By ROBERTA ADAIR

I pedalled as fast as I could with one hand on the handlebars and the other raised in a fist, yelling in Albanian, “You destroyer of beauty! You destroyer of beauty!” I had just watched a driver throw garbage out of his car window, and my bottled rage exploded – a vivid memory from 15 years ago of culture shock squirting out badly.

When I arrived in Kosovo as an eager and idealistic missionary in my early 20s, my new teammates welcomed me warmly and talked with me early and often about culture shock. They taught me that it would include feelings of disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, and anxiety. While there are a variety of ways people describe the stages of culture shock, a simple version includes: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and acceptance. I will touch on all of these stages, not as an expert but as someone who struggled – especially in the frustration stage.

Honeymoon Stage 

Honeymoon: When I was in this phase, it was like I was dancing around singing “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie. Everything was awesome! and delicious! and clever! and fascinating! and amazing! and an adventure! For a lot of people, this stage involves a lot of gushing and positive superlatives.

But then, right on schedule, after this lovely honeymoon period, I found myself getting irritated to incredibly angry over big and little things. For the first time in my life, I developed a casual cussing habit. (Before moving overseas, the closest I came to swearing were words like “snap-dabbit!” and “drat!”)

Frustration Stage

I remember a time when I seethed at a group of men who sat lazily drinking coffee and smoking their cigarettes, watching a minority (Roma) child getting beat up. I remember a ringing in my ears after breaking up the skirmish and marching over to the men, enraged. My nostrils flared as I fumed, “You think you are men? Just sitting there on your bums while a foreign woman did what you should have done?!” (This “righteous anger” was actually misdirected anger. I had found an outlet for my culture-shocking rage, and it felt so good.)

Fast forward a few years to when I was in the middle of my first term in Japan. Once again, the culture-shocking monster predictably reappeared. I was pregnant with our first son, waiting at a busy train station for out-of-town friends to arrive. While standing at a popular meeting place, I saw a slimy dude approach young, attractive women who were traveling alone. One by one, he handed them a card and whispered something. Woman after woman looked uncomfortable and scurried away. Beside me were several men aware of what was happening but ignoring it.

I, with two years of (not very effectively) bottled angst and stress, squinted my eyes at the passive bystanders and marched up to the man, stood as tall as I could, and said something eloquent like, “I am watching you, Bad Man. Me – older sister. These women – like little sisters. You no good. Bad! Bad!” (Japanese has been even harder for me to learn than Albanian.)

Then I did the ol’ point two fingers at my eyes and then point at him with a slow nod. Because nothing says “intimidating” like a frizzy-haired pregnant woman with broken Japanese. My husband and I later had a big fight about this. “Um, you’ve heard of organized crime, right? And you know there are station workers whose job is to handle stuff like this, right?” But I felt so smug, so…relieved…to have an outlet for my pent-up big feelings.

Lord, have mercy on culture shocking missionaries.

Yes, I had once again entered the Frustration stage (or, rather, flung myself into this stage with abandon). Here came the irritability, the quick temper, the anxiety. Here came the intense homesickness and loss of motivation and loss of self-confidence. Here came wanting to only hang out with (or trust) other foreigners and spending a lot of time on solo activities like scrolling or shows or sleeping.

This stage feels awful, is normal, and is a stage. Remember that you will move through it…just breathe and keep going. Be gentle with yourself because adjusting to a new culture is hard work. Cling to God, his promises, and your call. Fight to stay curious and teachable. And hang out with people who have gone before you who have struggled and made it through while being cautious of people who have stalled in this stage or those who diminish how hard it is.

For me, this stage often involved feeling intensely about everything. As my go-to negative emotion for a lot of my life has been anger, I would feel crazy, angry, and crazy angry. I know others whose go-to emotion is sadness. So for them, this frustration phase involved feeling crazy, sad, and crazy sad. Or for the anxious types: crazy, anxious, and crazy anxious.

I have strong memories of bawling (not little eye leaks but blotchy face and streaming tears) in the church bathroom after being spoken to sharply, my good intentions interpreted very negatively. I remember shaking in anger over a difficult situation, labeling someone a chauvinist, another person dysfunctional, and uncharitably evaluating people around me.

Although I wouldn’t (couldn’t) admit it at the time, I also thought I knew better, I thought I could do better, and deep-down I thought I was better. Things that would have been frustrating or hurtful in my own culture became rage-inducing and consumingly painful in this stage. In short, I didn’t have a dainty, lady-like adjustment.

But what I did have: older on-the-ground teammates who gave me space to feel things strongly and even have occasional big outbursts. When I interpreted situations and intentions negatively, assumed the worst about people, and came to very critical conclusions, I remember my teammates and other missionary senpai (elders) listening to me and sharing, praying, even crying with me.

They didn’t say, “Everything you are seeing and perceiving is 100% accurate, your evaluations are correct, and your intensity is appropriate,” but they essentially let me ride the wave. Implied: we know this is hard, and we got through it – and we believe you will, too. They knew I was new, still learning, and deep in culture shock.

In this stage, I also at times scape-goated my organization and my partner church. (“It’s their fault I am struggling this much! If they had… They should have…“) In short, I wanted a villain, someone to blame for how uncomfortable I was and how out-of-control I felt. It felt easier at the time to be mad at an organization or its leaders than to accept the boring fact that I was culture shocking.

Now-me has a lot of compassion and gratitude for people who were trying to do their best. And it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to be able to recognize how much I was given – how much time and grace and life was shared with me.

Adjustment Stage

Slowly, slowly I was able to receive the amazing gift of my colleagues’ hard-won wisdom: their stories, confessions, examples, and vulnerable insights. Slowly, slowly I was also able to recognize the privilege of getting to worship and work alongside our Japanese partners, to share life with and live among our Japanese neighbors and friends. But getting to this place took a long time.

This is all part of the Adjustment stage, and it is most certainly not linear. It is messy and swirly, more like a colander of cooked spaghetti than a box of straight dry noodles.

This stage involves holding both the adventures and challenges together. It is being less of an idealist but also less of a jerk, no longer viewing cultural differences as “amazing” or “annoying,” but (gasp!) simply cultural differences. Your understanding is more nuanced, you still at times feel profoundly homesick, but you are developing tools to live with limitations, to deal with the challenges, to notice the beautiful. The frequency and intensity from the frustration stage diminish, but they don’t (and unlikely ever will) go away completely.

Acceptance Stage

Acceptance: In this stage, more and more you are able to notice traces of the Kingdom of God in your community as well as the image of God in the people he has placed in your life. Low-grade irritation and confusion are replaced with renewed wonder, gratitude, and calling. Of course, there will still be really hard and confusing moments and relationships, but this stage involves being able to live in a new culture with empathy, love, peace, joy, contentment, and purpose.

There will still be stressors, some related to culture stress and some related to the brokenness in yourself, others, and the world. These will and should break your heart. Each stage, including this one, will involve a thousand deaths and resurrections (my thinking here influenced by Paul Miller’s The J-Curve).

I am profoundly thankful for my in-country teammates, for those who are far ahead and just ahead of me. They know I struggled my first several years. I missed my previous country of service (the touching! spontaneity! extroversion!), and I was probably depressed (the tragic death of someone close to me, miscarriage, sad sights and stories all around me connected to the 3.11 disaster, an exhausted partner church, and a hard case of culture shock).

Even if I had trouble noticing and appreciating these remarkable people at the time, I don’t think I would still be here and for sure wouldn’t be who I am now without their wisdom and grace – and without them allowing me to ride the culture shock wave.

Yes, Lord, have mercy on culture-shocking missionaries.

And, Lord, help us, too, show your mercy to culture-shocking missionaries.

Originally from Pennsylvania (USA), ROBERTA ADAIR lived in Kosovo for three years before getting married and moving to northern Japan in 2012. She and her husband partner with a Japanese church and have four young and energetic boys. She enjoys hiking, camping, and having friends over for average and boisterous meals. 

This article by Roberta Adair is reposted with permission and was originally published by A Life Overseas on January 14, 2025: https://www.alifeoverseas.com/author/roberta_adair/https://www.alifeoverseas.com/a-culture-shock-roadmap/

Header image courtesy of A Life Overseas.