Part 8: A Retrospective Overseas Job Description

This resource has multiple chapters. Use the navigation on the side or below to browse each chapter.

Brent, you asked me to look back about 20 years and write my job description for when Bruce and I and our four small sons lived overseas for 7 years. He asked if I had a job description—I don’t think anyone did back then for this type of job.

Brent, you should understand that I am not making a legal recommendation that anyone have this job description, and most job descriptions would be much shorter. This is only my job description—what I actually did. I just read it to my husband, and he said, “That sounds like fun; I want to go back.”

Company Mission:

Glorifying God among those who do not know Jesus Christ.

Job title:

Cross-cultural communications—wife

Department:

Oh please.

Purpose:

Build the Kingdom on multiple levels from family to church to broader community in a relatively primitive multicultural setting.

Essential functions of the job:

• Teach university English classes;
• Teach preschool and elementary school;
• Train inexperienced household help;
• Run a house in a primitive tropical setting;
• Learn a national and tribal language;
• Assist in church work;
• Show hospitality to people from multiple people groups;
• Assist in development work;
• Provide nutritional and tasty food for a family, where most of it has to be made from scratch (as in making bread, noodles, and tortillas);
• Care for three small children;
• Give birth to a baby in a primitive medical setting and provide for adequate newborn medical care;
• Sew or cause to be sewn clothes and curtains for the family;
• Identify markets and shops to buy or make needed items;
• Any other task required to be done from time to time.

Time required:

14-16 hours a day and always on call.

Physical activities:

• Ability to work continuously in tropical heat and resist tropical diseases;
• Bear a baby without medical complications;
• Design and implement adequate exercise in an environment where walking on the street is not practicable;
• Drive a large manual Landrover with no power steering (up to 9 months pregnant);
• Eat a variety of food without becoming ill.

Place:

The job takes place in a mid-sized but fairly primitive Asian city on the equator and near the ocean. Temperature varies little throughout the year, but is consistently hot and muggy. Rainfall is about 36 inches a year. Tropical diseases, including cholera, typhoid, dengue fever, and tuberculosis, are endemic.

Work environment:

• The work environment is not organized; the worker must organize it.
• The worker must be able to identify tasks, design an approach, and implement the tasks in a self-directed way. There will be no supervision and no feedback.

Training and qualifications:

• Capable of learning languages rapidly;
• Qualified to teach English and ESL at university level;
• Qualified to design curriculum;
• Qualified to teach preschool and early elementary;
• Skilled in training uneducated workers;
• Psychological knowledge to diagnose and treat disabilities and identify emotional conditions;
• Able to diagnose and treat medical conditions with no formal training; must be able to tolerate the sight of blood;
• Management skills to run a household and school of small children and workers;
• Theological training for church work;
• Cross-cultural skills;
• Emotional ability to stay calm in crisis; must be able to deal with overwhelming situations with no visible emotional reaction;
• Sufficient inner resources to exist with few friendships and little communication back to the U.S. or with colleagues in other parts of the country;
• Practical skills in cooking, sewing, and decorating;
• Driving skills to drive under dangerous conditions and on inadequate roads.

Accommodations that could reasonably be made:

It is possible that for some physical disabilities, additional household help could be hired. Many disabilities could not be accommodated. Wheelchairs would not work—no sidewalks. You couldn’t learn the language with a hearing disability. The environment would severely exacerbate any emotional disabilities. Any physical weakness would lead to severe illness and possibly death.

_________________________________________

Disclaimer: not official legal or psychological advice or opinion