Please read through the ten categories of the following inventory. Put stressors that apply to you in a column labeled struggles. In a second column, called successes, list helpful ways that they have dealt with stress during the past several months. In a third column under strategies write ideas for better managing stress in the future.

Cultural: I am having a hard time coping with language learning and culture shock. I am confused and stressed since I have reentered my own culture.

Crisis: I feel trauma from unexpected events within my recipient culture, such as natural disaster, war, accidents, and political instability.

Historical: I perceive problems with unresolved areas of personal struggle, including personal weaknesses and family of origin issues.

Human: I feel tension with family members, colleagues, national church leaders in areas such as raising children, couple conflict, struggles with team members, and social opposition.

Occupational: I perceive job-specific challenges and pressures due to work load, travel schedule, exposure to peoples' problems, job fulfillment, adequacy of training, and government "red tape".

Organizational: I feel incongruence between my background and the ethos of our missions organization including differences of training, understanding of missions, policies of work, and expectations.

Physical: I struggle with overall health and the factors that affect it such as nutrition, climate, illness, aging, and environment.

Psychological: I have a hard time coping with overall emotional stability including items such as loneliness, frustration, depression, unwanted habits, and developmental or state of life issues.

Support: I feel tension because of inadequate resources to sustain my work because of lack of overall support, cost of housing, lack of clerical and technical help, cost of children's education, and limited contact with supporters.

Spiritual: I struggle with my relationship with the Lord because of subtle temptations, limited devotional life, and lack of contact with other believers.

Too frequently missionaries experience unnecessary psychological trauma because they receive inadequate support. They sometimes remain faithful to god, family, and ministry despite inadequate spiritual nurturing and equipping to cope with stress but are less effective in ministry and life than they would otherwise be. At other times they fall away from God because of temptation, stress, and discouragement (Note the monthly reflection on Why Missionaries Fall). Using these two instruments will enable missions leaders to track the emotional and spiritual health of their missionaries and to specifically encourage them in their ministries.