You Might Be Called, But Can You Live Overseas?
I have met a number of people who have felt called by God to be missionaries overseas. Many of them take the step to transition their life and then move overseas. But for many after a few years or after simply going through the process, they realize that it’s hard to live overseas and it’s something they don’t feel they can do.
For many people this process of feeling called, moving overseas and then coming back to the US can be very demoralizing, leading to reverse culture shock and depression. This can cause people to ask, “Did we misinterpret God’s call for our lives or did we do something wrong?”
I believe we need to change the question we are asking ourselves. Instead of only asking, “Am I called to be a missionary overseas?” perhaps we can start with asking, “Can I live overseas?” Everyone is called to share the love of Jesus with those they interact with whether they live in Indiana or India. However, the ability to live in India in the long term is very different from living in Indiana.
This is where the digital nomad visa really comes in handy. Do you know how to find the answer to the question, “Can I live in another country?” You live there. Being able to move somewhere and work as a digital nomad is the easiest way to see if you can adapt to life in another country.
No matter whether you are moving as a career missionary or as a digital nomad working remotely or another kind of global marketplace multiplier, you still need to adjust to life in another country, just the same. The first time I went to a Bauhaus, the equivalent to Home Depot that operates in Croatia, I was exhausted. Everything was either in Croatian or German and I didn’t know where everything I needed was. Back in the US, I considered myself a fairly competent handyman, but here I couldn’t even change a toilet lid.
Now to be fair, the European toilet system is completely different. The basic physics is still the same. When you first come to Europe you notice that you have to push a button on this tank that is often hidden in the wall, vs pushing a lever down. This represents the initial culture shock that is more of a novelty. But it’s only once you have been somewhere for a while, and you try to fix a toilet that you become frustrated and realize that parts aren’t nearly as interchangeable as what they are in the US. No joke, it took me months to finally figure out how to fix just one wobbly toilet seat. But it was experiences like these that taught me resilience and helped me answer the question of whether I could live in a country like Croatia.
Having the digital nomad visa gave our family a year to adjust to a culture and figure life out. After a year, my wife was at the right place and she was able to get a work visa at an international school that allowed us to stay longer in Croatia. It was only because we were already there that the option presented itself for us to stay longer.
Two years in, we feel quite a bit more settled and have had the bandwidth to start new things. I initially thought that more of my ministry would be related to video work, but after a few years, I realized that I feel called to work with pre-teens. We can connect naturally with families that have kids that age, and it’s when they start to ask questions on their own about God and who they are.
We also have tried to intentionally connect with the local culture. We have put our kids in after-school activities such as soccer, piano and gymnastics. With the sports, we have expat friends who talk about how they like that the coaches speak English. We actually prefer if they aren’t speaking English, because that gets more language exposure to our kids.
We have been intentional about serving at a church plant that is in Croatian and English and investing in people who live outside of the main hub in Split.
We have also found that one of the things that we can do from here, that wouldn’t be possible from the US, is to build relationships with people and give locally. When our first language tutor went to an evangelism training camp for several months, we supported her, knowing that she would be able to reach people quicker than we would because she is Croatian and European.
There are times when digital nomads have gotten a bad rap for overcrowding areas and driving up prices for everything. Where we are in Split, it has a high season between April to October. The rest of the time things dramatically scale back and a lot of places close. But by staying here year-round and living outside of the heart of the city, we are helping stabilize things. We are now in the country’s health insurance system that we pay into, contributing to the local economy and the national system.
Before we came we had taken some Croatian lessons, but after two years of asking myself the question, “Can we live here?” and determining that the answer is “Yes!”, I’ve plugged in more to Croatian language lessons twice a week. Croatia is an easy country to get by speaking just English, but part of connecting with the local culture is to invest in learning the language. A fellow soccer dad told me, “The fact that you are learning the language shows that you care about our culture.”
Going the route of the digital nomad visa allowed us to shorten the runway needed to leave the US, arrive in another country and ask ourselves if we can live there. We are the same people we were in the US. Our ministry to other people looks very similar here compared to what we were doing in the US. God’s call for our life in Croatia is the same as it was in the US, but we have just asked the question, “Can we do life in Croatia?”
The answer is yes. Are you asking yourself a similar question? Could you live your life intentionally overseas?
See also: “Becoming a Digital Nomad” by Wes Dean