There’s an insidious part of being a global worker they didn’t tell me about. 

So much of my work in Uganda was helping. And especially at first, I felt the critical need to also be helped. Landing in the orange dust of Kampala, I was thrust into the role of learner: the language (“How do I say, ‘My name is…?”). The culture (“Is this skirt length acceptable?”). The alarming and vast effects of poverty (“What do you mean her parents don’t want her in school?”).

I also felt what I’ll call the Savanna Effect: the need, which is suppressed in the U.S. by conveniences and safety nets and technology, for the support of the herd, the Body of Christ.  

Life was leaner here. I was exhausted. I was vulnerable. And if I wandered as a lone ranger, or an emotionally dying one? Just like on the savanna, I could be picked off by the roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8-9).

Yet, with need sprawling before me every hour, the more I helped, the more I felt self-conscious about being helped. 

This was compounded by a few rejections at just the right time. When a trauma on the field left part of my heart paralyzed and friends didn’t seem to know how to help, or ask to help, I internalized dark lies.

You’re really only worth it when you give.

People actually aren’t that interested in you apart from what you do for them. 

And every now and then, I started thinking maybe God was on the same page.

In that, I was identifying with the older brother of the Prodigal Son. I preferred working in the fields to joining God’s kids at the table.  

On a very personal level, I know it can seem that loneliness happens to us because someone else doesn’t care enough. 

But also in my experience? People are historically terrible at extrasensory perception. Mind-reading isn’t a fair part of love: it’s an unspoken expectation. 

Yes, loneliness can be the result of acute pain, years of service, and the occasional failures of others. But it’s also a call for me to humbly, courageously reject my pride and self-protection.  

God asks me to move intentionally toward the Body of Christ—not further away: “I don’t need you!” (1 Corinthians 12:21). 

My disconnection…is spiritual dysfunction.