Mental Health Resources for Missionaries
featuring Jabez Yeo (pictured with family)
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For the pastors and ministry leaders reading this blog: take a moment to recall your seminary or Bible college graduation ceremony. Everyone is dressed in regalia and smiling, excited to have completed a season of intense studies, all in preparation for vocational ministry. As the last graduate walks across the stage, the president asks for a show of hands to indicate who plans to serve in some kind of ministry. To your surprise, only half of the graduates raise their hands. The other half will move in another vocational direction, despite the immense amount of time, money, and effort spent obtaining their ministry degrees.
The above scenario may seem far-fetched, but this occurs regularly across the mission field. According to the Narramore Christian Foundation, almost 50% of all missionaries do not continue on the field after their first term (i.e. 3-5 years). This is also the average length of time required to learn a language well enough to contextualize the gospel. Additionally, almost 8,000 missionaries leave the field annually due to preventable reasons that counseling can help address (i.e. interpersonal conflict, mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, burnout, marriage and family difficulties, etc.). In light of all the time, money and effort the global church invests in sending missionaries, these statistics provide a sobering picture of the difficulty of retaining and sustaining cross-cultural workers. Without these cross-cultural workers remaining in the field, gospel witness and presence in many unreached areas are being lost or at best, stalled (Romans 10:13-15).
As a third-culture kid and Asian-American, Jabez Yeo, one of our staff counselors, has experience and insight into some of the challenges missionaries and their families face while living and serving cross-culturally. Jabez has a heart for global missions, as well as experience providing counseling for ministry leaders, including missionaries, at various stages in their ministry journey (i.e. candidacy, field assignment, home assignment/debriefing).
For more information on how your church can best support your missionaries, feel free to reach out to Jabez at jyapplegate@gmail.com. He would love to connect with you to share more!
