Real Men Milk Cows

And do about a hundred other things on a weekend. I am the usual voice on this blog, but tonight I’m reviewing Scott’s weekend. We cut out a quote once about the various things every human being should be able to do (build a house, deliver a baby, write a poem, etc.). There is an aspect of missionary life that calls out the creative generalist in all of us, but I think Scott exemplifies this more than anyone I know. Let’s see. Saturday started with Jonah arriving on his motorcycle to ask Scott to assist with a C section at the hospital. Scott gamely zipped down to find that Jonah had decided that he should not assist but rather perform the operation, with only supportive comments over-the-shoulder. This was a complicated surgery due to internal adhesions the mother had from a previous cesarean, but in spite of that and significant bleeding, the mother and baby both pulled through well. Back home to usual Saturday tasks such as tweaking the kerosene wicks and filling the fridges, spraying the cow for ticks, fixing a drain, removing the battery from our non-functioning truck and poring over the owner’s manual to try and get it to start, receiving visitors who have their issues and problems. Then Ndyezika came to talk about his life, and Scott finds himself suddenly the father of the groom, designing a simple house N needs to build and calculating bags of cement and roofing sheets. A couple of hours with a computer based accounting program trying to track the thousands of dollars for projects and work that flows through his hands, and work on a funding proposal for Christ School. Back to the hospital to check on the patients, then he was on grill duty and in spite of tiredness from the exhausting surgical day helping me pull together a lovely candlelight date night (Miss Amy had the kids over!) and movie. Only we haven’t watched a movie in so long the sound was not working, so last but not least he had to trace all the wires and find the loose connection to fix it. Sunday we really do try to set aside as a day of rest, but besides church still involves milking the cow (so our cow caretaker gets his day off), playing soccer with the kids, putting new tires on Ashley's bike, reading a medical journal, washing dishes. Being a missionary is probably as close as people come these days to the do-it-yourself independence our parents and grandparents had on their small farms. Real men milk cows, and deliver babies, and pray, and listen. I’m so thankful to be married to one.