Guiding Your Family Toward Emotional Health, episode 1
Do you struggle to know what to say when your kids have anxiety, depression, and more? Do you find the very concept of counseling to be confusing? Do you wonder how you might find somebody that you can trust, who shares your value systems, who's in your community, in your language, and affordable? If you ask those questions, I designed this podcast series specifically for you. And as you listen in, you are going to find answers to those questions and more.
Greetings, everybody. 大家好. My name is Pastor John Yoder. 我是北京国际教会的张文牧师. Which is Mandarin that says for several years, I was Pastor Zhang Wen of the Beijing International Christian Fellowship.
Now, many of you who listen in, this is your second or third generation in the U. S. You don't even speak Mandarin, so we're going to primarily speak English. I've been back in the U. S. for seven years now, and every year my Mandarin gets a little bit more 马 马 虎 虎, not that good. And if some of you believe that this would be more helpful to some people you know if it was in Mandarin, I'm very open to someone providing translation. If you subscribe to this, you will have my email, and I would be very glad to chat with you about this.
This series is called “Guiding Your Family Towards Emotional Health” and the purpose we have is to help people who have come to the U. S. from China and from many other countries as well understand common issues their kids experience growing up and how to deal with those issues. We do this from a Christian perspective. I'm a pastor. Many of our listeners follow Jesus Christ and his word, the Bible. But if you're not a Christian, we're glad you're here. We welcome you to join us. If you were born in the U. S., you've spent your entire life here, we're glad you're here because you are going to learn things that will help you better serve those who have come from around the world.
If you're Canadian or British, you live in continental Europe, we're really glad you're here because there's a lot you have to gain. At heart, the subject is helping people who have moved from one place to another understand the issues and the resources in that new place, so that they can guide their families towards greater emotional health.
So, let me tell you just a little bit about myself. Sherry and I lived in Tianjin and in Beijing for 13 years. I was one of the pastors of the Beijing International Christian Fellowship, which had people from 70 nations and services in 11 languages. Sherry taught English at 第二外国语学园, which is the Beijing International Studies University.
Now, we have been all over China. In the Northeast, we've been to Shenyang, Changchun, Hailar, Yanji, Tumen, and a lot more. In the West, we've been to Xi'an, Xining, Urumqi, Kashgar, Chengdu, and more. And a handful of the places we've been to in the South include Wuxi, Nanjing, Wuhan, (before any Westerners knew that Wuhan was a place), Qingdao, Shenzhen, and of course, Hong Kong.
And those are just the big cities. We have also been to the 农村, to the countryside, and met people who lacked formal education but were marvelous Christian leaders. Our time in China was wonderful.
We've been back in Minnesota for seven years now. I have worshipped in 80 different immigrant churches of different ethnicities, different denominations. I've had tea and coffee with pastors from all over the world. So I've gotten to know emotional health primarily from an American and Chinese perspective, but from a global perspective as well.
I am a professionally trained and licensed minister. I have a Master of Divinity degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm an ordained minister of the Evangelical Free Church of America. I've done a lot of preaching. I've done a lot of ministry. And I meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy chapter 3, that a pastor needs to be the husband of one wife, not angry, not alcoholic, and other issues of integrity like that.
And yet, in China, and in other parts of the world, I have met ministry leaders who don't have formal theological training, who don't have credentialing, and yet they're doing an amazing job pastoring and doing other kinds of ministry.
So I want to be honest with you right up front. I am not a trained and licensed counselor. I am a person who simply knows a lot about emotional health--the kind of things that I hope everybody learns about emotional health. And I want us in this podcast to understand that there is a marvelous place for those who are professionally trained, whether it's a pastor like me or a counselor like many others, and yet at the same time, there is an amazing place for those who don't have professional training, who don't have professional licenses, to work in those fields.
So, in the first two episodes of this series, it's just going to be you and me. We're going to set the stage of where we're going. Beginning in episode three, I am going to have interview clips from various people who are trained counselors, and we are going to talk together about emotional health. So my goals for us in this series is to give you confidence that there are many times for people who have no professional training, they just know a lot about emotional health, to really bless themselves and others.
I want you to know that there are times when it's wise to bring in a professional, and I want to give you the confidence of learning the ability to vet those people, so that you get somebody who shares our Christian moral values. So that they can bring help and not hurt to your family.
For those of you who were born here in the US and you've lived your entire life here, I really want to help you understand the difference about availability of mental health resources. So, during our 13 years in China, I was coach, I was mentor to a lot of pastors, and I became aware of a Chinese woman who was being beaten by her husband. And I wanted to ask a local pastor friend what kind of, uh, resources she had.
So I asked, “Can she call the police”?” And he said, “No, here in China the police don't do anything about that. They don't get involved in domestic issues”. So I said, “Is there a shelter for her to go to? Is there a safe place where she can stay and get away from danger”? And he said, “No.” So I said, “Is there a counselor that she can talk to who understands domestic violence?” And once again, he said “No, there's not”.
Bear in mind, I'm not talking to you about the countryside now. I'm talking to you about Beijing, the capital of China, 21 million people, and this pastor is telling me that those kind of counseling resources are not available. That's really helpful for those of us who have lived in the West to understand that our global friends have a very different mindset when it comes to mental health resources available to them.
One of the greatest tragedies unfolding in our world today is happening in Sudan and in South Sudan. There is unrest, war that's been raging on for many years and there's no end in sight because it's being funded by external countries and those countries don't want to see that war come to an end. The infrastructure's been destroyed.
Civilians have been killed. Many, many women have been raped repeatedly. And I've met Sudanese who escaped on foot. They walked hundreds of miles to neighboring countries where they lived in refugee camps for years before they finally got their papers to come to the US. A lot of my American friends would say that those people have been through trauma, they have post traumatic stress, and they need to see a therapist.
I don't disagree with you, but please understand where they're coming from. Back in their homes, many of these people did not have electricity, they didn't have running water, They didn't have internet access, they didn't have a physician, and they didn't have a psychotherapist. So, if you were to ask them to pick between them which one they want, do you think they'd pick water, electricity, or counseling? I think you know the answer.
Well, now they're here in the West. And they're in a safe place. They have electricity and water. Their kids have free public education and all of that. But that doesn't mean that it bubbles to the top of their mind that they need to talk to somebody about all the stress they faced. These people who have come to the US from around the world are struggling just to function in everyday life. To speak English, to get a job, to help their kids in school, just to manage getting things done.
Then, their children are born here, and they go to kindergarten, they go to first grade in the United States, and they go through the experiences that American kids go through. And these experiences are totally different than what their mom and dad went through. The parents look at these kids, and hear that they're facing high rates of depression. And the parents are just baffled. Because by comparison, these kids have no stressors. They've got all the food and water they could want. They have, compared to their homeland, marvelous education. Compared to back home, great levels of personal safety and security. They have no reason to be stressed out. And mom and dad are absolutely shocked to hear that these kids are having high rates of depression and anxiety and suicide, and the parents have no idea what to do about that.
Now, that's Sudan. But for those of you who have come from China, you understand it's totally different. You grew up with electricity. You grew up with water. Your kids had education through 12th grade. You probably had an iPhone, and a car, and a mall, and a lot of other things. And you probably grew up with shame, the idea of face, 给面子, 丢面子,and all of that, in which it's really shameful to talk about issues of your past. And therefore you didn't learn language to deal with emotional issues. So I have met Asians who are brilliant if you're talking about computers or whatever their field is, but they don't have language to discuss and talk about emotional health.
Your children who are going to school in the United States may have a clearer, sharper emotional vocabulary than you do. We want to help you understand how you can engage with them and understand the issues that they are facing.
As you listen to this, some of you may believe that you personally, or somebody you know, needs to see a professional counselor. Well, that's totally appropriate, but it raises a number of questions. Who are you going to see? Who's going to pay for it? What languages do they speak? What cultures do they understand? How will you find them? And how can you trust that that counselor shares your Christian moral values and will not lead your family down a bad path?
People ask me for mental health resources in various languages, in various settings, and I totally understand that it may be very difficult to find somebody in your community in that language that shares your values, that is inexpensive. I get all of that.
And we have a resource to help you, a webpage that lists many emotional health resources. It's www.immigrantministry.com/mentalhealth. It has directories, both Christian and non-Christian, of counseling and emotional health resources by state. Again, it's www.immigrantministry.com/mentalhealth.
Now, some Christian people automatically write off counseling. They say that all we need is the Bible, the Word of God, and that everything else is just psychobabble. Well, there are some resources that are indeed psychobabble and are not helpful. But there are other Christians who are professionally trained, who have resources that you and I do not, and can be great help to you and to your family.
So, in this series, we want to talk about breaking down four common barriers that keep immigrant families from seeking counseling. The first barrier is availability, and we just talked about that. How do you find a counselor? Who's paying for it? What language? How do we get connected?
The second issue is the issue of morality. Many counselors in the West teach value systems regarding sexuality, family, finances, and more that do not line up with our Christian values. They will do more harm than good, and we want to help you avoid that.
The third barrier is beliefs about demons. Many people who come from parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, other parts of the world are from what we call animistic backgrounds. Animists believe that there are spirits, good or bad, behind every rock, every tree, every cold, the pandemic, every event of life. Their solution to depression? Cast out demons. Got anxiety, got family conflicts, feel suicidal? Cast out demons.
I'm not saying that that's completely invalid. I think there are times when it is genuine, but in Western countries, most of the cases, demonic forces are not what brings about our emotional illnesses, and we need to seek other sources of help.
The fourth barrier is shame. Now if that third one, the demonic, is more common in Africa and Southeast Asia, this issue of shame is more common in East Asians, among Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Singaporeans, others. So many of you are very well educated in your particular field, but you don't have language to process emotions.
You understand the idea of face, giving face, saving face. And of course, none of us would like to talk about the fact that we may have hurt someone, abused someone, molested someone. But for many, we don't even want to talk about the fact that our parents, our uncles, our neighbors may have done that. Somebody in the church may have done that. It's shameful. We want to bury it and not deal with it.
But your children are going to American public schools, and at an early age, they learn language to talk about physical abuse, sexual abuse, and a whole lot more that you may not be ready and comfortable to talk about.
If you are going to dialogue with your children and understand them, you're going to have to push past that barrier of shame. This is actually good for you, because pushing past that barrier and talking about what we have done and what others have done to us is an [00:16:00] essential part of coming to emotional health.
As you listen into this podcast, let me recommend you also listen to the parallel sister podcast, which is called “Faith, Feelings, and My F-150”. It's designed for second gen young adult children born in the US and grew up here. It follows the fictional story of Alex, a second generation Russian American, born here in the US, who has anger issue at his father, who is an alcoholic, and violent, and abusive.
Even though Alex has a good marriage, he's a committed Christian, he's engaged in church, he still wrestles with anger at his dad, and it affects all his other relationships. His wife becomes aware of an audiobook that deals with mental health issues. Now, Alex is a construction worker. He's really gifted. He learns not by reading books, but by doing things with his hands. He learns by doing, and he'd rather have a power drill in his hand than a book.
[00:15:00] But his wife says, I've got the audiobook, and over a four-month window he listens to the audiobook, he also listens to the Word of God, he prays, he processes through some things, and he comes to a place of personal healing that moves him and his entire family to a new level of health.
So, the series you're listening to right now where I'm speaking to you is designed for first generation immigrants who have come from around the world, and I will be your primary teacher. But the other podcast, “Faith, Feelings, and My F-150”, is half Alex's story and half Lauren Wells’ audio book, and it's designed for second generation young adults who were born here to help them understand how to process emotions in a healthy way from a Christian perspective.
So we recommend that you have your youth and your young adults listen in, but we [00:16:00] also recommend that you listen in, because it will help you understand those things from a Christian perspective.
For those of you who have subscribed to this podcast, every Tuesday you'll get an email telling you that there is a new episode for this series, “Guiding Your Family toward Emotional Health”. Then every Thursday, you'll get an email stating that there is a new episode for the series “Faith, Feelings, and My F-150”. And when these two series end, you will on an ongoing basis hear about other series that will be very helpful to you. So whether you're on Apple, you're on Spotify, or whether you're on our own website on the webpage where you linked to this podcast, there will be a link for you to sign up and we recommend that you do that.
In our next episode, I want to talk about the difference between professional counseling and what I'm going to call everyday counseling. I want to give [00:17:00] you confidence in your ability to tell the difference between them. And I want you to have greater confidence in your ability and the ability of those around you to deal with everyday issues like depression, anxiety, anger, and more.
And I want all of us to have a greater capacity to point all of our families and all the families in our networks towards greater emotional and spiritual health. I'll talk to you next time.
