“You male chauvinists.” She turned to Betsy. “I’ve landed in the dark ages. Save me, Aunt Betsy.”
“Hey, don’t look at me. Did I twist your arm to get you here?”
It was all in good-natured jest, but suddenly Natalie felt a bit panicked. “Dad, I’m a terrible cook. And that’s with a microwave and refrigerator at my disposal! I don’t know if I can ever learn to cook like this.” She spread her hands over the remains of the sumptuous meal they’d just enjoyed.
David reached over and gave her arm a fatherly pat. “We’ll help you out—for a few days. And we really don’t always eat like this. Besides, we promise not to make fun of your cooking for one full month. Right, Nate?”
“Whatever you say, Dave.”
“Betsy! Help!” she whined again.
When their laughter died down, David changed the subject. “Natalie, if you want me to transmit any e-mails for you when I’m in San José, you’ll need to get them on the computer tonight. We need to get an early start in the morning.”
“Okay,” she said. “Will I have to start up the generator or anything?”
“You shouldn’t. But I’ll walk you back to the office later and get you set up on the laptop,” David told her. “Betsy, do you have anything you want to send?”
“Nate already helped me put a post in the outbox for my husband, but maybe I’ll have Natalie send another quick message to Jim. Should we have her send something to the folks, too, Nate? Just to let them know we’re all right and that I’m on schedule?”
“Good idea,” he agreed. “You will write your mother, Nattie? I’m sure she’s anxious to hear from you.”
Natalie nodded.
The rest of the evening was spent in quiet conversation, and later when David delivered her and Betsy by lantern-light to their makeshift bedroom in the office, Natalie felt a pang of sadness and a moment of dread. Tomorrow Betsy would leave, and Natalie’s last opportunity to change her mind about staying here would be gone.
She had left so much behind to come here. For some strange reason, David Chambers had made her think of Evan tonight. It seemed ridiculous. The man was nothing like Evan Greenway, not to mention that he was practically old enough to be her father. But something about the camaraderie they’d shared around the dinner table had made her miss Evan deeply. If she did not get on that boat with Betsy tomorrow, she knew it might be months before she’d have another opportunity to go home. If a year went by and she discovered she’d made a terrible mistake by coming here, would Evan still be there for her? They’d made no promises, but had she thrown something precious away by letting him go? Oh, Lord, could you still change Evan’s heart? But even as she prayed the words, it seemed implausible.
She reminded herself of why she was here in the first place. She had felt a call from God. If she tried, she could still remember the feelings she’d had as she listened to her birth father’s voice on the worn cassette recordings.
No. She couldn’t go back. She wanted to stay. Needed to stay. She was here for a reason, she reminded herself. To make a difference. But oh, why did saying yes to one thing so often mean giving up something else? Something good. And Evan had definitely been something good in her life. Something very good.
While Betsy finished packing, Natalie cleared off a spot on David’s desk, opened the laptop, and launched the e-mail program the way David had shown her. She was almost afraid of what she might say if she tried to write to Evan in her present state of mind. Instead she typed out a long letter home.
Dear Mom and Daddy,
Well, Betsy goes home tomorrow, and David Chambers, the translator who works with Dad, says that he’ll send some e-mail for me if I write it tonight. Dad and David made a great dinner for all of us—fish and rice and some weird-looking vegetables that I couldn’t pronounce—but they were good! Then Dad informed me that from now on the cooking duties are mine! You don’t happen to remember any good Timoné recipes, do you, Mom? Help me out here. And pray for the men! You know what a terrible cook I am!:)
Things have gone very well since we arrived. Betsy and I have been sleeping in the mission office. (It’s right near the hut where you and Dad lived, Mom. They use that hut as a chapel now for prayer meetings and stuff.) It was really the only place there was room for us, but it’s been quite an inconvenience to the men, so tomorrow Dad is going to work on finding another place for me.
Natalie reread her last paragraph and deleted the parenthetical comment. It seemed like something that might hurt Daddy, and perhaps Mom already knew anyway. She began typing again.
Speaking of sleeping, David Chambers has a bed here! I’m so jealous. I haven’t said anything to Dad yet, but that’s what I’m asking for for Christmas. I don’t know what it takes to get one here. (I don’t think a bed would have fit on the boat we came on.) But I sure haven’t slept very well on the floor!
She wrote about her experiences for another half-hour until her eyelids grew heavy. She still needed to compose a short note to send Grandma and Grandpa, and she did want to send something to Evan. It was hard telling how long it might be before she would be able to send e-mail again.
She opened a new file and carefully typed Evan’s e-mail address in the appropriate field. Rubbing her eyes, she began to type.
Hollio, Evan!
Que ésta? That means, “How are you?” in Timoné. Beginning next week I’m not “allowed” to speak English, so I’m trying to get a head start on using Timoné. David Chambers (you remember the translator I told you about who works with Dad?) says that the best way to learn a language is to be forced to use it, so I guess I’m being forced. I don’t think I’ve made a very good impression on David so far. Too many stories to tell you right now, but suffice it to say that he probably wasn’t too impressed with the way I handled the creepy-crawly things here. Oh, Evan, you wouldn’t believe how different things are here. Beautiful beyond words, but sometimes in a very scary way! I’m living with lizards and walking within inches of huge snakes and spiders the size of small rodents every day!
Oh, there’s so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. It doesn’t seem possible, but today I celebrated my one-week anniversary in Timoné. It’s been wonderful getting to know Dad better. He’s so happy here. You can imagine how much peace that has given me. He’s more alive here than I’ve ever seen him. I guess that’s what happens when you are right where God has called you to be.
Well, this is terribly short, but David is taking Aunt Betsy to catch a flight home out of San José del Guaviare tomorrow, and he sends all the e-mail from there, so I need to finish.
Are your classes as hard as you thought they’d be this semester? Oh, Evan, your world seems a lifetime away from here. I miss you. There’s so much of this world that I’d love to share with you.
Please write to me. We only get e-mail whenever someone goes in to San José, but I promise to answer every post.
Love and prayers,
Natalie
She closed the laptop. There was so much more she wanted to say to him. But it wasn’t fair to him. She knew it would pull up those old longings in him, just as it did in her. She missed him desperately, wished he were here sharing these new experiences with her. And yet, even as she thought of him back in Kansas, she knew that in one week they had already grown away from each other. This past week had already changed Natalie Camfield in ways she couldn’t yet define. But she knew she was not the same woman who had boarded the plane in Kansas City.
She looked over at Betsy who was sleeping soundly under the mosquito net. She wished Betsy could stay. She would miss the presence of another woman—well, one who spoke her language anyway.
But she had resolved to stay. No matter what Mom and Daddy said. No matter what she knew Evan wanted her to do. No matter what. She’d felt a call and she’d answered it. Everything depended on her making this work. Everything.
Thirty
Natalie waved from the rickety dock and tried desperately to hide
the tears that welled behind her eyelids from her father. She stood watching and waving until the boat carrying Aunt Betsy and David Chambers disappeared around a bend in the murky waters of the Rio del Guaviare. In spite of Dad’s presence beside her, Natalie had never felt quite so alone. All the things she had to learn just to survive here seemed overwhelming—the rigors of life in the tropics, communicating in the native language, learning to cook meat and vegetables she’d never heard of, in the most primitive circumstances imaginable.
Her introduction to the Timoné kitchen—if one could call it that—began that very evening. Nate showed her how to get a fire going in the open grill outside his hut. Though a few of the natives had cookstoves and a few more had built mud ovens, the majority of the Timoné still cooked over an open fire in the fogoriomo in the way of their ancestors.
Natalie had learned quickly that Nathan Camfield believed strongly in fitting into the culture of the people to whom he ministered. He saw himself as a guest in their land. One who could offer the healing gift of medicine and, most important, the gift of a Savior. But a guest, nevertheless.
As they stirred up a batter for corn bread inside Nate’s hut, Natalie asked him about his reluctance to bring modern equipment into Timoné.
“It just seems a few simple, inexpensive things would make your life so much easier,” she said.
“You mean your life, don’t you?” he winked. “Now that you’re the chief cook and bottlewasher.”
Her motive uncovered, she smiled. “Well, sure. But seriously, Dad, I’m curious about your thoughts on this.”
He grew pensive for a moment before replying. “When your mom and I first came here, especially before we spoke the language, I was very conscious of being an outsider. I didn’t want to set myself up as being superior. For us to bring in all this modern equipment—things that seem almost magical to such a primitive people—would have been like flaunting our wealth and position. So much of what we could bring in would have to be run by a generator—something very few of the people here will ever have access to.”
“But you do have a generator,” she pointed out.
“We do now. For years we didn’t. It’s mostly for the computer and the office equipment and the fridge in the clinic. Things necessary for our work here. I’ve tried to make that my criteria for bringing in anything new: Is it furthering the gospel or just making Dr. Nate or his lovely daughter”—he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a playful shake—“more comfortable?”
She laughed but nodded in agreement.
“And you know,” he continued, “now that David is working on the translation, I see even more the wisdom in not trying to modernize things.”
“Why is that?”
“Since I’ve lived among the people, shared their way of life for over twenty years now, I understand the way they think.”
He handed her a wooden spoon, and she stirred the corn bread batter while he talked. “For instance, when you try to relate a truth of the Bible to an American unbeliever, you might use an example of …” He thought for a moment. “Oh, say, a car: The Holy Spirit is like the engine that makes the car run … that sort of thing.”
She nodded, beginning to see where he was going.
“Of course such an analogy would be meaningless here. But I can use the fogoriomo, for instance—the grill—saying how until the fire is lit the grill is powerless, just as we are powerless without God’s Spirit in our lives. That means something to them.”
“So if you were over here cooking with an electric stove in your cabin, they might not see that the faith you are trying to share with them is the same faith you live?”
“Well, that’s true,” he said. “But more important, if the fogoriomo wasn’t part of my everyday life, I might not even think to use the analogy in the first place.”
“Ohhh,” she said. “I see what you mean.”
Spooning the batter into the greased metal pan Dad had placed in front of her, Natalie grinned and asked, “So why does David get to sleep in a real bed?”
“David has problems with his back, and sleeping on the mittah—the grass mat—seemed to aggravate it. He found a bed in San José and brought it here.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“David and I are colleagues, Nattie. I’m not his boss. He defers to me sometimes because I’ve been here longer—or when it’s a medical matter—but I don’t try to impose my views on him. And when it’s an issue concerning the translation, I certainly concede to him.”
“Do you think he’s okay with my being here?” she blurted out, seizing the unexpected opportunity to ask a question she’d been wondering about.
“David? Of course.” Dad’s forehead wrinkled, and his eyebrows met in the middle. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that I know for a while I’m going to be more trouble than I am help.”
“More trouble than you’re worth?” he teased. But he must have understood her need to have her question answered, for he turned serious. “David understands that. The same could have been said for him when he first arrived, you know.”
“Oh. I guess I never thought about it that way.”
He patted her arm. “I’m glad you came, Nattie. You can’t imagine how much it means to me to have you here.”
She couldn’t speak over the lump in her throat.
“But let’s get that bread to baking,” he said, picking up the pan of batter, “or I might starve to death before it comes off the grill.”
She followed him outside, and they sat together visiting, taking turns basting the vegetables on the fogoriomo until the delicious aroma of hot corn bread, fresh trout, and exotic varieties of grilled squash, peppers, and other vegetables filled the air.
“Dad,” Natalie said, as they washed the pottery together in a galvanized tub on the stoop, “you know that rule David has about only speaking Timoné?”
“Oh. I guess we’ve broken that already, haven’t we?”
“Big time. But think what we would have missed. Can we … well, can you and I have maybe just one night a week when we get to talk like this? At least until I get the hang of Timoné?”
He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I’d like that, honey. David might not be crazy about the idea, but we’ll just let it be our little secret, okay?”
“Hey, if that man can sleep in a real bed, I think I can have one night to speak my native tongue with my own dad.”
Her father’s laughter filled her with unspeakable joy.
To Natalie’s delight, her father secured a small hut for her less than a hundred yards from his. Apparently real estate in Timoné was not precious. Natalie was amazed to learn that Nate had traded some good lumber, a flashlight, and a coffee thermos with one of his neighbors, Polo del Juarique, for the hut.
When Natalie expressed her astonishment at how seemingly easy it had been to acquire the hut, her father told her modestly, “Well, there is the small matter of my saving the life of Polo’s eldest daughter after she nearly drowned a few years ago. That may have sweetened the deal.” He winked.
Natalie spent a happy morning moving into her new residence. Though only one room and less than half the size of the hut that housed the mission offices, her new quarters boasted a covered porch that was large enough for a picnic-sized table and rustic benches—which Dad had also bartered for—and the hammock Betsy had found when they were cleaning out the clinic.
Now, as the sun grew hot and the air became a sauna, she sought the shade in the sumptuous embrace of the hammock—and the obligatory mosquito netting—and laughed to herself. She had realized the American dream—a home of her own. The house itself might not be much, but her “garden” rivaled any she’d ever seen featured on the pages of House & Garden. Just outside her veranda grew foliage in every shade of green and generously dotted with lush orchids, pink and orange hibiscus blossoms the size of platters, and other tropical flora that she could not yet call by name.
Tiny hummingbirds flitted among the flowers, sipping nectar, while brightly colored parrots punctuated the more melodious birdsong with their squawking.
Natalie allowed herself half an hour to savor her surroundings before she set off to the mission office. She wanted to get it cleaned before David returned from San José. Dad expected him back today, although Natalie was learning that Timoné operated on a much different time schedule than the world to which she was accustomed.
She filled a small bucket with water from the stream, and with cleaning tools in hand, she entered the office that had served as her bedroom for more than a week. She knew David would be relieved to have his work space back.
She swept the floor and walls and brushed the day’s spider webs from overhead. She moved the furniture—which had been pushed against the wall to accommodate their sleeping mats—back into place and dusted it with a damp rag.
She tidied the few items on her father’s desk. Then she looked at David Chambers’s desk and sighed heavily. He might be nice, but the man was a slob. That was all there was to it. His desk was littered with books and papers, pencils minus their lead, and stained coffee cups. There was even a molding banana peel poked into one of the mugs.
She set the dirty dishes on the stoop ready to take back to her hut. She would wash them with the lunch things and bring them back this afternoon. Entering the office again, she gazed at the two men’s desks. The contrast was stark. How could anyone work amid such chaos? she wondered. She closed the covers of two worn dictionaries and plugged them into empty spots on the bookshelf above the desk. Another stack of books lay on a stool beside the desk. A dozen brightly colored sticky notes protruded from each volume. Natalie left the markers in place, but lined the books up on the crowded bookshelf beside the dictionaries. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the way the books were arranged, and feeling suddenly inspired, she began to reorganize them, shelving them alphabetically by title. It took some time, but it was a small favor she could offer in exchange for David’s sharing his office so generously with Betsy and her. She couldn’t help thinking how pleased he would be to find his office so well organized and tidy. She wondered how long it would stay that way.
After the Rains Page 26
