. If you support missionaries, bless them by giving them some of the kind of blessings we talked about today and keep praying for them. Don’t forget to drop us a note. We’d love to hear from you. You can email me at Frontline@WorldVenture.com and be sure and visit our website WorldVenture.com for more information. This has been Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture and I’m excited to see you next week on Missions on the Frontline.
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