What Are Some Things You Wish You Had Known as a Younger Missionary?

What are some things you wish you would have known as a younger missionary? 

When I look back at hitting Papua New Guinea when I was 23 years old, there's a lot of things I wish I could have done differently, I wish I would have known. Somebody in my training program said that if we did things right, we'd be done in 10 years. And I remember passing that 10-year mark and we had a brand new baby church, and there was no way they were ready to be left on their own. We had believers after seven years, it would take us 13 more years to see that church in a position to where we could leave them. I wasn't aware of that, but you just can't leave. You just can't leave when these guys are not in a position to be left behind.

I wish I would have known how long it was actually going to take. I wish I would have been prepared to see my 30s go by, and now I am absolutely unmarketable in America. And to be at peace with that, to have a trust in God—You will take care of me—because it was looking pretty bleak there. But we couldn't leave and we had to stick it out. And I wish I would have known how difficult it would be to have our kids graduate from school out in Papua New Guinea. To have Brooks come back here and play basketball and miss every one of his college basketball games. To have him graduate. To have Brandon come back here. I wish we would have at least been tipped off. There's going to be some emotional hardship even in the last years of your days in Papua New Guinea.