The missionary who came to town

I used to dream of being in Africa with all of the animals. I had never met anyone from Africa and had been told the only reason we needed to be over there was to teach the Africans about Jesus. One time in Kountze, a missionary and his wife came and gave a talk at Granny’s church. He brought slides and showed them right there in the big chapel. It was odd, because they were usually real strict about things like that. These were devout Southern Baptists.

The visiting missionary man and his wife were kind of funny looking. He wore a short-sleeve white shirt with a clip on tie. To me, there was something that took away from the religious if the tie wasn’t a proper tied knot tie. He clicked the slide projector to change from one picture to another and delivered a loud oratory on each image. With each one, his voice got more and more authoritative. He conveyed an air of possessiveness and you got the feeling he thought Africa and everything in it belonged to him.

He had a lot to say about his work there. There were slides of him and his wife dressed up and posing with African tribal people in their native dress. I don’t remember him referring to anyone by their name, just his wife who he called Mrs. It looked very hot and the missionaries appeared to be extremely uncomfortable. They were sweating in all of the photos and his white shirt had great big yellow stain…