An Overlooked Challenge of Missionary Life

When people think of missionary work, they often picture the profound moments—sharing the gospel in a remote village, translating Scripture into a new language, or witnessing a community come to Christ. Mibu Ministry certainly has a lot of cool God stuff to boast about! But there's another side to the story that often goes unspoken. Or maybe it's obvious, but goes unspoken because we don't have a good term for it? In my struggle to coin an appropriate term I had ChatGPT help me… are you ready… "Omni-Competence Overload," is what we'll call it. In the jungle of Papua New Guinea, where we lived and served among the Mibu people, I learned firsthand that being a missionary comes with much more than just ministry. It's also about constantly being pushed beyond my current range of practical skills well outside of those that would be considered ministry. And where we fail to master the skills (happens a lot) you end up with botched attempts at solving problems, or even worse problems than when you started. Whether it's building and repairing our home, troubleshooting tech issues, or managing fundraising efforts, all while going about the challenge of navigating complex cross-cultural dynamics, we find ourselves constantly outside of our comfort zones to keep things moving forward. While these experiences have made us resourceful, I believe they are one of several factors that contribute to the sense of burnout many missionaries face.

 

The Reality of Living in the Jungle

 

We replaced every wooden post on all 4 buildings multiple times! Termites and rot kept getting the upper hand till we eventually figured out a better solution!

Let me paint you a picture of what life in the jungle is really like. Imagine needing to plan and build your own house from scratch. I'm not an architect, nor do I aspire to be! Even with a couple teams who came to help us build, it required a lot that fell outside our typical skill set. Then picture maintaining that house where the jungle is working overtime to destroy it. Picture days spent figuring out how to fix a broken water system with whatever materials you can scavenge because there's no hardware store nearby. Or troubleshooting electrical problems, on both AC and DC sides of the system. If something breaks, you learn to jerry-rig it. I can't tell you how many pieces of pipe I've heated up to stretch and bend to make work when I needed to fix something but didn't have a hardware store! But you quickly find that these makeshift solutions rarely hold up in the long run. Though on occasion some actually hold up surprisingly well! I still have two rain gutters in Mibu being held up by nylon webbing after more than 10 years—nails just couldn't cut it in the harsh jungle conditions! It's a humorous example, but one that speaks to what I'm getting at. Or this one may be stupid and small, but planning logistics for getting our food and supplies, helicopter flights, and other travel, and the constant changes was so time consuming!

Our house in the jungle. You build in a clearing to be sure to get plenty of sunlight.

 

The Challenge Beyond the Jungle

 

But this isn't just about the jungle. Even after moving out of Mibu, this "Omni-Competence Overload" persists. For instance, as we work on improving our fundraising efforts from Arizona, I find myself learning new skills—like using Canva, managing social media, and understanding email marketing. These are things I never imagined I'd need to know as a missionary, but here I am, spending hours trying to master them (and totally failing) because it's necessary to keep our ministry going. I've spent more than four hours (now 5.5 hours) just working on this blog post, trying to get the message just right. And if I'm being honest, I have my doubts whether this is even a worthwhile post, but am going to just hit 'post' anyway just because I've now invested the time and I'm tired of thinking about it… haha! I can't tell you how many half-written posts I have that I ended up abandoning because it's too much time or just seems futile.

 

While I generally enjoy tackling challenges, this constant need to put so much time in everything else can be defeating. I know it really takes the wind out of my sails. The time spent learning and doing all these non-ministry tasks often means that the ministry itself progresses more slowly. And though I've tried to prioritize, those deferred tasks inevitably catch up, creating a hard balance between focusing on the ministry and managing everything else.

 

The Broader Implication

 

What we're calling omni-competence overload isn't unique to missionaries. Whether you're in ministry specifically, or have a W2, or whether you're working overseas or in your hometown, you've probably felt this in some form. Perhaps you've had to become the go-to person for everything in your job or home life, juggling more roles than you'd like. I've learned too that often this can be a result of an unhealthy inability to delegate, and/or a prideful view of oneself as the best one to get things done. I know I have some of that going on that I've been challenged about. But I've also found that delegating with many of these tasks takes financial resources. The truth is, finances often solve some of these problems by giving us the freedom to bring in people better suited for specific tasks. I would love to hire someone to manage all our blog and social media, for example. For now I just try to minimize those tasks outside of ministry and get help where I can. (Anyone but me please write updates for us!… haha)

 

Perhaps Omni-Competence Overload is something you've never considered before, or maybe it seems obvious in hindsight. Either way, it's a reminder of the hidden challenges that missionaries—and many others—face behind the scenes. As you continue to pray for and support missionaries, consider how this burden impacts their ability to focus on the core work of ministry. By growing in your understanding of these pressures, you can better support and encourage the missionaries you know, helping them carry out the vital work they've been called to do.

 

I don't bring this factor up as a complaint. I see it simply as a challenge in ministry. I do actually enjoy solving a good problem. That may be part of my problem actually! I get it from my dad! I write about it here partly to process and put my thoughts about it into writing, but also because it may be a slightly unusual and transparent topic for a missionary to write about and thus, just maybe, it's a little bit interesting to read about.

Skyler started early with her refrigeration technician skills

 

 

Thank you!

 

We are profoundly grateful for the unwavering support we've received over the years—through prayer, encouragement, and financial giving. You have played a vital role in sustaining this ministry, and we couldn't have made it this far without you. As we continue this journey, we find ourselves in a season where our monthly support is just 57% of what's needed. If you feel led to partner with us financially or increase your current support, your help would make a significant impact as we work toward completing the translation in Mibu. Thank you for standing with us as we press on, by God's grace, through all the challenges and victories that come our way.

 

I spent lots of time confounded in this area. It's where most of our water issues, water heating, and washing machine issues happened

An example of a jerry-rigged bracket for my bandsaw. It didn't last long as you would expect with brass pieces in the mix

Installing this beast and pointing correctly was a task. Even to this day this thing can be a pain for us, but it is the only way we get internet in Mibu. Hoping to change that soon with a much simpler Starlink system

 

 

Figuring out how I can reconfigure things already in use such as DC converters and wifi routers to create a dry box (for storing things that didn't handle high humidity well)

We weren't always on our own to figure out problems. We were blessed a number of times to have teams come in to help with the bigger tasks!