Just What Do Missionaries Do Anyway?

When I was in college, I was privileged to spend seven weeks in Bolivia along with some other visitors, some of whom did not stay as long. As we are seeing them off at the La Paz airport after a month of being together, one of them turned to the missionaries and asked, "What do missionaries do anyway?" After a month of observing and tagging along I would hope that they were joking. I'm not real sure that they were. But in order to set the record straight I want to share with you a little bit of just what missionaries do, in the spirit of this blog which is advertised as giving a look at missionary life in Bolivia. I want to share yesterday  with you. Now it is hard to call any one day typical, at least for us here in Bolivia. But let me give you a glance of my last day.

Monday morning: The day begins with my early morning walk with the dog. Then home to help get breakfast on the table so Niki and Mark can get out the door to school. Following breakfast and cleanup, it's out to the office to copy some documents that I will need later that morning to pay taxes on the mission cars. Next a quick shower, then call a taxi and head up town. There are two objectives - retrieve the mission ATM card which the ATM gobbled up on Saturday and pay the car taxes. The first stop is the bank where I am directed to a certain window where I am redirected to a certain office. After waiting a bit, the lady arrived and asked what I needed. I explained to her how their ATM had eaten my card. Just one moment, she would need to call and find out about that machine. I was in luck, she said, as that machine is only opened up once every fifteen days and that day was the day. Would I please come back tomorrow? Thank you very much.

My next stop was the office to pay taxes, but first I needed to check the post office for mail and exchange money to be able to pay the taxes. When I arrived at the tax office everyone else in town was there as well. The information line was huge. Fortunately I had asked a few days before where I needed to go so I headed for that particular part of the office. "In order to be served, please take a ticket." There were no tickets to take. They had distributed all there were for the morning. Would I please come back in the afternoon? Thank you very much.

Having struck out on both items I decided to go to the Bible Society and buy Bibles. It wasn't on my list but I had money in my pocket, time to use and, isn't flexibility the key to successful life in Bolivia? The Bible Society had not received the promised shipment and so the choices for Bibles were few and far between. In fact, there were only two of the actual Bibles I had come to buy. But I did find some other deals. So I spent my money and looked for a taxi to take me and my Bibles home.


Monday afternoon. Following lunch I began to work on materials for my new Saturday Bible Institute class. About 3:30ish I went to the cemetery to buy flowers for my wife (they were her birthday flowers, and yes you do buy them at the cemetery. I didn't rob them from a grave as some of you are thinking.) and swung over by the school to pick up Mark and Niki. As we were leaving the school we saw a friend and offered her a ride. As we were almost at her house I smelled something hot and noticed that the car was dangerously close to the red area on the temperature gauge. So I stopped. After waiting a bit the temperature dropped enough that I could drive it to her home where I got water. Now I know you are not supposed to open a hot radiator but what are you to do. So I opened it and stood back for the geyser to blow. After adding a lot of water to fill the radiator we arrived at home safe and sound. Now the plan had been to run by the gas station and fill up and run the car through the automatic car wash (a rarity in Bolivia). Since the temperature seemed to be staying down I went to the gas station, filled up and got in line for the automatic car wash. But the automatic part wasn't working. Instead there was a young man with a pressure hose. After waiting a good while (why didn't I have a book?) it was my turn. So I was "automatically" washed. By then it was supper time. So much for what I had planned to do . . . .

I guess you get the point. What do missionaries do anyway? A little of this and that and along the way hoping to be able to share God's love with someone. So the next time you think about your missionary friend pray for his day. He might just need to wash his car.