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Pre-field training is a 4–6 week residential program designed for cross-cultural workers. It covers essential topics like:

• Language acquisition
• Culture shock
• Team dynamics
• Healthy transitions
• Stress management
• Grief and loss
• Cultural identity
• Conflict resolution

For families, there’s parallel training for children and teens that mirrors the adult curriculum, giving families a shared language for navigating hard topics together.

Want to Know more --> Read Pre-Field Preparation

Why Is It So Important?

It Invests in the Goers - Preparing to go overseas is overwhelming. Many are still working, raising support, selling belongings, finalizing paperwork, and soaking up time with loved ones—all while carrying the emotional weight of goodbyes. Pre-field training offers a pause. It’s a chance to step away from the chaos and be poured into by people who’ve walked this road. It says to Goers: You matter more than what you can do or how fast you can do it.

It invests in Families - Lauren Wells says it well in her bookRaising Up a Generation of Healthy TCKS - "It has been amazing to see the transformation of kids when they realize they too can have a toolbox of ways to learn culture and language when they move overseas. They feel a sense of purpose instead of feeling like they are just tagging along with their parents, and they have a foundational knowledge of the TCK life that they are entering into. Pre-field training is a great starting place for preventative care." (pg. 22)

It Covers What Discipleship May Miss - Cross-cultural ministry brings unique challenges. Even seasoned believers may never have learned how to grieve the loss of everything familiar or manage the stress of living in a foreign context. This work requires not just spiritual maturity, but practical resilience. A worker’s ability to navigate daily life overseas can make or break their incarnational witness.

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