Crossing Cultures - What Remains?

As I have served those working cross culturally, I’ve learned that when you live and serve cross-culturally, you learn quickly that stability doesn’t come from circumstances.  The language changes. The culture changes. Expressions of emotion, communication in relationships can be completely different from what you once knew. At some point, all of these changes can shake what once was familiar about your own sense of self, your identity. 

For many of us, our instinct may be to try harder —  in the case of cross cultural w

workers trying harder can look like trying to master the language faster, to plan better, to control the chaos.  But sooner or later, we all discover that lasting peace doesn’t come from mastering anything.  It comes from being renewed on the inside — from living from the spiritual foundations that do not shift: humility, surrender, presence, and hope.

When the novelty of arriving in a new culture wears off, it can be a humbling experience. You can’t shop for the simplest of needs without the challenge of confusing product labels, visual cues, or the store attendee.  You make cultural mistakes. You fail to read a social situations correctly. Humility isn’t fitting in, being patient, or understanding — it’s survival. 

If you let it, this humility can also become a sacred posture. It can be a gentle reminder that this is not your story. You are not the one solely responsible for bringing light to the nations; you are a servant joining the work that God began long before you arrived.

Humility can become a kind of foundation stone — the first layer of the stability we need, when everything else feels uncertain. It can free you from the exhausting illusion that your worth, your value depends on your effort or effectiveness.  Humility can allow you to see yourself truthfully: loved, dependent, useful in God’s hands.

Living in humility allows you to be able to laugh at your mistakes, learn from others, and receive grace instead of protecting your pride. The gospel you preach becomes something you also embody — because it’s no longer about proving yourself, but participating in God’s redemptive story.

Cross-cultural life teaches you that control is a myth.  You can’t control the visa office. You can’t control a child’s sickness when you are far from good healthcare. You can’t control how your message will be received, or whether your ministry task will be misunderstood. And yet, in all this uncertainty, God can give you a deep peace — the peace that comes through surrender, the peace that “passes understanding”.

Surrender isn’t defeat; it’s alignment. It’s saying, “Lord, I will not cling to my plans as if they are sacred. I will hold them loosely so that your Will can shape them.”

Many of us may equate surrender with giving up — but in reality, it’s the only way to find stability when everything around you changes. Surrender anchors you deeper into God’s sovereignty.  There’s a strange strength that grows when you realize you can keep showing up even when nothing seems to go right — because peace is no longer dependent on progress as you understand it. You start to trust that success comes from obedience and faithfulness.

And that shift — from controlling outcomes to trusting God’s outcomes — changes the way you carry stress. What once felt like pressure now becomes partnership/relationship.

Presence or learning to see God in the ordinary activity of life is another foundational strength that supports resilience.  Sometimes supporters, funders, organizations, even we ourselves focus more on the dramatic spiritual impact revival meetings, conversions, church plants, summer camps, the things that give us more visible impact. But most of the time, ministry, life on mission is ordinary — endless cups of tea, small conversations, visiting with neighbors or friends, waiting for the electricity to come back on, teaching lessons that seem to fall flat, or we’re just not sure how they went,  learning patience in the market.  And yet, these small, unseen moments may actually be the most sacred.

When you stop rushing to create results and start noticing what’s right in front of you — the eyes of a neighbor, the laughter of children, the quiet whisper of prayer in your heart — you begin to experience a different kind of success. You discover God’s presence, already working, already speaking, already redeeming.

But, experiencing God’s presence isn’t easy when we’re anxious or driven by results. It takes discipline, learning to be still in the midst of activity.  It means pausing long enough to appreciate that this moment, no matter how mundane or stressful, is sacred because it is a moment ordained by God, just like our steps, before the moment ever came to be.

In the end, the believer’s deepest calling is not just to share the presence of Christ, but to live in His presence — to be attentive to His nearness in both chaos and calm, and to share this from their lived experience.

If humility grounds us and surrender steadies us, and presence keeps us aware of God, and focuses our hope toward eternity.

For those serving cross-culturally, hope is both motivation and direction. We hope for change — for lives transformed, for communities to know peace, for God’s kingdom to grow.  But Christian hope is larger than any outcome we may ever see. It’s rooted in the eternal story — the coming of a new creation, the healing of all nations, and the final reconciliation of all things in Christ.

That means our labor, even when it feels small or insignificant, is never wasted. Every act of kindness, every seed planted, every prayer whispered, is part of God’s plan for eternity.  This kind of hope keeps us from despair when we don’t see results. It reminds us that we’re not building our own legacy; we’re participating in God’s everlasting kingdom.

Hope is the foundation that keeps our hearts strong when burdened by unmet expectations. It teaches us to live and work with eyes fixed not so much on what’s happening in us or around us, but more so on what God is preparing for all of us.

Jesus once said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

For those serving cross-culturally, there are storms in life that aren’t just theoretical — they are real and can feel relentless: culture shock, isolation, misunderstanding, fatigue. But when our lives are founded on humility, surrender, presence, and hope, we can find that even in the fiercest winds, our peace doesn’t crumble.

Humility teaches us that we are secure and safe in God’s story.

Surrender teaches us to release control and rest in His sovereignty.

Presence helps us recognize Grace in the middle of the ordinary.

And Hope anchors us in eternity, reminding us that the final chapter belongs to Christ

alone.

These are not quick lessons; they are learned daily as we entrust our steps, our plans, to God, creating in us a resilient soul.

Living — in humility, surrendered, present, and hopeful — is to live from a foundation that cannot be easily shaken. It’s a foundation for our lives, not only for today’s ministry, but for eternal purposes.

“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”— 1 Corinthians 3:11