There’s a popular phrase in urban slang that’s used to describe feelings— “to feel all the feels.” It essentially means to be overcome by intense emotions, a heightened awareness of yourself and your personal feelings.

People often assume that in working in the mission field in a foreign country, we must be “feeling all the feels” every moment of every day. Or at least a majority of the time. Those who have been on short-term mission trips often experience a heightened self-awareness and an intense rush of emotions in seeing new things and interacting with people outside their cultural comfort zone. That intensity of emotion may last only for the week that they are serving overseas or for several weeks or months after they return home. Yet at some point, life returns to “normal” and those momentary feelings begin to blur.

Living and serving in ministry abroad can become the same way. The first several months are filled with intense, simultaneous emotions— excitement, anticipation, anxiety, joy, fear, relief, loneliness, and grief, to name a few. It’s definitely a time of feeling all the feels. Gradually, our feelings start to level as we become more comfortable with our host culture, the demands of big-city life, and our work environment. Most days, we may only feel some of the feels, as daily life in our host culture becomes our new normal. Sometimes the natural stress of living in a culture not our own dominates our emotions, suppressing introspection and contemplation, no matter what is happening around us.

Then there are days when certain sights, sounds, or smells trigger all the feels. Like walking into a dark, hot, and cramped school classroom in a remote desert village and seeing kids of all ages sitting cross-legged on a broken, concrete floor, completing their schoolwork. Or experiencing the virtually chest-crushing, air-constricting, full embrace of a wizened African nyanya (grandma) as she welcomes me to her home. Or peering into the deep brown, saucer-like eyes of a toddler, her face smudged with dirt and her Western-style clothes tattered, as she clutches a small tin cup in her tiny fist, imploring me to feed her. Or feeling the rambunctious hugs, body slams, and “fist bumps” of primary students as they swarm out of school for the day and back into their tin-shanty homes where nightfall will soon envelop them.

Listening to familiar yet unfamiliar church songs collectively sung in a blend of Kiswahili and Kiswa-English. Or witnessing light spilling out of huge, low-hanging clouds at sunset, filling the expansive sky with feathery hues of pink, red, and orange.

Or hearing the gentle roar of the rains at night as they blend with the wind so that the two become indistinguishable. Or sharing an outdoor meal at nightfall with new friends who are experiencing many of the same “feels” we are.

It is in these moments that I’m reminded why we are here in Africa. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Just as back home in America, Jesus’ covenant with us of life abundant remains intact and unbroken. And just like in America, I can become so fixated on “doing” that I forget to just “be” in His presence.

Like every follower of Christ, my chief calling is to invite others into this abundant life through the Life-Giver, Jesus Christ. My life proclaims this truth when I model an inner peace, regardless of my outward circumstances, that comes from knowing my identity is found in Christ alone. Then I am freed to experience the richness of this life He has given me and to share it with others of all races, tribes, and nations. More than “feeling all the feels,” it is the certainty of knowing the life-giving Spirit of Christ within me, to the fullest degree and for His greatest glory.