I recently had the opportunity to speak with Richard, a worker serving in East Asia who has just finished four years serving with OMF. Richard wrestled with many questions as he sought to understand fruitfulness in this season of life and ministry.
As a single man, Richard shared how easy it was to compare himself with colleagues who had families and, at least on the surface, seemed to have more natural points of connection for ministry. Yet the challenges he described were not primarily about activity, but about something deeper: identity, usefulness and learning to live with weakness.
Moving to a city where you’re unfamiliar with the language or culture is disorientating, and Richard shared how his instinctive desire to help, encourage and equip others was hindered by his inability to communicate. He explained, ‘It can feel like I’m an infantilised adult because I can’t live out my adult wisdom, knowledge and experiences. I have to learn how to handle that as an adult in a way I never had to in my home country.’
Living in a city with over 20 million people, it might be hard to imagine anyone feeling alone. Yet Richard reflected, ‘I’m surrounded by people, but I’m actually enveloped in solitude because I don’t have any connection with the millions of people who are running all around me. As I’m adjusting to this new culture, it feels like I’m always on the outside looking into other people’s developing lives. My outer life kind of stays stuck.’
Operating from this place of isolation and weakness was challenging for Richard. He reflected that his ‘weakness became the defining feature of my life and identity’. Without a spouse to share daily experiences with or to help process the highs and lows of language learning and cultural adjustment, many of these thoughts were carried alone. Yet in this, Richard came to recognise how God was meeting him with quiet encouragement day by day.
Yet this isolation created unexpected space. Richard described the past term as an opportunity to lean on God and meditate on his word. What felt like emptiness became a place of deeper dependence. And as Richard reflects, he sees that God has shown him the potential relationships and fruitfulness that exists on the horizon, and that the last several years have not been wasted.
Encouragement came in simple ways. Shared lunches with local friends, where longer midday breaks allowed for unhurried conversation, became meaningful opportunities for connection and reminders that God was at work in ways he could not always measure. He also spoke with gratitude of his home church, whose understanding that language learning, cultural adjustment and relationship building take time helped relieve the pressure to demonstrate obvious progress.
Richard’s story shows us how we can pray for single men serving overseas: pray for perseverance in isolation, encouragement in slow progress, meaningful friendships and a deep awareness of Christ’s presence in the quiet moments. For single men considering mission, it is an honest reminder that this path may stretch you in new ways, but that God meets his servants faithfully there.
Ailsa Yuille
OMF (UK) Books & Content Coordinator
