Don't get me wrong, everyday life isn't easy either especially with underwater mortgages, job-loss, rebellious kids, divorces, etc.
But one reason living cross-culturally is so difficult is that it is an acceptance of an increased burden on top of the difficulties of everyday life. I mean, who wants to deal with the trivial annoyances of work, groceries, kids, home repair, bills, and neighbors but also new foods, getting lost, being illiterate, new languages, and strange cultural customs?
Few. Yet if the nations are going to hear the good news someone has to go. At least thats how David Livingstone saw it:
"Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice."
Convicting.
