Posted on August 18th, 2021 by Tim

Who will buy…?

At this time of year, many mission workers are back in the UK to reconnect with family and friends.  Many of them will stay for a few months, and some for up to a year as they take their home assignment.

For many of them, the biggest uncertainty and cause of stress is arranging accommodation.  There is just so little accommodation available.  Hotels are obviously too expensive; getting a short-term let of less than a year is nigh-on impossible.  One well-known Christian charity has just withdrawn from making homes available to mission workers.  Some mission workers own their own home in the UK and could evict their tenants, but then they may be using the rent to provide them with income, so that’s not a viable solution.

Occasionally mission workers may get an opportunity to house-sit for someone who has gone abroad, or to stay in someone’s holiday home, but those often aren’t in the right part of the country.   Many people have to make do with poor arrangements.

I’ve known people stay in empty student accommodation at a Bible College which is three hours’ drive from their family and supporting church.  I’ve known a family of 5 staying with parents in a 2-bedroom bungalow.  Those sort of arrangements do not provide the rest mission workers need.

For many years Syzygy has had the dream of having houses in various parts of the country that we can make available to mission workers.  It’s a big dream, which would meet a need centrally, but recently I’ve been wondering if a missions support agency should actually be doing this, when we’re really wanting the church to be more effective at supporting their mission workers.  Shouldn’t the church be doing this?

The church you ask?  Isn’t that impossible?  Impractical?

Let’s just imagine a typical church for a moment.   It might not be very big, and many of its members may be unsalaried or living on pensions.  But a gift day can still raise a significant amount.  Two or three gift days, supplemented by fundraising activities, could bring in enough funding for a deposit on a small house or flat, allowing a mortgage to be raised using the value of a church building as collateral.  Voila!  A home for mission workers.

But there are still mortgage repayments to make.  Given that for much of the time the mission workers won’t be using the house, it can be rented out on a yearly tenancy arrangement which will cover the mortgage.  Or, if more flexibility is needed, it can be let short-term on AirBnb.  Alternatively, it can be used to house a church worker short-term, or made available to local charities or the council to provide emergency accommodation for homeless people or refugees.  And if you’re worried about all the administration involved in managing this, why not set up an arrangement with a local letting agent to do it with you?

We recognise that not all churches will be able to do this.   We don’t know your existing commitments and the extent of your resources.  But we want to plant the idea and show that it is possible.

Some years ago I came across a church which had bought a small development of six flats.  Four of them were let commercially, one was made available to a caretaker, and the sixth was kept ready for the church’s mission workers to use whenever they needed it.

Could yours be that church?

 

Syzygy knows of one or two places available for mission workers to use when they are back in the UK.  Contact us on info@syzygy.org.uk for more information.  Alternatively see the Accommodation page on the Oscar website.

Posted on November 4th, 2019 by Tim

Introducing the latest Syzygy car

After a summer of trying to find a car that would be worthy successor to our much-loved Toyota Previa, our resident car expert Chris suggested a Ssangyong Turismo.

Having never even heard of one I decided, while the Turismo ticked all our boxes, there was no way I was going to buy a second-hand car for Syzygy without a good inspection first.  So I resolved to visit a dealer and take a look at one.

One night, I was going out with a friend for a meal and happened to park right outside a Ssangyong dealer, so I took a quick look.  They had some good-looking cars at even better-looking prices so I went back the next day when they were open.  “Have you got a used Turismo I can have a lot at?” I asked the dealer.

“How much are you looking to spend?” he replied, to which I answered “£15,000”.

“I can do you a new one for £17,000.”  And that’s how I met our newest Syzygy car.

The last unsold example of its model in the country, we got a significant discount because he wanted to shift it.  It meets all our needs, will comfortably carry 7 passengers plus luggage without the MPG going through the roof.

As I say in a video of the new car, Syzygy would like to thank all our supporters, prayer partners and donors who made it possible for us to buy a brand new car.  And of course God, who sustains this amazing ministry and allows miraculous events like this to happen for us.

And if you’re still not sure why Syzygy needs a new car, you can read more about the Syzygy car ministry here.

Posted on August 5th, 2019 by Tim

And the winner is…

A month ago we invited our readers to take part in fundraising for a new Syzygy car by means of an innovative competition – giving money to determine whether or not Tim shaves off or keeps his beard.

The competition is now over and the winner is, of course, the dozens of missionary families who will benefit from us being able to buy a more modern car to move them around the country when they’re on their Home Assignment.  The one we have at the moment is greatly loved and has provided excellent service, but it’s harder to get parts for it so we need to get something newer.

The £1,101 our generous supporters have donated for this purpose will go a long way towards us getting something really special to support our mission partners.  Thanks to everyone who has contributed, and if you would like to have donated but missed this window of opportunity, the accounts with Stewardship are still open.

You can read more about the Syzygy car ministry here.  And Tim did indeed shave off his beard.

Posted on April 22nd, 2019 by Tim

What Notre Dame tells us about our attachment to buildings

Photo by Rohan Reddy on Unsplash

The fire last weekend at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was a tragic and heart-rending experience for many.

In some of the live footage the gasps of the onlookers were audible as the tower fell.  Afterwards many people, particularly French ones, spoke of their sense of loss, their grief, their numbness in terms which mirror bereavement.

And for many people, not just Parisians, there really was a sense that part of them had died too.

How is it that buildings – and not necessarily ancient, sacred and beautiful ones – can become such a significant part of us?

Some buildings, of course, we choose to invest with part of our identity.  They might represent our nationality, our culture or our religion.  They can symbolise our history and encapsulate our values.  So they are more than buildings – they represent who we are.  Perhaps that’s why Prince Charles was so annoyed way back in 1984 about the proposed modernist extension to the National Gallery in London:

…what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.

We profoundly object to change that is forced on ‘our’ buildings, because it embodies change that is being forced on us.

Other buildings are part of our corporate history.  That explains why some mission workers are so traumatised when an agency sells off its beloved old country house headquarters.  It’s not an objection per se to the move to practical, functional offices, but it’s the lost of a place that has links to past generations of mission workers, to key events like the training of a particular cohort, or a formative season of ministry.

And some events are part of our own personal history.  Churches in which we married, houses in which we lived, and places we have enjoyed visiting.  Most of us have driven past old homes to see what they are like now – because we are still attached to them (see our blog on the folly of trying to go back).  This is why it can be such a difficult experience for mission workers abroad to find their parents are selling the family home and there is no opportunity for them to go back and say goodbye to the bedroom they grew up in.

Mission workers, perhaps more than most, have a significant need to try to hold on to some stable points of reference from the past.  As they return to the UK on home assignment or to retire, they find a bewildering array of change in their family, church, high street and national culture.  While they can attend workshops or retreats to help them manage this (and I have just led one at Penhurst Retreat Centre on this very topic) their journey can still feel very much like a trek through the wilderness in hope of a promised land.  A few familiar landmarks can go a long way towards smoothing the transition.

Posted on July 30th, 2018 by Tim

“Where you go changes who you become”

I recently came across this quote on the website of the Youth Hostel Association.  It sounds great, in its context of being adventurous and going places, and those of us who have travelled in cross-cultural mission will be only too aware how much we have changed as a result of our experiences.

We have taken on board aspects of other cultures which we have found valuable.  Learning to express ideas in another language has helped us appreciate different ways of perceiving the world.  Our dietary preferences will have changed – whether we love the food in our host country or are more enthusiastic for the food we grew up with.  We feel richer for the privilege of having stepped outside our own culture and embraced other cultures.

The downside of this is that by exposing ourselves to other places, we have become people who are not the same as we would have been if we had stayed home.

Mission workers don’t usually notice this until it’s time to return to their ‘home’ culture.  Then they discover that they don’t really fit in any more.  They can experience various levels of stress as the difference slowly dawns on them.  This is something we know as ‘reverse culture shock’, and the effects can include irritability, tearfulness and anger as they try to find an equilibrium in a world that doesn’t feel the same as they think it should.  It’s often been observed that reverse culture shock is worse than the culture shock experienced when first moving abroad, largely because it is so unexpected.

Particularly difficult issues which can contribute to reverse culture shock include:

  • feeling that a church is more concerned about apparently trivial issues concerning its Sunday service than it is about world mission;
  • hearing about friends plans for holidays, home extensions and new cars when they don’t appear to be at all interested in world mission;
  • finding people spectacularly disinterested in what mission workers have been doing for the last few years.

At this time of year, many mission workers are back in their sending countries on home assignment.  This is a period of a few months when their work is to reconnect with churches, agency and family while raising new support, promoting the work of their agency, and having routine reviews and checkups.  Their time here is often too brief for them to struggle with reverse culture shock, but it may impact some of them.  So what can we do to help them?

  • Remember that they may be disorientated by changes while they’ve been away. Ask them what’s changed, how they feel about it, and be ready to engage with any hurt or anger they’re feeling.  Explain changes that have happened recently and show them how to do things.
  • Show interest in what they’ve been doing. Even though you may not understand everything, remember that this is a vocation they feel passionate about, and they want to talk about it.
  • Recognise that they’re tired. Often they have been travelling around the country, sleeping in different beds, answering the same questions day after day.  Give them some space in which they don’t have to ‘perform’.
  • Understand that your country is no longer ‘home’ for them, especially their kids. When they first get back they may be longing for Sunday roast or Shepherd’s Pie, but after a couple of months they’re probably desperate for nshima or dhal.
  • Realise that as they’ve changed (and you may have too) the nature of your friendship may have changed. Work hard to establish common ground and interests so that you can maintain your friendship well.
  • Encourage them to talk about their experiences in a formal debrief, either with their church missions team, their agency, or an external debriefer like Syzygy.

Home assignment can be a great joy for mission workers, but it can also be hard work.  Let’s try not to make it any harder than it has to be!

 

Posted on May 7th, 2018 by Tim

Preparing your TCKs to come ‘home’

Source: www.freeimages.com

At this time of year many mission workers abroad are making plans to gohome for holiday or home assignment.  They will be excited at the prospect of meeting with parents, friends and church again, and going to places that hold happy memories for them.

At the same time their children may feel a sense of foreboding.  The place their parents call home is probably not where they call home.  In fact, they may be confused about where ‘home’ is.  It may be where their parents serve (or used to serve, if they’ve moved country).  It may be where they go to school, if they’re at a boarding school for missionary kids.  Or it could be the airport, which is where they probably feel they spend most of their time.

When they get to their parents’ home country, they’ll go to strange places, be left in the care of people they don’t know even though they might be grandparents or aunts.  Church may feel strange, as may the climate, customs and clothing.

So it’s worth paying attention to your children’s concerns and helping them prepare.  We’ve devised a short checklist of our suggestions of things you may like to do.  Please let us know if you have any more you could add to it!  You can also read a longer page on preparing your kids for home assignment as part of our Guide to Doing Home Assignment.

Travel well!

 

Posted on April 16th, 2018 by Tim

The value of sabbatical

Source: www.freeimages.com

As Syzygy takes a much-needed holiday this week, today we are going to pause and think about the value of stopping and reflecting.  Many times we have blogged about the value of retreat, and while we recognise that this can imply a time of solitude and silence which would be torture for some of our more extroverted readers, all of us can find value in withdrawing regularly from the busyness of life’s challenges and burdens to reflect on life and ministry.

Occasionally we may hear about people who have been on sabbatical, or maybe we have even met some of them, and wonder why we don’t seem to be able to get so much as a week off let alone a few months!

Sabbatical draws its principle from the Sabbath, the seventh day, and keeping the Sabbath rest is something that has marked Israel out from its neighbours over the millennia, and is also a custom the church followed until fairly recently.  Less famously the Old Testament law included a Sabbatical year – a year in which fields, fruit trees and vines were left unsown and unharvested every seventh year to allow them to rest.  And perhaps more importantly, to allow the people to trust that God would provide sufficient harvest for them in the sixth year to last them until the eighth year’s harvest came in.  Sadly there is little evidence that this act of faith and obedience was ever fully-implemented in ancient Israel, although the idea has continued to hold sway in ministry.

Not that we necessarily get – or even need – a whole year off every seventh year.  But to be free of ministry responsibilities for a significant amount of time once in a while is valuable in a way that short bursts of holiday or even the less-structured but nevertheless demanding time of home assignment can never be.

However much time we manage to set aside, there is value in stepping out of our daily routine to reflect.  Without doing so, we can get so stuck in the treadmill we don’t have time to think.  If we can break that cycle and get away, we can ask ourselves serious questions like:

  • Are we still true to our original calling?
  • What are we doing that is outside the will of God?
  • What work can we drop/delegate to someone else?
  • Is there a better way of achieving our goals?
  • What new things is God calling us to?
  • What else does God want to say to us or do in our lives?

Perhaps, if we took more time out to reflect, there would be fewer issues of missionary burnout.

(Syzygy Trustees please note I have now been in my current post for 8 years!)

 

Posted on August 28th, 2017 by Tim

The growing Syzygy network

Source: www.freeimages.com

The world of cross-cultural mission in the UK is in transition at the moment as churches and agencies all look at our practices and processes and try to find new ways of sending mission workers which will replace the outmoded model originally developed in the 19th century.  This is given added urgency by the financial challenges many churches and agencies are experiencing.

In this climate, there is a severe risk that mission workers will suffer due to lack of member care.  Small agencies are not able to devote sufficient resources to it.  Larger agencies are looking to reduce central costs.  Agencies are expecting churches to do more to support their mission workers, but the churches struggle to find the vision, capacity and expertise to deliver this competently.

Syzygy is uniquely placed to ensure mission workers continue to be effectively supported during this upheaval.  We have already entered into arrangements with several sending agencies, both large and small, for us to provide member care for their workers.  We also are able to support churches to develop the vision and capacity to do more to support their mission partners.

In order to provide this level of service we have been expanding our own capacity and have developed a network of  member care professionals across the country who are conveniently located for the mission workers we hope to support.  The Syzygy representatives are able to carry out one-to-one pre-departure training, ongoing member care for mission partners in the field, and home assignment debriefs.

For more information contact Syzygy on info@syzygy.org.uk

Posted on March 20th, 2017 by Tim

Jehovah Jireh

“God will provide.”

Those were my words as I explained to the two rather doubtful young men I prayed with each week that one of the Syzygy cars had died, and we needed a replacement within two weeks or we’d let some mission workers down.  “God will provide.”

I tried to sound more confident than I was as I asked them to pray.  I was aware this was an opportunity to teach them the value of faith, but I wasn’t sure I had enough.  But God, indeed, is faithful, and before the two weeks were up, somebody had donated a car to us and the mission workers were thrilled with it.  And God has continued to provide for the Syzygy car ministry, to such an extent that we now have three really good cars and our service has become so popular it is often booked up two years ahead!

And now we are looking to God to provide again.  We need another car to meet the growing need of large families, and we have plans to raise £10,000 to be able to buy a 7 seater like our Toyota Previa.

So just as I asked those two young men to join with me in faith for God to provide, I’m now asking you to join us.  Will you pray with us for the money for the new car?  Will you ask God if your donation might be part of the finances we need?  As we have remarked before, God is generous, but he keeps his money in other people’s pockets.  So to get this money raised, those people need to be listening to God, and willing to join in his generosity.

We are confident we can raise this money in time to be able to bless another family coming back to the UK this summer.  Please help us make their Home Assignment easier by helping us get another car!  You can find instructions on how to give at our Get Giving! page, or email info@syzygy.org.uk for more information.

Posted on February 29th, 2016 by Tim

Helping TCKs rekonnect

rekonnectThird Culture Kids (TCKs) face many challenges in their young lives.

They don’t really know where they belong, and have a vague feeling that they don’t fit in anywhere.  At the end of each term, some of their friends leave school for good.  Their grandparents are strangers.

Perhaps one of the worst experiences for them is when their parents decide to go ‘home’ for a visit back to the country they came from.  If you’re 10, and you’ve grown up in the country where your parents work, the country they came from certainly isn’t home.  It’s a weird place which is usually cold or wet (often both) where you have to wear lots of clothing you’ve no idea how to do up.  The bananas and pineapples taste disgusting because they’re not freshly picked.  You have to wear a seat belt in the car, or maybe even sit on a special child seat.

Your parents keep dragging you to boring church meetings where people you don’t even know keep asking you if it’s nice to be back home.  Other kids laugh at you because you’re wearing clothes that were bought in a country where fashion looks different.  Nobody explains how things work, and everybody just assumes that you fit in normally.  But you don’t, and you can’t explain why.  You can’t tell your parents because you don’t want them to worry.  So you just cry on the inside and wait till you can go back home again.

So what can be done to help TCKs survive ‘home’ assignment?  In addition to reading our guide on how to make home assignment work for kids, if you’re bringing TCKs to the UK this summer, book them into a rekonnect action holiday.  Run by people experienced at working with TCKs, these camps in rural Derbyshire provide a safe place for kids to talk about their experience, learn about life in the UK and most importantly celebrate the diversity they all share.  Meeting with other TCKs helps kids normalise their experience and realise that they’re not the only people who don’t fit in – in fact they’re just the same as lots of other TCKs who immediately understand what they’re going through.

There are two TCK holidays – one for TCKs aged 13-18 years which runs from 25-29 July, and one for kids aged 6-12 from 8-12 August.  You can find out more by clicking on the links, or going to the rekonnect webpage, or emailing the administrator at rekonnect@gmail.com – but don’t leave it too late, they’ll book up fast!  So do your kids a favour and make ‘home’ assignment a better experience for them.

Posted on November 30th, 2015 by Tim

A new car for Syzygy

20151128_122535We’re delighted to announce our latest arrival – a VW Passat estate, ideal for families of up to 5 with lots of luggage, yet comfortable and economical for those long motorway journeys.  It joins our Passat 4-door and the Toyota Previa in providing transport solutions for mission workers on home assignment in the UK.  You can read more about this valuable ministry on its own page.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our friends who donated their cars and gave money to help us get a car which will make returning mission workers who see it first at the airport say “Wow!” and not “Oh no…”

Posted on August 10th, 2015 by Tim

Antlions and other triggers

Antlion traps

Antlion traps

Recently I was out walking, and crossing some gravelly ground I noticed a neat round depression about an inch in diameter.  “Antlion!” I thought to myself, before remembering that I left Africa 15 years ago and haven’t seen an antlion trap* since.  Likewise, while driving in some rocky place like Wales or the Lake District, I occasionally catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a large grey object and think “Elephant!”  Sound, sights or smells can trigger a reflex response sending us back in time many years.  For those of us who have lived abroad it can also trigger feelings of ‘homesickness’ for the place we once served, even though we may have left there many years ago.

This illustrates the fact that the subconscious changes that take place in us as we serve in another culture can often take many years to subside, if they ever do.  I still find myself clapping my hands occasionally in a Zambian gesture of thanks, or using words from a language that nobody around me will understand.

This can be somewhat discouraging for those of us back in the UK on home assignment, or just to live in this country.  In a recent workshop with mission workers we discussed such issues: the things we miss about our home abroad, the things we don’t understand about our ‘home’ culture any more, and why we find it hard to settle back in and feel we belong.  We discussed the Syzygy confectionery model of cross-cultural adaptation, which many found helpful.  And we worked through a number of ways to avoid becoming a bitter old grouch who is forever complaining that their church doesn’t get it.  Here are our top tips for preventing re-entry becoming a horrible experience:

Don’t have unreasonably high expectations of your church.  They may be incredibly supportive and caring of you, but may not understand exactly what you need.  So when you feel they’re not there for you, such as when their eyes glaze over just 2 minutes into your conversation telling them about your amazing ministry, remember that they may not get the significance of what you’re doing.   Many of them may wonder why you need to go abroad when there’s already so much to do here.  So I recommend preparing one or two short, powerful stories that may intrigue them and draw them in.

Don’t have unreasonably high estimations of your own importance.  Most mission workers expect to be given a platform to talk about their work though other people in the church aren’t.  Others feel frustrated if they are not asked to preach when they would not have been asked if they weren’t mission workers.  Some expect everything to be organised and paid for by their church, when they are quite capable of doing that for themselves.  In a world where the prevailing message is that we are all mission workers, people often don’t understand why cross-cultural mission workers feel they need more support.

Remember to adapt cross-culturally.  When we go to a different culture, we learn about its culture and work hard to fit in, but we often forget that we need to work equally hard when we return.  Don’t just moan about the differences you can’t get used to, or why life was so much better where you used to live; find out why things have changed and work out a way of dealing with it.

Don’t judge.  Those of us who have lived in a foreign country have had the amazing privilege of seeing how large and diverse the world really is, and we return to where we came from able to see our home culture with the eyes of an outsider.  Those who have never stepped outside their home culture don’t find it easy to do that.  Don’t condemn them for not noticing; remember that you too were once like them.

Treat the church as your mission field.  Many of us return to be part of churches that don’t understand why we have to go abroad to do mission, or even why we need to do it.  Don’t browbeat them.  Treat them the same way you would those you’ve been witnessing to abroad; explain gently, persuade, demonstrate – all in a spirit of love.

Get some help!  It can often help to talk to people who understand what you’re going through.  Meet with people from your agency or wider community who’ve been through re-entry.  Get some debriefing or go on a retreat to hear more clearly what God has to say to you in all this.

If you’re struggling to feel at home in your ‘home’ culture, do get in touch with us on info@syzygy.org.uk – we’d love to talk to you!

* Antlion larvae dig traps in sand to catch their prey – mainly ants – rather like the sarlacc in Return of the Jedi

Posted on November 24th, 2014 by Tim

Middle-aged mission workers in crisis?

Souce: www.sxc.hu

Souce: www.sxc.hu

50 can be a challenging age for anybody.  On reaching half a century, we have to start coming to terms with ageing, knowing that most of us are now over halfway through our lives.

Perhaps we are no longer able to play 5-a-side with the teenagers, or we are starting to have to make regular nocturnal visits to the toilet or coming to terms with the fact that our body tells us we can’t have children.  We may need varifocal lenses or hearing aids.  At the same time, we may be dealing with the drama of our children leaving home, or confronting the tragedy that we might never get married, and dealing with the pain of caring for elderly parents.  So there is a lot for us to take on board.

At the same time, we are rising to the peak of our professional responsibility.  We may be in senior management positions, elders in a church, pillars of our community, trustees of various organisations.  We are expected to mentor younger people, act as consultants and advisors, and start ‘paying something back’ into the community.  People expect our behaviour to be better than when we were teenagers (“You’re old enough to know better!”) and there is less tolerance of our mistakes as we are assumed to be more mature.  But there’s also that nagging doubt that we’ve built on shifting sand.  Will our life’s work last?  Have we devoted our lives to something worthwhile?  Will our children thrive?  Or in others words:

The pressure of responsibility and expectation on us rises, just as our energy levels are starting to fall. 

50s crisisA simple graph can demonstrate this.  The red line indicates the rising burden on us; the blue line the declining energy levels.  And the point where they cross is where disaster is waiting.

The crisis can take a number of forms: a stress-related health incident, ministry burnout and resignation, moral failure, crisis of faith, divorce – and all these hazards lurk out there waiting to trip up the unwary mission worker.  For no obvious reason an apparently exemplary worker will suddenly crack under pressure and fall to pieces, injuring many others with the fallout.  Lives are damaged, churches shattered, faith rocked.  Broken and hurting people return to their sending countries haunted by words like failure and defeat.

So how can we prevent this happening?

Mission workers can:

  • Ensure you maintain a vibrant relationship with God, taking time off work if necessary to devote time to God.
  • Remember to say no to additional responsibilities if you do not feel called to take them on.
  • Take time to reflect regularly on your identity.  Are you a Martha or a Mary?  Which way round is your dynamic triangle flowing?
  • Have a frank relationship with an accountability partner or mentor.
  • If you’re married, make sure you take regular steps to invest in your relationship.  If you’re not married, make sure you learn to thrive in your singleness.
  • Learn to delegate effectively so that you don’t have to cope with excessive busyness as well as excessive responsibility.
  • Rejoice that though we are physically decaying we are growing more godly (2 Corinthians 4:16)
  • Take a break at the first sign of stress-related illness.

Churches and agencies can:

  • Take active steps to ensure their mission workers are not overworked and take regular holidays and study leave
  • Use regular appraisals to ask challenging questions about spiritual, emotional and physical well-being
  • Encourage mentoring
  • Organise training to help mission workers understand what makes them tick and why they may be tempted to overwork.
  • Ensure mission workers are sufficiently well-funded to be able to take holidays.
  • Have a good member care team in place
  • Send out family and friends to support and encourage.
  • Ensure that mission workers take regular and sufficient home assignment and have regular healthchecks
  • Recognise that cross-cultural living can take its toll on people’s health and spirituality
  • Provide practical support to help reduce the pressure on mission workers
  • PRAY!!!

Posted on April 28th, 2014 by Tim

Housing for Home Assignment

Housing for home assignment is frequently a huge headache for mission workers.  In fact, it’s probably the single biggest challenge, though for many mission workers, their family and church may not even recognise this.  So for starters, here’s a summary of the challenges:

If you’re single – You may end up moving in with your parents.  While this is potentially demeaning for any adult, it may also put pressure on your relationships (particularly if your mum keeps asking when she’s going to need to go shopping for a hat).  Or you may end up in a spare room at a friend’s house.  This can be great fun when it works, but you may be acutely aware that it’s not your home and you need to work around somebody else’s space.  At other times singles can end up in a succession of different places, often staying with strangers, which can be emotionally demanding no matter how hospitable they are.

If you’re a couple – People take couples’ needs more seriously than singles, recognising that you need your own space.  You’re more likely to get a home of your own, but it’s still not always easy.

If you’re a family – The bigger your family, the bigger the challenge.  It can be very hard to stay with friends due to the lack of space, but the rising cost of renting in the UK means you may not be able to afford somewhere large enough, and lack of space can put pressure on your family relationships.  Families sometimes find themselves living far from friends, church and family, because they have to take what accommodation they can get.  It doesn’t help the children form a positive impression of their parents’ home country.

Syzygy recommends that mission workers get a place of your own if this is at all possible.  It gives you the private space you need to process all that’s gone on in your life on the field, and to deal with the pressures of adjusting to life in the UK (see Reverse Culture Shock).  But renting is expensive, and it can be very hard to get a rental contract for less than a year, so there are a number of different solutions:

Live in your own house – If you own a house, ask your tenants to move out so that you can live in it.  It can help with a settling back into your ‘home’ but the challenge with this option is that your income drops though you still have to pay the mortgage.  You also run the risk of not being able to let it again when you leave, although you can take the opportunity to do routine repairs which may help you get a better rent.

Save up money while you are overseas to set aside to pay rent when you return.  Living back in your sending country may be significantly more expensive than being in the field, so setting aside a little every month (yes, I know it’s hard!) can help with this.

Ask your family/church/agency to help pay for the rent.  Don’t be shy!  They may not even have realised it’s a problem and could be happy to help.  Churches in particular may need to be reminded of your needs.

Time-share a rental with other mission workers from the same church or town.  You might be able to find other people sent from the same town as you who can synchronise their home assignment with yours, so that you can get a year’s rental agreement and take six months of it each.

Borrow a home from someone going overseas.  Agencies can help arrange this, even if you’re not a member, as their short term mission workers will need to fill their homes while they’re abroad.  Do some networking with other agencies in your field before you leave.  Christian Home Exchange Fellowship may also be able to help.

Ask Syzygy.  We know of one or two housing options that we can’t publicise, but contact us on info@syzygy.org.uk for more information.

Ask Oscar.  The mission worker’s second favourite website (after this one!) has lists of the various options, including agencies and private lettings.  Just click here.

Other long-term solutions can include forming partnerships with other mission workers to buy a property which can be used like a time-share, or if you know a number of mission workers from related churches in the same area, you may be able to encourage the churches to club together to buy a property for use as a mission home.  One church I know bought a small development of flats and now rents most of them commercially, giving the church an income while they leave one flat permanently available for mission workers.

It’s also really important to gather a team around you, if you don’t have one already, who will prepare your accommodation.  A group of friends, relatives and supporters who can source, rent and clean a home before you return, make sure it’s furnished and has food in the fridge, is a real blessing.  Some churches collect and store everything from sofas to cutlery so that it can be used to kit out a rented house.

One thing that is important to stress is that having the right accommodation for your home assignment is a crucial element in managing the stress involved in returning to the UK, and it is well worth investing the time, energy and finance in finding the best solution.

Posted on December 6th, 2013 by Tim

Keep a missionary mobile (2)

31072012151Keep a Missionary Mobile is a campaign which we launched earlier this year to help Syzygy provide transport for mission workers on home assignment in the UK.  This is a much needed service and one recent beneficiary commented:

It gives me so much freedom to travel!  I just couldn’t do home assignment without it.

You can read more about this ministry here.

Our faithful but ageing Ford Galaxy is nearing its sell-by date and we are looking to raise funds to buy a newer and higher-spec Toyota Previa which has been offered to us.  We anticipate many years of service from this dependable vehicle, which has seven seats and is ideal for families on home assignment.

Will you help us to Keep a Missionary Mobile?  You can give through our Everyclick account, at Give.net, or through Stewardship (if you have an account with them), or by sending a cheque payable to Syzygy to 46 Wingate Close, Birmingham B30 1AA.

Posted on November 25th, 2013 by Tim

TCKS coming ‘home’

Depressed, misunderstood, lonely?

Depressed, misunderstood, lonely?

It’s a while since we discussed TCKs, and since we reviewed reverse culture shock a few months ago, this might be a good opportunity to focus specifically on how this affects TCKs.  TCKS are Third Culture Kids – people who spent a significant part of their formative years growing up in a culture which was not that of their parents.  They don’t fully fit in either in their parents’ home country, or the country (or countries) in which they grew up, so they form their own third culture which features aspects of both.  Where the parents are mission workers, they are also known as Mission Kids (MKs).

Among the many huge challenges facing TCKs is the question of where home is.  They can often experience significant confusion over the issue, particularly when they’ve lived as mission kids in more than two countries.  But they seldom agree with their parents that the original sending country is home.  This complicates returning to the sending country, whether temporarily for home assignment or permanently, as in relocating for educational reasons.

Parents can easily talk about this as ‘going home’, which it may well be for them, but for the children, it is more like going to a foreign country.  They may be familiar with aspects of it but it is probably not home.  They are leaving home!  Their wider family in the sending country, and also in their ‘home’ church may reinforce this view, asking children who are already feeling lonely, bewildered and homesick how it feels to be ‘home’.  It’s not surprising if they occasionally get a hostile response.

Recognising that any such transition is a huge challenge for young people is the first step in dealing with it.  Some of our top tips for helping TCKs cope with this transition are:

  • ensure that the parents can spend more time than usual with their children, since they are a key point of stability in a different world;
  • connect with old friends back home through social media to maintain meaningful relationships;
  • bring with you favourite toys, furniture and food supplies so that you can continue to celebrate where you’ve come from;
  • meet with people from their host culture in the new country, and connect with other TCKs who have already made the transition;
  • continue to speak in the language of your host country to reinforce your connection with it;
  • take children and teens to Rekonnect – a summer camp specially designed for TCKs;
  • ensure that key features of life and culture in the new country are explained.  Don’t take it for granted that TCKs know how to tie shoelaces or button a dufflecoat if they didn’t have shoes and coats as they grew up!
TCKs in Brazil - Pam and her four sisters

TCKs in Brazil – Pam and her four sisters

One of Syzygy’s trustees, Pam Serpell, herself a TCK who grew up in Brazil, wrote a dissertation on this subject for her degree, and has given us permission to publish it here.   In her research she discovered that TCKs who reflected back on their experience of relocating to the UK used words like depressed, misunderstood, belittled, lonely, excluded, trapped and even suicidal.  This will not come as a surprise to those who have already been through this transition, but indicates how seriously the challenges for TCKs need to be taken.

Pam also looked at what helped prepare the TCKs for the transition, supported them through it, and what else they thought might have helped.  She clearly felt there is a need for sending agencies to do more to help prepare TCKs, perhaps through a formal orientation programme, and to support them through it.  Fortunately, in the 10 years that have elapsed since she did her research, many agencies have made great progress in this area.

Yet despite the evident challenges involved in being a TCK, Pam concludes:

All the people who took part in my research expressed being grateful for their upbringing and the experiences they had in ‘growing up between worlds’ and I would encourage any TCK to concentrate on the benefits of their experience and look for the positives.

You can read a pdf of Pam’s dissertation here.  As with all material on the Syzygy website, it is available for reuse where appropriate as long as the author receives due credit.

Posted on July 1st, 2013 by Tim

Serving as Singles

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This week’s blog is not a reference to the tennis championships at Wimbledon, but a consideration of the needs of single mission workers serving the Lord cross-culturally.

Not long ago, the HR director of a UK mission agency told me that they recommend that all their married mission partners do a marriage refresher course while they are on home assignment.  This is good practice as it will help them think about the damage caused to their relationship by their time in the field, and help them strengthen their marriage to be more resilient in the future.

However the same agency makes no similar recommendation to its single mission partners for dealing with their singleness!

And, to be honest, even if they did, it wouldn’t be easy for their mission partners to find the appropriate resources.  Marriage enrichment courses abound.  You can find them run at retreat centres or in many churches (see Relationship Central for more information).  Yet where do you find any resource to help singles?  It’s an issue that is not adequately addressed, despite the increasing number of singles in our churches.

Syzygy is very happy to be able to redress this balance.  We are happy to be partnering with Penhurst Retreat Centre, whose amazing ministry we have profiled before, to provide a 48 hour guided retreat for single mission workers in early September.

Serving as Singles is a celebration of singleness in ministry.  This retreat will be an affirming time helping single mission workers embrace their situation in life, look to Christ to provide our needs, and discuss strategies for coping with the difficult aspects of being single. There will be time for teaching, discussion, prayer, silence and laughter. It is open to all singles involved in mission whether unmarried, divorced or widowed.  Above all, we will be pointed back to Jesus as the lover of our soul, to spend time with him, listening to what he has to say to us.

Penhurst is a quiet, cozy retreat centre deep in the lovely Sussex countryside, which provides plenty of opportunity for rest and reflection.  It is an ideal place for an event such as this.  To book your place, visit the Penhurst website.  But do it quickly, as places are strictly limited!

Posted on May 27th, 2013 by Tim

Keep a missionary mobile!

31072012151Finding transport for a short visit to the UK can be one of the biggest headaches for mission workers.  With a need to travel around the country to be reunited with friends and family, visit conferences and churches, often with equipment for presentations and personal luggage, public transport just doesn’t do the job.  But it’s too expensive to rent a car for 6 to 8 weeks, not long enough to justify buying one, and even if somebody lends them a car, the cost of insuring it for just a few months can be prohibitive.  What to do?

Syzygy has its own solution to this problem – we have our own car ministry.  Our three cars – a Fiesta, a Mondeo and a Galaxy – are loaned to mission workers for up to six months.  There’s no insurance to arrange and the cars are delivered to the mission worker wherever they want them – even to the airport.  All they have to do is get in and drive away, and if they are too tired to do that after a long flight, we’ll even drive them to their destination.  You can read more about this ministry here.

Many mission workers coming from a variety of mission fields have testified to the fact that this ministry is a huge blessing to them, and that they could not have done their home assignment without it.  The fact that over 40 people last year asked to borrow one of our cars indicates what an important service it is.  It is our privilege to serve them in this way.

The costs of this ministry have increased significantly in recent years, largely due to the rising cost of insurance.  The Fiesta costs Syzygy over £200/month to run and the Galaxy nearly £300.  It has always been our hope to make this service available free of charge to mission workers, but in recent years we have been forced by these rising costs to ask them for donations to help with the running costs.

If more people became involved in supporting this work we would be able to reduce the amount that we ask mission workers to contribute.  Is this something your church or youth group could be involved in and so have a practical impact on world mission?  This could well be a way for your group to establish contact with mission workers for the first time.  There is no lower limit (or upper limit!) on the amount raised as every pound will make a difference.  Could you or your church be inspired to meet some of our costs?

Will you help us to Keep a Missionary Mobile?  You can give through our Everyclick account, at Give.net, or through Stewardship (if you have an account with them), or by sending a cheque to the Syzygy office.  If you would like a Gift Aid Form, or would like to set up a standing order to our bank account, please email info@syzygy.org for the details.

Posted on May 6th, 2013 by Tim

Statutory Residence Test

A happy landing? (Photo: SXC)

A happy landing? (Image: SXC)

Overseas mission workers need to be aware of developments in taxation which may affect you as a result of the publication of the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) which came into force on 6th April 2013 and is causing a lot of concern in the missions community.  This is important as you may find yourself hit with a large income tax bill which you didn’t expect.

The SRT is an attempt to codify into law the various provisions and allowances which have grown up around whether you are considered to be resident in the UK or not.  This is significant because UK residents are taxed on their global income, and non-residents only on their UK income.  The new test may inadvertently catch out some mission workers who receive their income overseas but spend a lengthy time in the UK for home assignment, or to have a baby.   This is because in previous years a rolling total of days in the UK was allowed before becoming automatically resident, so the calculation for residency was an average of more than 90 days per year over a four year period; now it is a total of more than 90 days in any given tax year.

The test has three parts:

  1. whether you are automatically non-resident;
  2. whether you are automatically resident;
  3. if neither of the above, whether you are resident or non-resident according to whether you have sufficient ties to the UK

The details of these are complicated, as you would expect.  We’ve tried to simplify them for you, but make sure you read the provisions for yourself to check your situation.  There are complicated definitions, and special provisions where a stay in the UK straddles two tax years.  But in a nutshell, one tax advisor commented:  “We feel that it is much easier to become unintentionally resident than before, and harder to cease residence again.”

Examples:

You are automatically non-resident if:

  • you have lived and worked abroad for 2 years, and return to the UK every year for no more than 16 days; or
  • you have lived and worked abroad for 4 years, and return to the UK every year for not more than 46 days; or
  • you work full-time abroad and return to the UK for less than 91 days and the number of days on which you do more than 3 hours’ work in the UK is less than 31.

You are automatically resident if:

  • you spend 183 days or more in the UK.  This test is of vital significance for mission workers on home assignment for more than six months; or
  • you have a home in the UK for a period of more than 90 days, and you are present in that home for at least 30 days, and you have no overseas home or an overseas home in which you spend more than 30 days.

To help you through this process, we have produced two flow charts helping you through the tests.  Click on the links below to see a pdf.

Automatic overseas test     Automatic UK test

These are not definitive and you should consult the HMRC website for yourself.  You should take advice from your agency, or if you don’t have one, an accountant.

Our recommendations are that you investigate this situation thoroughly before you spend more than two weeks in the UK, keep records of when you travel to the UK and how many days you spend here, and a log of the amount of working hours you do each day and where you stay.  Craziness!

The fundamental implication of all this is that we may be seeing the end of year-long home assignment (which is a trend already under way anyway).  Anyone who does a home assignment of more than 90 days will clearly be resident and liable to UK taxation.  This of course is no change from the current situation, but the formalisation of the rules will make it harder for agencies and individual mission workers to ‘forget’ them.

You can read the full text of the new provisions here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget-updates/11dec12/stat-res-test-note.pdf.