Stories: Poem written on the wall of the "Tenda Vega"
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| Managua Missionaries
We're missionaries in Managua,
Making our meager way.
We take our tracts from door to door,
In the rain and heat each day.
We're down here in Nicaragua
In the place they call the "pit."
We preach the living gospel
To folks who don't care a whit.
In Nicaragua's sunny climate,
The air is burning hot.
We fight the heat and bugs and smell
In a land that God forgot.
There are roaches in our beans and rice.
Our meat is clothed with worms.
The water holds amoebas,
And the air is filled with germs.
The guerrillas try to kill us,
And the Guardia point their guns.
The people pelt us with mango pits,
And we always have the runs.
Creeping gamboo saps our strength,
And Alt Fungus takes off our toes.
The mold eats up our pants and shirts,
And "Dear Johns" give us woes.
Out in the colonias with bibles,
Breathing and eating the dust,
We tract from dawn 'til setting sun,
And are too darn tired to fuss.
Each afternoon brings a howling storm,
And the rain comes down in a flood.
We wring out our clothes and keep going,
But we're only made of flesh and of blood.
All through the night bed bugs bite us.
It's beyond anything we can stand.
The mosquitoes inject us with fevers
That leave us with trembling hands.
No one knows if we're dead or are living,
For we're orphans cast into this place.
Home and love slowly vanish from memory,
With the dreams of your bright, loving face.
We share rooms with lizards and spiders,
But this isn't what makes us blue.
It's being homesick and wet in Managua,
Three thousand miles from you.
To the very end we must endure it.
The best years of our lives we will miss.
Our sweethearts have all gotten married,
And send us news of connubial bliss.
We have talked to a whole lot of people
And have knocked on thousands of doors.
Our knees are all gnarled and battered
From our prayers on hard dirt floors.
We keep going no matter how tired,
In spite of fatigue and disease.
We may never get out of Managua,
Until death grants our final release.
We may live and may die in Managua,
And then molder beneath its soil,
'Til the morn of the first resurrection
Sets us free from this land of our toil.
When our lives of affliction are over,
And we don't have to tract any more,
We will gather for one final meeting
On that heavenly bright golden shore.
With open arms our Lord will greet us,
Throwing wide heaven's gate he will yell,
"Step right in missionaries from Managua.
You have served your time in hell."
On the wall of the Tienda Vega
(Author Unknown, 1966)
Submitted by D. Stevenson |
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