Transitions and Playdough

Our morning session was on Transition Stress. You might be wondering what that has to do with playdough, well, I was too, when the speaker asked for three volunteers and handed them two balls of playdough – one blue and one yellow. The blue represented your home culture, the yellow the new culture that you are going to be joining. When you mix playdough together, it doesn’t always mix perfectly – some parts are still blue, some still yellow, and then some become green, and usually there are a variety of shades in between. It was a great visual reminder of how we adapt to culture – we always remain "blue" at heart because we can never lose our home culture, and even if we try to eat the food (even the fried crickets!:) and learn to speak the language fluently, we will never fully become "yellow" either. Rather we become a mixture of three – blue, yellow and then the new green which happens when you mix your home culture with the new culture.

Here are the three colors as depicted in a Floridian's version of a snowman:)

We all have stress in our lives and a variety of things can cause it. Going to a new place with a new language, new food, and entirely new way of doing life can definitely be a causer of great stress. Our speaker gave us this quote (can’t remember who it was by), “It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.” So basically they are trying to give us the tools we need to deal with the inevitable stress and culture shock, and to ease the transition and to make us as effective as possible. Because obviously no one is effective if they are miserable and unable to function.

It was just really encouraging to be sitting there thinking, ok, I probably will feel a lot of these things over the next few months – frustration, tension, resistance to the culture, helplessness, etc – but such feelings are normal. There is great power in normalizing something, especially for someone like me who often is gripped by the “paralysis of analysis.” Of course there is a sense of adventure in all this, but there’s also the reality that this is not going to be easy. It’s going to be good, but probably really hard. Maybe even harder than I expect it to be. But that’s OK. There is a lot of power in the hidden, unknown and unexpected, yet when we bring our struggles and anxieties out into the light there is great freedom, and the Father can meet us in that place. I’m not particularly excited about feeling transition stress, but just knowing that it is coming is comforting.

Hearing all of this together with my teammates was also really important because we were able to talk together about what stresses us out, how we deal with stress and some coping strategies that we can encourage each other in. One of the ways that the prince of this world wants to take down what the Father is doing is by dividing His servants and keeping them from uniting together and building one another up, so I’m grateful that we have already had a chance to talk about these things together, before they become a problem. Struggles will happen. It’s not a matter of if, but when. And not why, but how – how will I respond? Another great point from our seminar was this: Your emotions aren’t the problem, it’s what you do with them and how you respond.

That’s something that you all can be lifting me up about – that I will deal with transition stress well and show grace to myself and others in the midst of so many changes and adjustments.

Probably the coolest thing about the entire seminar (well, besides the thoughts I just shared:) was that during the session Joe and I created a team mascot from the three colors representing all that transition entails. He died before getting a name, but his picture lives on. A silly representation of something much deeper, a true reality for us over the next days, weeks and months.

Here the little man is taking on a personality...tie, hands, dreads, etc:)

Now he turned emo, has shoes and blonde highlights.

My teammate Elise is posing with our team mascot - representing the cultural, emotional and physical transitions we are anticipating.

My hope is that just as the playdough was still and moldable in my hands, that I will be still and moldable in the Father’s hands and that He will shape me into the servant that I need to be and that He will create in me a pure, clean, humble and adaptable heart – one that is quick to listen and learn, and willing to become “all things to all men” for His good plan and purposes.