In Calvin Miller's hilarious play Fred 'n' Erma there's a scene where a little girl, Dawn Marie, asks her Father, a sort of Evangelical Archie Bunker, "Daddy, what do missionaries do all day?"
"Well," Fred replies, "they get up early, sweetheart, and tiptoe through the jungle shooting monkeys till they find a native, and then they tell him to get some clothes on if he wants to become a Christian." He goes on to explain that missionaries also wrestle anacondas so they can skin them out and thus have something to drape over the piano as a visual aid on missionary night when they come back home on furlough.
People are always asking us missionaries that question, "What do you do all day?" Okay, the phrase "us missionaries" in this context is an outrage, like Disraeli's "we writers, ma'am" to Queen Victoria. Still, people have been asking me what we will be doing on this particular short-term mission trip. Of course, I want to avoid the romanticized notion people tend to get about this kind of work. I'm pretty sure even refugees are fully clothed in Fort Wayne, Indiana (I think there must be an ordinance or something), and I don't think the anacondas have migrated from the Florida swamps up north yet. So, just to keep the record straight, and to help people know how to pray, I'm posting our daily schedule. Sunday and Saturday are travel days, of course, and Friday is a sort of de-briefing time, but this is the gist of the trip from Monday through Thursday, subject to change, I'm sure, depending on the needs that arise.
Monday, July 19 through Thursday, July 22
7:15 a.m. Breakfast
7:45 a.m. Prayer time
8:15 a.m. Group time
8:30 a.m. Teams leave for sites (ESL)
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. Teams leave for sites (Kids Club)
3:30 p.m. Finish work for the day
4:00 p.m. Break and Clean-up
5:00 p.m. Leaders Meeting
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. Evening program
8:30 p.m. Team time
Now, If you'll take a close look, you'll see that from a little after seven in the morning until half-past-eight at night, these are all group activities. As a confirmed introvert (an an unconfirmed but highly suspected case of Asperger's syndrome), this is in some ways more challenging for me than wrestling giant constrictors, so I really do appreciate your prayers.
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