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Rainy Day Missionary

I peered out the door of the tin shack into the misty rain. After downpours all night I wasn’t sure how long that this break would last. I decided to make my way to the kitchen before the leaden skies let loose another deluge. I gathered my Bible and notebook and set off through the mist. The kitchen was a quarter of a mile down a muddy road from my hut. I slowly wove my way around mud puddles doing my best to avoid drenching my shoes. I failed.

The constant moisture had caused the glue holding the rubber soles of my shoes to begin to lose its grip. The sole started pulling away at the toes. The gap made it appear that a wide grin was slowly spreading across their face. As I made my way along the muddy road they begin beating out a steady tattoo. The suction of the mud would hold my sole for just a moment after I had raised my foot. Once the sole sprang free from the mud’s embrace it slapped the leather bottom of the uppers before setting down with a splat on the muddy road again, slap, splat, slap, splat. As I trudged along the muddy road the action of the sole splattered bits of mud from the hem of my pants up to the knee, nothing like arriving in style.

I arrived at the site for the crusade and slogged across the muddy field where three hundred people had stood in the rain for yesterday evenings service. Off to the side was the kitchen and dining area. The kitchen was a thatch hut, its steeply pitched roof ending in eaves that brushed the ground. Inside ladies labored over boiling pots that rested on smoky fires. Rain soaked wood smoldered, sputtered and smoked filling the interior of the kitchen with a thick haze of smoke and steam that seeped out at the open ends of the roof curling lazily into the still air.

The dining area was a high bar, long and narrow and covered by a small thatch roof that was only a hair bit wider than the bar. A couple of pastors and myself squeezed against the bar on one side, pressing against it to try and keep our backs from brushing against the dripping palm fronds hanging from the edge of the thatch. We ate our rice and sipped our coffee and mused about the weather. Surely the sun would at least make an appearance.

At eight I left the shelter of the dining area and climbed into the small hut that the pastors from across Tanna were using as sleeping quarters. The hut was built up on stilts to provide some relief from the mud. The floor and walls were of woven bamboo. The floor was covered with sleeping mats and blankets. There was barely space to place my feet between the bedding. The construction of the floor was questionable. With each step the bamboo would groan and dip under my weight till I was sure that my foot would plunge through. Gingerly I made my way to the side of the hut where I could sit with my back against a post. 

I leaned back against my post and let my eyes follow the steep angle of the thatch roof above me. The woven palm fronds had aged to a chestnut brown. The rafters, slender saplings stripped of their bark provided a pleasing contrast to the thatch. Each section of thatch was tied on with thin vines. It was incredibly primitive, yet homey. It is amazing in its ability to withstand the tropical downpours.

I looked around me and saw pastors that work in churches around Tanna. Pastor Joni, an overweight pastor in his forties who can climb mountains without ever stopping to catch his breath. Pastor Obed, whose house and church have been burned three times in attempts to run him out of his village; yet he always is chipper and upbeat, thrilled to tell you a new story of what God is doing every time you see him. Pastor Jimmy, a high ranking chief that could easily live a life of comfort in his own village who goes from pioneering one new church after another in some of the most difficult places on Tanna. 

We had agreed to meet this morning for a time of training for altar workers and counselors. Pastors gathered in, soon there were fifteen of us gathered into a little hut that measured no more than ten by twenty feet. We opened with prayer, I spread my Bible and notes out on the floor before me and taught for the next hour. During the course of my teaching the clouds burst. When our scheduled time together had come to an end each of us looked out the door into the pouring rain and decided that staying in the dry was a better option.

Two of the pastors braved the storm to fetch coffee cups, instant coffee and a pot of boiling water. In the program there were plans for morning Bible classes, door to door evangelism and literature distribution. Instead we decided to wait out the storm by drinking coffee in the shelter of the hut. As I mixed my first cup of coffee one of the pastors spoke up, “Missionary, would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”

I sat crossed legged on the floor well into the afternoon. Rain steadily drummed on the thatch above us. Slowly nursing cups of coffee I answered questions with an open Bible.  The questions were far ranging. Each question seemed to provoke its own follow ups. We discussed everything from pastor’s marriages to questions concerning the Sabbath. Pastors thumbed through well worn Bibles, underlining passages and taking notes. No, this was not what I had planned for today, but this is some of the most effective ministry a missionary can ever engage in. Ministry like this comes only after you have invested the years necessary to master your host culture and language and is born out of trust and relationship. 

This is what it means to be a Rainy Day Missionary.

  Bryan Webb

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