While still in Bolivia, I wrote this journal entry near the end of my time in Santa Cruz:
Decided that yesterday’s “blahs” was probably just an old-fashioned case of homesickness. If nothing else, this trip has shown me things I will need for life on the [mission] field—like being able to listen to a foreign language and not miss English. As it turned out, I didn’t go back, didn’t become a missionary. There were practical barriers: I had student loans to pay off, plus the two Baptist mission agencies I knew about didn’t allow single women to “open” a new field. In their minds, the first thing to be done was to start a church, which of course a woman couldn’t do. (Actually, in many cultures in the global South, a woman starting a church would not succeed because of the gender roles rigidly enforced, even more so than in the Baptist churches I knew in the U.S.) Instead, for seven years I taught in a Christian school in Florida that made my college feel liberal. I decided that those students—some of whom were Hispanic—were my mission field. I did the best I could, making all the mistakes of a young teacher and then some. But first, I had a stint of student teaching in Ohio during my final year of college.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
December 2023
Categories |