While there are a host of ways to pray for any missionary, a big one for single missionaries is their housemate(s) or lack thereof situation. Most all single missionaries can attest to the fact that it's hard to find and keep a good housemate. Missionaries move a lot, so keeping the same housemate for an extended period is rare. It's exhausting to be frequently changing with whom you are living! Living alone can be financially impractical or emotionally undesirable, although certainly some people enjoy it. However, depending on where in the world a missionary is serving, it might not be a option. Having a housemate with whom you do not mesh well is incredibly stressful, but your missionary friend might not be able to say this outright in a newsletter prayer request. So just because your friend never says she is having a really difficult time with her housemate doesn't mean she's not, and she might really appreciate your prayer support.
You could pray about:
- Getting along well with current housemate
- Having good local friends (it's fun to have friends all over the world, but you also really need some friends who live close to you)
- Comfort through all of the good-byes that come as a part of the missionary life
- Emotional fortitude when to starting over repeatedly
Two case studies:
Hazel Gray
This is Hazel, who has had nine housemates over the past nine years. She's said hello to a lot of strangers and good-bye to a lot of friends as she, and they, have had to move apart for various reasons. Married missionaries say good-byes a lot, too, as they and their friends have to move apart, but at least they have a spouse and perhaps also children transitioning with them. It's rough going for singles to find and keep good friends who live near them.
Hazel was polite enough to refrain from telling me if any of those nine housemates have been rotten apples, but surely some in that mix have been a bit more difficult to live with. On the positive side, housemate number eight was particularly great, but moved out last month (to get married, so a good reason for losing a housemate, but still difficult). So now Hazel is with housemate number nine, and her life is once again in transition as she adjusts to a new person in her home.
This is my friend who is working in a closed country
This is my friend, whom we'll call Ruth. Ruth works in a "creative access" country in Asia, so I can't be putting details of her up on the internet. She's a missionary who has had some interesting living situations over the past few years - here are just a few: two women who were very good friends with each other and from a different country than Ruth; a pregnant young national living apart from her husband, and later she also lived with the newborn baby; a large national family in a very poor home; and by herself. She is currently living alone, but is expecting a new housemate to move in next week.
Ruth, as is the case with many other single missionaries, has no national counterparts. In the country where she works, women get married when they are young. There are no 30+ single women, except for widows. It can be difficult for nationals to know how to relate to someone who is in a category entirely outside their cultural framework. Sometimes there is not much in common to talk about with other women, and the attention she receives from men is not often of the type she would prefer. So, difficult housing situations aside, friendships are few and far between, too.
Do you have a missionary friend who is working in a culture very different from her own? (And I say "her," because the number of single female missionaries is drastically higher than the number of single male ones.) Perhaps she struggles with similar issues. Pray for her housing situation and friendships with locals!
So, when you think of your single missionary friends, pray for them as they go through the inevitable revolving door of housemates and friends.
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