Marriage Counseling

Sarah: What have you learned from your past weeks of being marriage counselors? What is the best advice you can give to newly married couples, or what is a crucial lesson you and Cris have learned yourselves?

Jean: Let me catch everyone else up first. Cris and I spent 6 weeks in May and April being equipped by a local psychologist/counselor to help walk with married couples through marital challenges. This opportunity was provided to us by our church to train regular people on how to help deal with this rising need in our world.

I feel that the curriculum surprised me on two fronts:

1) Listening well to your spouse takes A LOT of work and 2) ways that we can hurt each other can arouse old wounds from our childhoods. I realized that many of my conflicts with actually related to how his actions would trigger my past traumas. So small things he did would cause overreactions from me.

Ultimately, the curriculum helped identify ways that we as spouses push each other’s buttons. Additionally, it taught methods of communication and prayerful intentionality to engage healthily in conflict. I feel like we’re still new in trying these methods ourselves, but it has helped our own communication already. We hope to offer these skills to our own church soon.

Challenges of the Road

Sarah: Where have you been this year, Jean!? I hear that traveling is a major aspect of your 'new' job. Can you give us an overview of where you've been geographically, the diversity you've seen, and the bumps and challenges of constantly 'being on the road'?

Jean: Thanks for asking about travels. This year has been marked by it. I’ve been to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and most recently Wisconsin, training staff from all over the nation. I thank my local library for providing hours and hours of books on tape as I drive cross-country.

Here’s a picture of me at our National Staff Orientation where we were preparing 130 brand new staff to step on the field all around our nation. In addition to helping new staff prepare a solid support network, I guided the 30 or so Asian American staff through engaging their Asian American Churches. One consistent challenge that Asian American staff face are the cultural issues that stem from being bicultural. How do we help the older generation understand our fervor for God? How do we communicate in our often stilted mother tongue the profound and deep concepts of our journeys with Christ? How do we come alongside the many Asian American churches across the nation that desire to help rising AA youth?

Some of the staff came up with these ideas:
• encourage their student bible study leaders to lead a small group of their peers at their church over the summer
• teach their students how to be “cross-cultural” at home to engage their parents more intentionally
• offer themselves up as support to parents and pastors during the summer to help better understand this rising generation
• offer the extensive resources that InterVarsity Press has to offer
• teach a Mark study to the college students over the summer

Do any of you have more ideas to offer the AA staff? It’s been a real joy to help these staff see the church as a partner and supporter of their ministry.