Missionaries: hairy, dirty people who live in huts, wear outdated clothes, and eat things no one in his right mind would eat

What do you think of when you hear the word missionary?

“Twenty years ago,” writes Samantha Conners, “. . . in my mind, missionaries were hairy and dirty, wore clothes that were outdated and odd, ate things that made my stomach turn. . . .” (from “5 Lies People Believe About Missionaries”).

I, too, had a quirky view of missionaries. Never in a million years would I have guessed my husband would want to move our family to an outpost called Lomalinda (Spanish for “pretty hill”) and work among missionaries.

Back then, when I thought of missionaries, the first image that came to mind was that of a pudgy older woman with gray hair pulled up in a bun who told stories I couldn’t really grasp. Probably that was because I wasn’t interested in what missionaries had to say.

I figured they were just plain weird, and I didn’t like my husband’s idea. I mean, really—live in South America and hang out with weirdos??

I felt so different from missionaries—of course, I wasn’t a weirdo—and I just knew I wouldn’t fit in.

I wrote in my memoir:

“Missions work was too radical for the circles I ran in. Counter-cultural. Downright bizarre. My parents raised a non-daring, non-adventuresome girl—the wrong kind for the mission field. They prepared me to lead a conventional life and working in Lomalinda was the least traditional existence I could imagine” (from Chapter 1, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir).

Also, Samantha points out many people suppose missionaries live in huts.

I was one of those people. Here’s another excerpt:

“What kind of house would we live in?” I asked [my husband]. I pictured a hut with a dirt floor. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. 

“What if we had to build our own house? And with what? Bamboo and palm leaves? Besides,” I heard my voice getting shrieky, “we don’t even know how to build a house.” 

My mind went wild. “Would we have to grow our own vegetables and meat? What about eggs? And milk? The kids need milk, you know. Would we have to get a cow? I bet we wouldn’t even have electricity. And what about water? Would we have to haul our water?” (from Chapter 1, Please, God, Don’tMake Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir).

Those were only two of the imaginings that worried me about moving to Lomalinda. The list went on and on.

For example, there was the notion that missionaries wear outdated clothes. I would learn that, yes, sometimes they did. But considering Lomalinda folks had no local clothing stores, and considering they returned to their home countries only every fifth year, it’s true that their wardrobes didn’t keep up with the latest trends.

But since we lived at the end of the road in the middle of nowhere, no one knew what the new fashions were anyway.

Come back next week and we’ll talk about whether missionaries are “hairy and dirty” and eat things no one in his right mind would eat. 

You’ll be surprised to learn what I—even I, 

the coward, the unadventurous—

ate and drank!

But in the beginning, when my husband first announced he wanted us to move to Lomalinda, I didn’t know all the good that awaited me there, and I rebelled.

I could do only one thing,

and that was to pray:

“Please, God, don’t make me go!”