MC Tools—7

Giants, Foxes, Wolves, and Flies

 

 We are sharing some tools to support personal growth, relationship health, organizational development, and overall effectiveness for mission/aid workers. Hopefully you will find them to be creative, useful, and at times even fun. They are some of our favourites.

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These items build upon the 12 tools for “Running Well and Resting Well” that we included as a chapter in Doing Member Care Well (2002). More tools and guidelines specifically for team building are included in our “Tools for Team Viability” article, in the member care book we edited in 1992.

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Our Reality DOSE! website has several self-assessment tools that you may find helpful.  One item in particular is the short article-tool we developed for the faith-based, Christian sector called Giants, Foxes, Wolves, and Flies: Helping Ourselves and Others. We often recommend and use this short article as a creative way for people/groups in mission/aid to look at their life and work—the challenges, struggles, successes, competencies, etc.  It is also available in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Here is the opening section.

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Have you ever seen the movie, "The Wizard of Oz?" Filmed in 1939, this fantasy classic portrays the adventures of a young girl who tries to return home from a magic land lying somewhere over a rainbow. During one scene, Dorothy and her companions approach a dark forest en route to the Emerald City. Anxiously wondering what wild beasts might lie within, they begin to chant, "Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!
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Watch the 30 second clip! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NecK4MwOfeI

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For cross-cultural workers, frequently beset with analogous challenges, a similar refrain can be heard: "Giants, and foxes, and wolves, and flies!" Who are these creatures, and what do they have to do with our life and work? In brief, they are Biblical metaphors representing the struggles that we often experience as we try to serve God in new ways or unfamiliar places.

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Here's a quick overview. Giants seek to disable us by exploiting our vulnerabilities (2 Samuel 21:15-22). Foxes try to distract us and cause us to drift off our primary tasks (Song of Solomon 2:15). Wolves endeavor to distress us, keeping our stress levels high and our lives out of balance (Matthew 10:16). And flies purpose to disgrace us by the contaminating effects of sin (Ecclesiastes 10:1). The Enemy seeks to use all four of these creatures to sift us like wheat, and ultimately destroy our life an work for the Lord. Let's take a closer look at these creatures and explore some ways to deal with them.

Core Challenges for Aid/Mission Workers

During the month of January we are discussing some of the core challenges of aid/mission life. By core we mean the main inner issues and the main external issues that affect us, for bettter or for worse. They are those inner struggles that we all wrestle with—the matters of the heart (e.g., discouragement, forgiveness, grief). And these struggles are often stimulated by external circumstances or problems (e.g., cultural adjustment, separation, safety).

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Let's be sure to consider our own inner experiences too--the core issues for ourselves--as we converse about the challenges of aid/mission life.

Core Challenges for Aid/Mission Workers

• Pessimism--loosing perspective on the good things in life, due largely to the ongoing exposure to human problems and misery
• Staying centered--remaining connected with oneself in the midst of many responsibilities and the demands of living; and remaining connected with God
• Focusing on others' interest--self-preoccupation to the exclusion of others’ needs; not checking in to see how other people around us are doing
• Forgiveness--holding on to perceived injustices which arise from conflict with colleagues, the host culture, frustration with oneself, etc.
• Drifting--getting off the main tasks and the reason why we work in aid/mission, via distractions, interruptions, avoiding responsibility, etc.
• Transitional grief--the pain from saying many good-byes, multiple moves, missing loved ones, unresolved relationship issues, etc.
• Contentment--being satisfied in knowing that one is following his/her values, in spite of minimal work results, pressures to perform, and limited sense of fulfillment in one’s work

Reflection and Conversation:

• In what ways have these seven issues been part of your life?
• What helps you work through these issues?
• What other areas would you include as being core challenges?
• How do these issues relate to the research on stress and adjustment?

Note: This material is adapted from the article “Running Well and Resting Well” in Doing Member Care Well (2002). This article and book are available to view or download for free at http://www.wearesources.org/