Missionaries who 'marry locally' discuss the pros and cons of love and life in the field
Perusing a stack of mission reports, many are easy to spot — Joel and Yana Petty in Russia, Raúl and Kim Solis in Mexico, Malcolm and Kwihwa Parsley in South Korea.

Cross-cultural marriages abound in the mission field, and missionaries say that there are distinct advantages to marrying a member of the culture you are serving. Everything from learning the local language to adapting to the local cuisine seems to go faster.

Longtime missionary Malcolm Parsley said that a spouse who comes from the local culture can keep the missionary from making a cultural faux pas.

“The mate will know how to get things done in churches, dealing with the government, wedding, funerals ... in such a way that the missionary may never learn,” he said.

And such spouses can positively impact a missionary’s work, said Mike Roberts (left), who works on the Essequibo Coast of the South American country of Guyana with his wife, Sandy, a native Guyanese.

“It has helped with governmental legalities a good bit, but it’s helped the ministry immeasurably,” Mike Roberts said “I am treated as a local since one-half of my family is around here.”

David Coggin, a native of Murfreesboro, Tenn., met his wife, Maria, while at a Bible camp in the United Kingdom. They currently work in Scotland. “I have enjoyed being in her grandmother’s and uncle’s home and seeing firsthand the viewpoints of non-believers ... shared by millions of British citizens,” he said.

But adjusting to each other’s habits — something all married couples must face — can be amplified by cultural differences. “(We) found ourselves in a war, at times, of cultural values, and whose was more correct,” said John Cannon, missionary in Cuenca, Ecuador. “(We) have learned to compromise and accept the weaknesses of each culture and try to acquire the best of both.”

His wife, Fernanda, is from Ecuador and was baptized in Arkansas as an exchange student. The couple met at Harding University, Searcy, Ark. They were married while doing mission work in Russia, and later moved to Cuenca with other missionaries.

“On a team that is made up of North American families — ours being the only bicultural — we found ourselves constantly combating hurt feelings,” John Cannon said. “My wife was hurt over and over again as our teammates went through culture shock and criticizing the country.”

Similarly, a spouse unfamiliar with American culture can encounter problems when the missionary returns home to raise funds, Parsley said. And even old prejudices of church members can make spouses feel unwanted.

“(Although) we would love to think differently, there are still many churches in the States that have members that do not want their preachers to have foreign wives,” Parsley said.

Deciding where to spend holidays also becomes difficult in families that are separated by oceans.

“It is somewhat hard in that we have one family here in Hungary and another in the U.S.,” said Jeff McGlawn, who met his wife, Beáta, through an evangelism program while on the field in Hungary.

“At times we have thoughts of going to the States, but we see the fact that we will not be with the family that is here.

“I have not been home for Thanksgiving and Christmas since 1996,” Jeff McGlawn said. “But it does not bother (me) so much. We have family here and so we are busy with them so we don't think about what we are missing. Plus, God … keeps us from being so homesick as he did with Abraham, who (was) asked to leave his family.”

Those who train missionaries rarely recommend such marriages. Sammy Flanary, of Lubbock, Texas-based Sunset International Bible Institute (SIBI) warns single missionaries that many of the people they serve in the field are more interested in moving to the United States and adopting a higher standard of living than contributing to the mission.

But even when the motives are pure, cross-cultural couples should expect differences on many levels, said Stephen Allison, licensed psychologist and professor at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas. If the spouse is a new convert, differences in spiritual maturity will be a factor. Missionaries who marry in the field also must realize that their spouses don’t have the benefit of mission training.

“Marriage and family therapists tell us that although opposites attract, it’s similarities that keep us together long term,” Allison said, “so a missionary marrying a national inherently ushers in many ‘differences’ into their marriage, making it more of a challenge.”

Dwight Whitsett, missions coordinator for Oceania at SIBI, said that — like all marriages — success in cross-cultural unions requires a Cross-centered focus.

“A good marriage is hard work. A cross-cultural marriage is even harder,” he said. “Whose customs, values, world views, methods and attitudes will prevail in the home? The more diverse the cultures, the greater the potential for conflict after the honeymoon — if, indeed, the culture allows for honeymoons.”

After 29 years of marriage to Kwihwa, Malcolm Parsley said he has no regrets. Choosing a wife with a love for the mission has made all the difference.

“I definitely would marry her again,” he said. “Mind you, I have always been planning on spending my life here in the mission field.”

That “missions longevity” may be one of the greatest advantages of cross cultural marriages, say missions experts, especially when so many agree that long-term investment in a locale yields better results than short-term missions.

Allison said that marriage vows represent a “level of investment” in missions that may be “a motivating factor to get the missionary to rethink his or her terms of service … (Some) will stay longer — or even make it a lifetime career.”

Kim Solis would agree. She traveled to Toluca, Mexico, in the early 1990s fresh from her training with SIBI’s “Adventures in Missions” (AIM) program. Marital intentions were farthest from her mind, she said, but in 1994 she married Raúl, who was converted at the Toluca church in 1992 and now serves as one of its ministers.

“My spouse didn't inspire me to enter the mission field, but rather to continue in it,” Kim Solis told the Chronicle Jan. 16. “This May I will have been in Mexico for 12 years, and we will have our 10-year anniversary.”

“I think it is a fabulous thing to be married to someone from another country,” she said. “Our common culture is our Christian one, so I feel that we are solid on the things that truly bind us together — our love for God and our desire to serve Him actively with our lives.”