This is a great blog post about how we can receive missionaries when they return from the field – When Missionaries Come Off the Field
Here is the opening paragraph to give you a taste of the overall article:
They were so vulnerable and wounded, barely able to look me in the eye. They’d gone into missions directly after college, bright with hope and the thrill of obedience. With sincere love and determination, they’d adopted an unreached people group. Thousands of dollars had been sacrificed for their language study and living expenses. And here they were, three years later, looking so lost and alone, feeling all the weight of their supposed failure.
When many missionaries come off the field, churches and families don’t know what to say and the missionaries themselves don’t know how to move forward.