Whether through encouraging or painful experiences, receiving has been an integral part of my journey as a global worker.  

I receive a visa to live in my host country; a reminder I am a guest and will benefit from an attitude of humble learning. 

I receive help to learn language, life necessities, and cultural norms.  

The medical care I receive in my host country has been a huge blessing. 

I am shown hospitality by kind people in my community who are willing to be friends with foreigners. 

I receive blessings from living in another region of the world. This has altered my perception of life in meaningful ways. It has also given me scars from which I have grown kinder and wiser. 

From ministry partners, I receive spiritual and financial support to follow Christ in my work. 

Over the past eleven years, I have received criticism from people in my host country, home country, and those I serve alongside. 

I often feel alone and misunderstood. Overseas life presents challenges I struggle to explain to those who do not share my experiences. 

Receiving suffuses life. It is delicately woven into everything—so much that it’s easy for me to forget it is always happening. Global workers are often thought of as givers, but giving and receiving are inexorably linked. I’m not sure there is ever a time when I’m only giving or only receiving. I am constantly doing both because I live in a community and have relationships. This is how I am meant to interact with the world God made; so receiving is not to be looked on as an inferior act or shied away from in embarrassment or guilt. 

Receiving infuses the life of a global worker; of a Christ follower; of a human created in God’s image. Receiving is a decidedly human act, placing me in honest relationships with others as fellow dependents of God’s love. Receiving reminds me Christ has given the most wonderful gift, and I am meant to share it with other human beings. Instead of playing the hero who can only give, I am called to live in relationship with God and people–through loving, giving, and receiving. Thus, I experience genuine connection.