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Wake up Barbara, and Help Me Find This Snake! by Barbara Watson forward by Tony Campolo
The intrepid Ralph is proud of being a maverick. Barbara, the shy co-ed, runs when Ralph pursues her. The real challenges begin, however, after their unlikely romance and marriage. The adventurous Ralph jumps at the chance to move to the Dominican Republic. Barbara reluctantly follows. Ralph embraces the place, the people, and the music. Barbara battles the language, the heat, and runs in terror from the two-inch cockroaches. Twenty years after her return to the States, Barbara journeys back to the Dominican Republic, and makes a surprising discovery.
218 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2024
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September 16, 2019
I could take the tarantulas or Ralph, but not both.
Don't remember the circumstances in which I acquired this book a year ago. I remember that I found it intriguing then and I've enjoyed re-reading it. I'm not a person of faith, but I generally like books by missionaries. Those who take their evangelical zeal seriously enough to become foreign missionaries may be (and usually ARE) a bit screwy, but they're seldom boring.
The book is a series of letters written by or to the author. At the start of the book, she's a student at a conservative Christian college in Pennsylvania and regularly coresponding with a childhood friend who's attending a Christian college in Texas. I was struck most strongly by the intelligence of the two young women and the fact that they appear to be living in a time warp. Their attitudes and aspirations are more like those of girls in the 1950's than in the mid-1970's. At a time when most young women were training for careers and enjoying dating (including active sex lives) Barbara and Sue are concentrating on remaining pure and praying for God to send them good Christian husbands.
God must have a sense of humor. Sue is obsessed with a hell-raiser she can't live with and can't live without. And Barbara falls in love with the campus misfit, Ralph. Ralph calls himself a "rogue." Most people call him obnoxious. But Barbara is convinced that God wants her to marry Ralph and follow him into the mission field to live "sacrificial" lives.
Moving to the Dominican Republic to work at a mission that coordinates medical clinics puts Ralph's mechanical abilities to good use, but doesn't change his personality. One visiting missionary ("a sweet grandmotherly type") is so offended by Ralph that she advises Barbara to have her marriage annulled. And these are evangelicals who take marriage vows seriously! The easy-going Dominicans love Ralph, but he continues to butt heads with both permanent staff and visiting workers.
Barbara must contend with all the stresses that every young wife experiences (including her hostile mother-in-law) and with heat, uncomfortable living conditions, sketchy electricity, the absence of hot water, and tropical insects. The isolation she experiences is worse than the physical discomfort. Missionaries aren't saints, but real people with normal human emotions. They don't always get along.
To some extent, this is the story of a young woman who marries and then grows up. Her introduction to feminism came late, but she got there. After several years of marriage, she began to recognize that she must establish her own identity or reconcile herself to forever remaining a passive, unhappy child. She grew to admire her eccentric husband's strengths, but learned to value her own, too. She wrote to Sue, "...there is more to my life than my marriage - a fact I never considered until I got married." Meanwhile Sue is establishing herself as a hard-working teacher. She still hopes to achieve a Christian marriage, but loves the independence and fun of her single life.
The lives of both women took unexpected turns. Sue's was tragically cut short. Barbara stayed married to Ralph, but they eventually returned to the U.S., had a child, and took "civilian" jobs. Almost twenty years after their departure from the Dominican Republic, Barbara went back as a member of a medical mission project. She rediscovered her love of the Dominicans and was touched to realize that she was fondly remembered there for her work and the sweetness of her disposition.
It's a fascinating book. If you're not religious, you can skip the preachy parts. But missionaries come to know the people they serve in a far deeper way than tourists, business people, or even ex-pats. Missionary work is NOT the process of the Haves graciously helping out the Have-nots. It's an exchange of love. No one can criticize that.
Don't remember the circumstances in which I acquired this book a year ago. I remember that I found it intriguing then and I've enjoyed re-reading it. I'm not a person of faith, but I generally like books by missionaries. Those who take their evangelical zeal seriously enough to become foreign missionaries may be (and usually ARE) a bit screwy, but they're seldom boring.
The book is a series of letters written by or to the author. At the start of the book, she's a student at a conservative Christian college in Pennsylvania and regularly coresponding with a childhood friend who's attending a Christian college in Texas. I was struck most strongly by the intelligence of the two young women and the fact that they appear to be living in a time warp. Their attitudes and aspirations are more like those of girls in the 1950's than in the mid-1970's. At a time when most young women were training for careers and enjoying dating (including active sex lives) Barbara and Sue are concentrating on remaining pure and praying for God to send them good Christian husbands.
God must have a sense of humor. Sue is obsessed with a hell-raiser she can't live with and can't live without. And Barbara falls in love with the campus misfit, Ralph. Ralph calls himself a "rogue." Most people call him obnoxious. But Barbara is convinced that God wants her to marry Ralph and follow him into the mission field to live "sacrificial" lives.
Moving to the Dominican Republic to work at a mission that coordinates medical clinics puts Ralph's mechanical abilities to good use, but doesn't change his personality. One visiting missionary ("a sweet grandmotherly type") is so offended by Ralph that she advises Barbara to have her marriage annulled. And these are evangelicals who take marriage vows seriously! The easy-going Dominicans love Ralph, but he continues to butt heads with both permanent staff and visiting workers.
Barbara must contend with all the stresses that every young wife experiences (including her hostile mother-in-law) and with heat, uncomfortable living conditions, sketchy electricity, the absence of hot water, and tropical insects. The isolation she experiences is worse than the physical discomfort. Missionaries aren't saints, but real people with normal human emotions. They don't always get along.
To some extent, this is the story of a young woman who marries and then grows up. Her introduction to feminism came late, but she got there. After several years of marriage, she began to recognize that she must establish her own identity or reconcile herself to forever remaining a passive, unhappy child. She grew to admire her eccentric husband's strengths, but learned to value her own, too. She wrote to Sue, "...there is more to my life than my marriage - a fact I never considered until I got married." Meanwhile Sue is establishing herself as a hard-working teacher. She still hopes to achieve a Christian marriage, but loves the independence and fun of her single life.
The lives of both women took unexpected turns. Sue's was tragically cut short. Barbara stayed married to Ralph, but they eventually returned to the U.S., had a child, and took "civilian" jobs. Almost twenty years after their departure from the Dominican Republic, Barbara went back as a member of a medical mission project. She rediscovered her love of the Dominicans and was touched to realize that she was fondly remembered there for her work and the sweetness of her disposition.
It's a fascinating book. If you're not religious, you can skip the preachy parts. But missionaries come to know the people they serve in a far deeper way than tourists, business people, or even ex-pats. Missionary work is NOT the process of the Haves graciously helping out the Have-nots. It's an exchange of love. No one can criticize that.
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