Beneath a Southern Sky

by Deborah Raney

  Daria slipped her thumb under the flap just as her mother came back on the line.

  “Dad says he can’t think of anything he’d rather do than keep his favorite little girl. Why don’t you just bring her things and she can stay the night.”

  “Great,” Daria said, distracted now by the letter. “Thanks a million, Mom. I’ll call you later about the time.”

  She hung up and pulled a thin sheet of onionskin paper from the envelope. As she unfolded it, her eyes hurried to the wobbly signature at the bottom of the neatly typed page: Evangeline Magrit, the missionary who had first worked with the Timoné in Colombia. Daria hadn’t heard from the elderly woman—hadn’t even known for sure if she was still living—since her sympathy card had arrived shortly after Nathan’s memorial service.

  She pushed her chair away from the table and skimmed the letter once. Then, pacing the length of the apartment, she read it again slowly.

  Dear Daria,

  I’ve thought of you so often in these last months. My heart has gone out to you in your sorrow. I read in the Gospel Outreach newsletter that your little one arrived safely, and I was quite grateful to hear it. I suppose she is close to walking by now. They grow so quickly. Which brings me to the reason I am compelled to write to you.

  Though my physical heart will not allow it, my spiritual heart is still in Colombia with my beloved Timoné. You and your husband were an answer to a lifetime of prayer on my part and on the part of dear Anazu and his little family of believers. I’ve struggled, as I’m sure you must have as well, to understand why our Lord allowed such a tragedy as befell Nathan. And yet I am so grateful that you were spared. You have been heavily on my mind in these last weeks because I know that you, too, felt the strong call of the Lord to live and minister among my dear people.

  I pray the Lord has not revoked his calling on your life, and I know that your daughter must be old enough now that she would adapt well to the changes of life in Colombia.

  I write to encourage you, and to tell you that I am praying that you might return to your ministry as quickly as you are able. I have been in contact with the mission board and, while they are as eager as I am to have you back in Timoné, they “don’t make a practice of soliciting” missionaries, as Dr. Bennett so succinctly put it in his correspondence with me. I, however, have no such policy, so I am boldly soliciting you, trusting that you are seeking the Lord as to his perfect will.

  I would cherish hearing from you, and I shall keep you ever in my prayers.

  Please know that the board assures me there are still funds available for your support, and I would consider it a blessing to finance your return trip personally.

  In his service,

  Evangeline Magrit

  Daria slumped into the chair and let the letter fall to the floor. She felt herself being wrenched back in time. As though it were yesterday, she remembered the sultry heat of an August night almost a decade ago, sitting with Nate outside his cabin at the youth camp where they had spent the summer as counselors. She had been a sophomore in college, still unsure what she wanted to do with her life. Nate was about to graduate from college and enter medical school.

  The elderly missionary woman from Gospel Outreach had spoken at the rally that last night of camp. Evangeline Magrit was old and ill, and she believed that God was telling her that her time with the Timoné people of South America had come to an end. Though she spoke with passion, the teenage audience had been inattentive and boisterous, and Daria and Nate had spent most of the evening intercepting spit wads and confiscating firecrackers. And yet, somehow, the woman’s message pierced through the commotion straight to Nate’s heart.

  Afterward Daria and Nate sat in the dark on the steps outside his cabin. Nate sat with his elbows on his knees, his head down, his thoughts seeming a million miles away.

  “Hey, you. What are you so deep in thought about?” she asked, putting a hand on his knee.

  He ran his hands through his hair, not looking at her. “I’m just thinking about what that missionary woman said tonight. It really hit home with me.”

  A twinge of foreboding rose in her. “What do you mean?”

  He turned to look at her, his gaze capturing hers. “I think maybe God is calling me to the mission field.”

  “Well, sure, Nate. The medical field is a mission field—”

  “No, I’m serious, Daria. I think maybe I’m supposed to go to Colombia.”

  “South America?” She was incredulous. “You mean go there to live? Like a full-time missionary?”

  “Yes. I can’t explain it except that I’ve never felt God’s presence so strongly. It’s almost as if he spoke out loud.”

  Daria felt threatened. Was he talking about breaking up? Leaving her for some tribe in South America? This was not the dream they’d shared for their future, the dream they’d been talking about since they realized they were in love.

  But then Nate told her, with awe in his voice, “I think God wants us to take Mrs. Magrit’s place, Daria.”

  Us. Of course. The call was for her as well. God had simply chosen to send his message through Nate. By the time she closed her eyes in her own cabin that night, she had begun to embrace the idea that she and Nathan were to take Evangeline Magrit’s place among a people who had rejected the gospel message for more than forty years. And as the days passed, her enthusiasm had grown in proportion to Nate’s. Through the four long years that Daria worked as a teacher’s aide and waitressed evenings to help him finish medical school, they kept their eyes steadily on their call.

  Mrs. Magrit had told them about Anazu and his growing faith. The challenge of winning the rest of Anazu’s village to Christ seemed to energize Nate. Though Daria had sometimes secretly wished that he could be happy with a ministry closer to home, his enthusiasm had not flagged through all the years of medical school. And by the time they finally stepped on Colombian soil for the first time, Daria had grown to believe with her husband that they would be the ones to lead Timoné to the truth. God had blessed their obedience, and when they were in Colombia, Daria felt that she was where she belonged.

  Yet since Nathan’s death, she had not given a thought to returning. She stared down at the letter lying on the floor at her feet, and a mantle of guilt settled over her.

  She supposed that subconsciously she had used Natalie as an excuse. And surely a tiny baby was a valid reason not to go to the mission field. And I am a widow, she thought defensively. But immediately she remembered that Mrs. Magrit had gone to Colombia as a newly widowed young woman. Her mind scrambled to come up with a better reason. Conviction nipped at her.

  She realized that she had not only abandoned her calling to go to Timoné, but she had also abandoned any responsibility whatsoever for the people God had given her to care for. She had not written to the board of Gospel Outreach to find out whether they had been able to place another missionary there. She hadn’t even sent them the tape recordings Nate had made while they were in Colombia. For months, she had scarcely uttered a prayer on behalf of the people of Timoné. The children, little Tommi and Jirelle and the others, were a distant memory, like much-loved characters in a book she had read long ago.

  Her life had been taken up with the mundane duties of a single, working mother—and, yes, with the exciting discovery that she was falling in love with Colson Hunter.

  But surely, after all she’d been through, she had a right to some happiness. She’d sacrificed a husband to the mission field. Her baby was without a father because of the mission field. Surely she had paid her dues and done her duty where missions were concerned. Besides, Gospel Outreach had sent her home.

  The heat of anger rising to her face, Daria picked the letter up off the floor and slapped it onto the table, trembling. She read the letter a third time and calmed down a bit as she realized that Evan-geline Magrit had in no way meant to cause Daria to feel guilty. It was merely the passionate plea of a woman who had a heart for bringing the lost to Christ, who couldn’t
imagine anyone not desiring to return to their calling as quickly as possible. No doubt Mrs. Magrit’s physical limitations to do what her heart ached to do must have frustrated her grievously.

  Why did the gentle words of this saint gnaw at her so? Trouble her to the core of her being? Deep down she knew there could be only one reason. And she did not want to think about it. She wanted to throw the letter away and pretend she had never received it. She wanted to enjoy her baby, to sit beside a handsome man at the symphony tomorrow night and hold his hand and fall hopelessly in love with him.

  She fell to her knees as though stricken. “O God,” she whispered. “Surely you don’t expect me to go back! To take Natalie to Colombia, away from Mom and Dad, away from Nate’s parents. She’s their only consolation.”

  She stopped herself. She knew she was making excuses. A verse from the Psalms played through her mind, and Daria caught her breath as the words seared her conscience: But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.

  “O God, I believe you called me to Timoné before, but, Lord, I don’t feel that calling now. Before, I-I went because I was Nathan’s wife, and because he was going to Colombia, I knew that’s where you wanted me, too. Give me wisdom, Lord. I don’t want to be out of your will. But you…can’t be telling me that I’m to go back there. You can’t. Please, please, God. Don’t ask that of me. I don’t think I can do that. Please, God.”

  She was sobbing now, confused and tangled up in a rope of guilt, not knowing if it was deserved or self-inflicted. She remained on her knees for long minutes, silent before God, yet not really wanting an answer, terrified of what it might be.

  Finally Natalie’s persistent cries brought her from her knees. She went into the nursery where Natalie was waking from an overlong nap. She picked her daughter up and took her to the rocking chair beside the crib.

  Still drowsy and perhaps sensing her mother’s melancholy, the little girl lay her head against Daria’s breast. They rocked back and forth, the only sound in the room the soft slurp, slurp of Natalie’s thumb in her mouth.

  Daria sought to put Evangeline Magrit’s letter from her troubled mind. For now she drew comfort from the warm, compliant body of Nathan’s child heavy against her own.

  That night, Daria’s dreams carried her down the Rio Guaviare, deep into the Colombian rain forest. She saw Anazu and his family, griefstricken because Nate had left them. They stood at the door of the hut she and Nate had shared—the hut that she had given them, that they might have a place to worship. Anazu and Paita and Casmé cried and wailed, holding on to each other for comfort. But Daria ran toward them. “No!” She shouted to them in perfect Timoné, “Stop crying. Nathan is all right. Look he’s right here. See, here he comes.” They followed her eyes across the stream where Nate came jogging down the trail from which he’d disappeared.

  But in her dream Daria never knew whether Anazu and his family saw Nate or not. She was too busy running toward him herself, her arms outstretched, her heart light as air.

  She awakened to the sound of her own soft laughter and a feeling of happiness and well-being. The vision was so vivid that for a minute she thought it was real. Then she came fully awake and knew that it had only been a dream.

  She wept as though she had lost Nate all over again.

  Fourteen

  The Christmas music that filled the Century II concert hall in downtown Wichita was rapturous, but Daria was distracted, oblivious to its beauty. Her mind was overwhelmed with nagging questions provoked by the missionary’s letter.

  As Cole helped her with her coat in the lobby afterward, he squeezed her shoulders. “Hey, you. What’s wrong?” he whispered.

  She looked over her shoulder and gave him a wan smile. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been very good company tonight.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and steered her toward the parking lot. “Are you all right?” There was no beating around the bush with him anymore. He read her too well.

  “I’ll tell you on the way home, okay?”

  He gave her a questioning look, but didn’t press her. When they reached his car, he opened the door for her before getting into his seat. Turning the key in the ignition, he eased into the line of vehicles leaving the concert. They were on the interstate a few minutes later. Cole reached across the console and stroked her hair. “So, what’s troubling this pretty head?”

  She ignored his compliment and plunged in. “Yesterday I got a letter from the missionary woman who inspired Nate and me to go to Colombia. I’ve been feeling guilty ever since.”

  “Guilty?” In the dark of the car she sensed more than saw his quizzical expression.

  “She assumes that I’m going back to Colombia, Cole.”

  “Going back? You mean as a full-time missionary?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t understand. What would make her think that?”

  “That’s what’s eating at me, Cole. She thinks that because I felt a calling from God to go there, that I should be making plans to return. She even offered to pay for my travel expenses.”

  “Wow,” he breathed. He was silent for a minute. “Have you thought of going back, Daria?” he asked finally.

  “Oh, Cole, not once! It’s been the furthest thing from my mind. At least it was until I got that stupid letter. Now I wonder if, well, what if I am supposed to go back? Do you think when God calls you to something he means it to be forever?”

  “No, of course not.” Cole’s response was immediate and adamant. “God obviously called you to be a mother to Natalie, but someday she’ll grow up and your calling to motherhood will be over. Right now I feel called to be a veterinarian, but I suppose someday I’ll retire and then God may have another calling for me.”

  She thought about what he’d said. “But why would God call Nate and me there to take an old woman’s place? Why would he begin to work in the lives of the villagers…and then just abandon them?”

  Cole thought for a long time. “I don’t know, Daria. I’m not sure that’s something we will ever understand. Why would God take a good man like Nate? Someone who was serving him so completely? He didn’t even get to be a doctor for as many years as he studied to become one. None of it makes sense. But surely God would make it clear to you if he expected you to go back, the same way he made it clear to you when he called you there the first time.”

  “Oh, Cole, I’m terrified. What if that’s what this letter is all about? What if he is calling me back? What if Mrs. Magrit’s letter is God’s way of telling me that I’m supposed to go back?”

  “But Daria, what about Natalie? You have a responsibility to her now. What kind of life would she have in Colombia?”

  “I wish I could use her as an excuse, Cole. But there are many people who take their entire families to the mission field. The truth is, kids adjust better than their parents do most of the time. You only have to leaf through a couple of Gospel Outreach’s magazines to know that.”

  “But Colombia is a dangerous place, Daria! Even more so now with all the cocaine cartels and the guerrilla violence that’s going on. It just doesn’t seem”—he struggled for the right word—“responsible to take an innocent child into one of the most dangerous places on the planet.”

  She wanted to tell him that if God had truly called her to minister in Colombia, then God was big enough to protect her while she was there. But Nate’s death seemed to nullify that argument.

  “I wrestled with this all night, Cole. I’ve even wondered if I was ever truly called to Colombia in the first place. Maybe I was riding on the coattails of Nate’s calling all along. I-I loved him so much. Maybe I didn’t want to risk losing him, so I just followed him blindly.” Her shoulders slumped in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just looking for an out. Oh, I’m so mixed up. What should I do?”

  “I’ll be praying for you, Daria. I don’t know what else to tell you.” His voice sounded strained, and she felt bad that she’d dumped all her
confusion on him.

  They rode the rest of the way home in silence, but when they pulled into her drive, he cut the engine and turned to her. She thought she read something akin to fear on his face. Cole stared at her across the darkness, and she heard the apprehension in his voice as he asked her, “Daria, are you seriously thinking about going back?”

  She put her head in her hands. “Oh, Cole, I don’t know. I’m just seriously confused.”

  “Don’t you think Nate’s death changed your calling, changed everything?”

  Her voice rose an octave. “I don’t know. I don’t even pretend to understand why he had to die. But don’t you see? I didn’t die. What if God still wants me to be the one to bring the gospel to the Timoné? What if all this time…” She threw her hands up, exasperated that she couldn’t express her own thoughts clearly.

  He waited for her to finish, and when she didn’t he pounded the palms of his hands on the steering wheel and blurted, “Daria, I can’t even imagine that God would ask that of you, that he would ask you to go back, take a baby, by yourself, to such a dangerous place, a place where the greatest tragedy of your life took place. Your life is hard enough here, trying to raise a daughter on your own, trying to make a living. Surely there is someone else who can go to Colombia and—” He cut his own sentence off and held up a hand. “I’m sorry. I am not a very good person for you to be seeking advice from.”

  “No, Cole,” she protested. “I trust your advice. That’s why I told you about this. I know you see things from a spiritual perspective. I know you understand what it means to have God’s calling on your life. I’m asking for your advice.”

  “No, Daria, no.” He started shaking his head, agony on his face. “You’re wrong. I can’t possibly give you advice on this issue. How could I be unbiased when the woman I want to marry is talking about leaving and taking the little girl—the child I love like my own—away with her.”