When the To-Go Bag Gets Used

Many of our workers in hard places keep a bag packed by the front door. It holds whatever they can carry. If the call comes to evacuate, they grab it and go. No time to pack. No time to say goodbye the way they'd want to. Just the bag, the passport, and the road to the airport.

This year that call came for many families serving in and around Iran. War broke out. Evacuations followed. Workers scattered to third countries, or came home, some for a season, some for good. It is not a new story. Ruth and I have lived it ourselves more than once. But every time it happens, a church somewhere is asking the same question: what do we do now?

Don't assume someone else has it covered

The instinct is to assume the mission board is handling everything. Sometimes they are. Groups like the IMB or the Assemblies of God's mission board often have counselors on call and funds ready to move. But a lot of our missionaries are sent independently, funded by a patchwork of family and friends rather than one large agency. If most of someone's support comes from relatives, there is no institution standing behind them when the crisis hits. The church is it.

So ask, don't assume. Get in touch with whatever sending agency exists, find out what's already being done, and find out what's still missing. The body of Christ sends. Agencies facilitate. Neither one replaces the other.

Give them a free conversation

Before anything practical happens, people need to talk. Ruth and I call it a free conversation. Sit them down with a meal and people they trust, and let them say anything. About the field, about a colleague, about anger they've carried for years. It's off the record. No one is there to fix it or correct it. They'll usually come back the next day and say they wish they hadn't said some of it so bluntly. That's fine. That's the point. They needed somewhere to let the air out of the balloon before they could think straight again.

Meet the practical needs first

Housing. A reliable car with a full tank. Groceries already in the fridge so no one has to shop the day they land. And please, make sure the place is clean. We've heard too many stories of families arriving from years in hard places only to find they need to scrub the bathroom before they can sleep in it. If you run a guest house, stay in it yourself for a few nights first. Sleep in the bed. Test the hot water.

One church gave a family we knew two weeks at the beach, a new rental car, and spending money for every family member. That's a high bar, but churches rarely fall short because they're stingy. They fall short because no one told them what was needed. Ask the family directly. You'll usually be surprised how simple the answer is.

Don't forget the kids, and protect the marriage

Missionary kids carry their own weight in a crisis, often quietly, often behind their parents' words. Get them into something normal. A retreat, a ball game, room to just be kids in a culture that will feel foreign in ways their parents may not expect.

And field life is brutal on a marriage in ways people back home rarely see. I've known couples whose only "date" was walking from the living room to the kitchen with no air conditioning in 130-degree heat. A date night, a getaway, even a few days away together, is not indulgence. It's investment in a marriage that's been running on fumes.

Find counselors who understand the life

Secular counselors mean well, but most have never lived cross-culturally, and many will quietly try to talk a family out of ever going back. Look for Christian counselors who understand a life built on daily risk and sacrifice. It's worth paying for. It's a gift to the Kingdom.

The story I've never told

I'm going to risk sharing something here I've never said publicly. A family we knew, not people we sent ourselves, came home in crisis. I was asked to call and encourage them. Their daughter, a young missionary kid I'd known for years, answered the phone. She sounded like liquid sunshine. We talked for fifteen minutes. She went to get her parents. The next day, that girl took her own life.

I went to a dark place after that call. I asked myself for years what I missed. A counselor who has walked with Ruth and me since college told me something I still hold onto: I didn't miss any clues, because there weren't any to see. People can hide. They can stand on the mountaintop one day and fall into a valley they can't climb out of the next.

Our job isn't to catch every fall. It's to make sure no one has to hide in the first place. If we can build a place safe enough that someone will tell us where the bridge is before they ever climb onto it, we've done what we're called to do. Don't miss the ones you can help. And don't carry the guilt for the ones you couldn't see. Just keep building the safe place.

If you're a church, or if you're the one coming home

If you're a body of Christ walking alongside someone who just evacuated, who just buried a colleague, who just watched a country fall apart around them, build them that safe place. Ask what they need instead of guessing. Give them a way to speak freely, without judgment, without a rush to fix.

And if you're the one who had to leave, the one sitting in a spare bedroom wondering if anyone understands what you walked away from, know that the body of Christ is meant to be a safe place for you too. You don't have to carry this alone.

We talk through all of this in more detail, along with a few stories we've never told before, in "Serving Evacuated Missionaries," this episode of the Witness and Persecution Podcast. If you're a pastor, a missions committee member, or a church member who wants to know how to care well for a family coming home, it's worth the listen.

Listen to the full episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If your church is caring for someone in this situation right now and you want guidance, reach out to us at [email protected]. We'd be glad to help you build that safe place.