A Day in the Life of a Caribbean Missionary
Note: I may earn money or products from the companies, products, or links mentioned in this post.
Because my husband has recently come home from deployment, I am taking a blogging break. Today I have Mandi from My Perfect Mess guest posting for me. Mandi has a special place in my heart as we have known each other in the blogging world for quite awhile now and we also met in person last fall (you can read all about that here: Online friends: Meeting Mandi). Mandi’s post is very unique because she talks about life as Missionary. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and also that you pray for their family when you think of it.
Some things don’t change no matter where you live… kids get sick, cars breakdown, dinner still needs to be made. But other things are definitely different!
7:45 – My alarm goes off and I look at the window to see if it’s sunny or cloudy. This morning it’s cloudy. That’s good. I decide to leave our air conditioned bedroom to enjoy the “cool” morning. We only have air conditioners in the bedrooms and they are only powerful enough to keep the room nice. But even if they did cool the entire house the electricity is too costly (three times as much as in the States) so we can only afford to run them at night while we sleep. My daughter’s bed is in our room so we only need to run one air conditioner at night.
I quietly leave the bedroom trying not to wake my daughter up. I head into the living room/dining room/kitchen (it’s one big open room) and open all the windows and doors. Got to let that “cool” air in as soon as possible! I make a pot of coffee and sit down at the kitchen table to read my Bible.
8:15 – I grab a cup of water and my laptop to catch up on Words with Friends.
8:30 – My daughter starts to whine (she is three years old) so I go into the bedroom to get her up, turn off the air conditioner and open the windows.
Maddy takes off her diaper and goes to the potty. Maybe it will be a good day of potty training!
I get her a cup of milk and turn on PBS… Super Y is on… she’s happy.
8:50 – Breakfast. Nutella on toast and a banana for Maddy. A bowl of cereal for me.
9:00 – I put a load in the washing machine then sit down to check Facebook, read my emails and waste a minute or two on Pinterest while simultaneously planning my day and talking to my husband about his day.
We hear monkeys outside. Maddy jumps off the couch excitedly yelling “Monkeys!!! Mommy let’s see the monkeys!!!” So outside we go to watch the monkeys eat seeds from the palm trees and play.
9:20 – Pick up the house a little, wash some dishes and get dressed.
Get Maddy dressed too.
10:30 – Go grocery shopping. It’s a Thursday which is when all of the shelves are freshly stocked. If we don’t get milk today it won’t be there tomorrow. We go to two grocery stores to get everything on my list… plus they have jalapenos! Yay! I rarely find them so I buy a bunch when they are in stock.
12:00 – Back home to unpack the groceries and make lunch. Grilled cheese for Maddy. Leftover stir-fry for my husband and me.
1:00 – My husband drives into town to check on our visas. We are leaving for a conference in the States (soooooo excited about that) and we need our passports back to get into America. But we need our visas done so we can get back into St. Kitts. It’s been two months and we still don’t have our visas. I sure hope we get them soon.
1:10 – The power goes out.
1:13 – Maddy poops in her panties. So I guess this isn’t going to be a good potty training day after all.
1:30 – The power comes back on. Good… a 20 minute outage is not bad.
Now that the power is on I need to decide what to do with the load in the washer. Line dry them or put them in the dryer… one saves on electricity and the other makes our clothes soft.
I compromise. I hang the towels up and put everything else in the dryer.
2:00 – Nap time. I tuck Maddy in her bed, close the windows and turn on the air conditioner in hopes that she will actually sleep this time. I even bribe her with a piece of chocolate cake… if she naps she can have some. Here’s hoping it works.
In the meantime, I pull out my lesson text to study for tonight’s Good News Club. I am teaching the Bible lesson about praising God and how the people praised Jesus when he rode into the temple on a donkey.
3:00 – My husband comes back from checking on our visas. They aren’t ready. I’m not surprised.
I hop in the shower since I didn’t have time for one in the morning. Maddy isn’t sleeping. After I get dressed I remind her about the chocolate cake. I really hope she takes a nap. We are going to be out late tonight.
4:00 – Fold the clothes from the dryer. Take the towels off the line and put them away.
Maddy still isn’t sleeping. It’s going to be a fun night.
4:15 – Take a moment to read some blogs, check Facebook again and mess around on Pinterest.
4:45 – Fix a quick dinner. Baked potatoes with different toppings.
5:00 – Get Maddy up… she never did go to sleep but thinks she can still have chocolate cake. It takes a few minutes of explanation before she understands why she can’t have any.
We eat dinner. Maddy still wants chocolate cake. Oh boy… my bribe seems to have backfired.
5:50 – Pack everything for Good News Club and head out the door.
6:30 – After a very bumpy drive we get there and get set up.
7:00 – Good News Club is supposed to start but we are on “island time”… most of the kids are at least 15 minutes late and others drag in until half the club is over.
However, the kids are great! They get really involved and other than a few we have to quiet down, things go really smoothly!
8:30- Club is over so we pack everything up and head back home. 30 minutes of pot holes, twists, turns and more pot holes.
9:20 – We’re home! Maddy wants milk and chocolate cake.
9:30 – Maddy goes to bed. (Without chocolate cake).
My husband and I have some time to talk about how Good News Club went and any changes we need to make for next week.
10:00 – I start a blog post for our missionary blog but I’m too tired. I’ll have to do it tomorrow. I pick up the house, wash a few dishes and get ready for bed while watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother with my husband.
10:30 – My husband and I watch an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond then close all the windows and lock our doors.
11:00 – Go to bed. As I lay in the bed our flood light comes on outside… it’s motion censored. I wonder if it’s just the wind, an animal or maybe a burglar. I listen for any strange noises then say a prayer and go to sleep.
St. Kitts is a beautiful island but living here is completely different than going on vacation! The power outages, internet outages, crime, heat and other inconveniences living here are worth it to be used by the Lord! If anything, it sure makes us appreciate life in America in a whole new way!
Mandi lives with her husband and three year old daughter in St. Kitts & Nevis in the West Indies. She and her husband are missionaries with Child Evangelism Fellowship and will be living in the Caribbean for at least two years. Mandi is originally from Texas and moved to Montgomery, Alabama when she married her husband almost five years ago. If you would like to keep up with Mandi and her family as they minister to kids in St. Kitts & Nevis you can visit their blog, A Moment with the Millers. (Mandi had to take a break from her personal blog My Perfect Mess since moving overseas but you can still visit it for previous recipes, stories and faith-based posts).
