Typical Day
Gus Pellman wakes up at daybreak to almost no natural light and certainly no beautiful breeze. (Technically, there's a tiny slat in the window of his cramped room that some of the villagers call a "window.") Gus cracks his sore back once, and shuffles into the tiny multipurpose kitchen/living room/family room, where he lights the small gas stove and fixes his morning meal of ground corn and porridge.
When Gus first arrived in Malawi over ten years ago, he stuck to his digestive biscuits and chicken breasts from the expat-friendly grocery store. But as the years passed, and money grew tighter and tighter, Gus adopted a diet of strictly local foods. Now it's porridge, ground grains, and whatever vegetables he can get his hands on.
Feeling more energized, Gus makes the moderate four-mile trek to the next small village, where he has promised to meet Funsani, one of the followers of the Church there. When he gets there, Funsani is already waiting.
"Hello there," calls Gus from the road. "Muli bwanji?" (How are you?)
Though English is an official language in Malawi, English is spoken less often where Gus lives. After just a couple months on assignment, Gus quickly realized he needed to learn Chewa or give up on his mission altogether.
"Ndii bwino," Funsani responds.
"What seems to be the problem?" Gus asks, still in Chewa. Perhaps the town needs new bibles. Or perhaps they’d like him to guest-lecture at the upcoming Sunday service.
"Pastor Gus, one of the beams in my wife's house is starting to rot."
Gus sighs and hangs his head. When he signed up for the foreign missionary service, he dreamed of making a real difference in people's lives. He didn't think that difference would involve replacing wood beams. It wasn't the sort of life-changing, soul-converting work he imagined.
"Well…." Gus isn't sure what to say. He wants to ask, "What can I do about that?" but bites his tongue. He knows that serving God means finding a way to help everyone, no matter how small or large the problem.
"Do you have a different beam?" Gus asks instead.
Funsani shakes his head.
"So we need to find a new wooden beam, yes?"
"Inde." (Yes.)
"Oh, inde, hmm?"
Gus can feel himself getting frustrated. As his mom would have said years ago, "Watch that tone, young man." There is no place for tone, Gus knows, in the life of a missionary.
But the job is hard, certainly harder than he thought it would be. He researched Malawian culture, and interviewed missionaries. He knew the job would be hard. But not this isolating and, truth be told, unrewarding.
Secretly, though he might never have admitted it, Gus dreamed of bringing his faith to people who didn’t yet have it. Imagine his surprise, then, when he was assigned to a village that already had a church, and that had hosted scores of missionaries before him (to greater and lesser degrees of success). He was just one more random tourist in a long line of past and future missionaries.
Still, Gus had seven more months left. (Seven months, three weeks, and two days, to be precise.) And he intended to fulfill to the best of his ability his duties to everyone in the community (and to his church back home, which was pinching pennies to provide him with a living stipend).
So. Back to the rotting beam. He knows of a nearby carpenter. Surely he would have some wood. He'll go ask. Funsani comes along. Gus wonders a little meanly whether Funsani really doesn't have anything better to do or if he just likes bugging him. Wow, he needs to get out of here.
Gus gets lucky. The carpenter is outside, working in the light of the setting sun.
"Hello! Muli bwanji?" Gus also learned early, before he ever began learning Chewa, to never skip or speed through greetings. He adapted, though sometimes, when he had a long list of things to get done, the lengthy greeting process could wear him down.
He and the carpenter speak for a while. He does have wood. He will give it to Gus, gladly. Gus breathes a sigh of relief and gratitude. If he had time, he'd say a quick prayer, but he doesn't. Ironically, his life as a missionary is so hectic that he can no longer find the time to meditate and pray the way he did back home.
With stoical determination, Gus marches the large piece of wood back to the spot he met Funsani. Funsani thanks him gratefully, promising to deliver the wood safely to his wife.
"Do you need help with the installation?"
Funsani shakes his head. No, he can handle it.
Placing his hand on Funsani's head, Gus says a quick prayer. Then, making his goodbyes and extending his blessings to Funsani's wife and family, Gus starts the journey back to his little shack.
As the sun goes down, Gus fixes a light supper and pulls out his slim, leather-bound notebook. Here, Gus sometimes goes more than two weeks without hearing a single word of English. Though he's adjusted over the years, when he first started his mission, Gus was shocked to discover how much of his English he was losing!
That's when he took up writing in a diary, both to remember English and to fight some of the depression and isolation he was feeling. Now it's a nightly ritual. Flipping to his last diary entry, and snapping the cap off one of the special ballpoint pens he bought in the capital city last month, Gus begins:
This morning, I woke up and went to meet Funsani, who….