by Jenn Faulk
~Cammie~
So, there was just one missionary on this team.
Except not really. Because Kait, who hadn’t stopped talking from Windhoek to the outskirts of Tsumeb, was also part of the team. Kinda. Sorta.
Not really.
Camille still wasn’t firm on all the details, and she had a feeling that Kait wasn’t saying everything there was to say. And there was a guy named Piet who she kept mentioning who was also part of the board’s team. Kinda. Sorta. Not really.
It was all very confusing.
But there was a missionary! On the field!
“And with you,” Kait said, looking over at Camille with a smile, “we’re up to two mission board personnel members in Namibia. Which, believe me, is a miracle.”
Again, Camille didn’t know what this meant. But her attention was less on the conversation now and more on the sight before her.
She could see a small house in the clearing. And two men... two, shirtless men, high fiving one another as they walked along the roof, one of them doing a celebratory jig of some sort.
Maybe the magic happy pills hadn’t worn off completely.
“Praise God,” Kait muttered under her breath. “Nearly thirty years since that roof has been done. Well past time. Though Piet likely only thought to do it because it gave him an excuse to take his shirt off.”
Camille raised her eyebrows at this and looked more closely, even as she and Kait climbed out of the car. The two men finally heard them and yelled out greetings before leaping right off the roof.
The bigger of the two came towards them grinning, obstructing their view of the second man. “Kaity,” he said, in a rather wonderful accent, “hoe gaan dit?”
“Nee, man,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at him. “I’m not speaking another word to you until you put on a shirt. New personnel from the States, and her first impression of you is like this.”
He grinned even more at this and held his hand out to Camille. “Her?” he laughed. “She’s the new guy? Hmm.”
Camille attempted a smile under his surprised scrutiny, irritated yet again to have the fact that she was a woman made into such a big deal.
Oh, well. More of the same, no matter what continent she found herself on.
“Well, welcome to Namibia, then,” Piet said, genuinely smiling. “I’m Pieter Botha.”
She put her hand in his, pushing her irritation aside. “Camille Evans.”
And at this, the man behind Piet came into view, shock on his face.
Camille’s eyes met his and widened.
David Connor.
David Connor!
For a long moment, they stood there, wordless at the sight of one another.
“Well,” Kait said as they stared. “Maybe you need to put on a shirt, too, David. If we actually want Camille to be able to do any work –”
“David,” Camille said, dumbfounded. Then, she put her hand out a second too late. He held it in his and smiled his wonderful smile at her. “David,” she repeated dumbly.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Are you the new guy?”
“It would appear so,” she murmured.
And he smiled even more. “Wow.”
“Wow,” she repeated, wondering at how... well, how he was here. A little piece of home, right here.
He seemed to be having similar thoughts.
“Praise God, then,” David laughed out loud. “And welcome to Namibia, Camille.”
They continued watching one another for a long moment, holding hands still.
“Okay,” Kait said, exchanging a glance with Piet. “Camille, David is –”
“Your career missionary,” she said, a breathless laugh escaping her as all the pieces fell into place, the details from his speech now connecting to this place. “I know all about it. Well, I know more than I thought I did. About the ministry, at least. The students.”
“How?” Piet asked.
“We grew up together,” David said, glancing over at them. “At church.”
“And everywhere else,” Camille added, strangely thrilled that his hand was still in hers. “David’s like my little brother.”
Well, that wasn’t quite right.
She hadn’t meant it… well, not entirely. He certainly wasn’t her brother. Not at all. Not now, at least. Not after that great evening back in Dallas, spent talking to him, hearing his heart.
Wait, though. This was still David Connor. And feeling attracted to him didn’t erase years of him being like family, did it?
Before she could clarify things either way, David let go of her hand and gave her a strange, resigned smile. He reached down to the two shirts on the ground, tossing one to Piet and pulling the other over his head.
“Wait,” Kait said, oblivious to all that continued racing through Camille’s mind. “Are you telling us that Camille grew up at New Life-Dallas?”
“I did,” Camille answered, looking away from David at last.
“Paul Connor was your pastor?” Piet asked.
“Yeah,” she said, flustered as David continued watching her. “From the time I was a very little girl. Then through high school. I was like a member of the Connor family –”
“Yeah, I’m like her little brother,” David cut in with a tight grin.
Camille nodded at this absently.
“Excellent,” Kait said, smiling over at Piet.
Piet grinned back at her. “That it is, Kaity.”
“Hmm,” she murmured, taking a deep breath. “Piet, you should take me inside and show me what still needs to be done apart from the roof.”
“Will do,” he said, and they headed that way together, bumping fists as they went.
“What was that about?” Camille asked, looking after them.
“Oh, who knows,” David sighed. “There’s enough sexual tension between those two to keep me thankful that I don’t know all their inside jokes.”
Camille raised her eyebrows at this. “Oh… are they…?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Together. For like, forever. Not married. Taking things slow, he says. Painfully, wretchedly slow. Been watching them try to keep it platonic for three years now.”
“You’ve been here three years!” she exclaimed, turning to him, forgetting all about Kait and Piet and their drama. “All the stories! Everything you’ve seen! This is the place you were talking about!”
“You didn’t even suspect that I would be here?” he asked, grinning.
“Well, you didn’t specify in your speech, and it’s a big continent, you know,” she answered. “A huge continent, David. I never even thought it was a possibility that we’d...” She was at a loss again, looking at him, thinking about him...
“End up in the same place,” he finished for her. “Yeah, especially since you’re supposed to be in Japan.” He looked around. “Doesn’t look like Tokyo to me.”
“New assignment,” she said. “I didn’t have a chance to mention it. I was too busy telling you stories about where I’d been, hearing about what you were doing, and...”
“And here we are,” he concluded.
“Yeah, here we are,” she said softly. “This is crazy, David.”
“Crazy good,” he said. “I need help. And God sent you.”
For a long moment, they simply watched one another. Camille thought about what God might be doing here, wondering what exactly she wanted as he continued smiling at her.
“You were supposed to be a guy,” he said.
Well, he recognized that she wasn’t a guy. Which was a good thing, obviously... but still irritating.
“Yeah, I figured that out,” she answered. “When Kait... whoever she is, kept going on and on about the fact that I wasn’t.”
“What do you mean ‘whoever she is’?” David asked, smiling.
“She said she worked for the board,” Camille said, not elaborating because Kait, in all the talking she’d done across Namibia, hadn’t elaborated.
“She did work for the board,” David answered.
“And now she lives here?”
“She does live here,” he nodded.
“And?”
“And what?” he laughed.
Men. They never asked enough questions.
“Why did she quit? Did she quit? Why is she still here? What happened to the last missionaries?” Camille had days of questions prepared. But there seemed to be a whole lot that David didn’t even consider worth asking.
Sure enough, he shrugged. “They retired. She quit to stay here. Because of Piet. Because of the work. I don’t ask much more because it doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s going on here now.”
Well, she’d have to be content with this.
“And what’s going on here now,” she said, looking over at the house, “is construction work?”
“For today, yes,” he said. “We just finished up. Which is why Piet was dancing on the roof.”
She’d seen that. “Yeah.”
“The schools are on holiday,” he said. “The teens will all come back to the coast, to Swakopmund, next week.”
“That’s where you’re based, then?” she asked.
“Yes, and where you’ll be based as well.” He smiled. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too,” she said, unable to stop from smiling back. “Though I have to wonder if it’s a hallucination from all the pills I took on the plane.”
“Pills?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“I have to be drugged to fly anywhere,” she said dismissively. “I’m a horrible traveler.”
“That’s really ironic,” he said. “Given all the places you’ve been.”
“That it is,” she said. “Makes it even more of a God thing that I’m able to do anything for Him at all overseas, given how pathetic I am when it comes to not losing my marbles on an airplane.”
He grinned at this. “But you’re good on travel via the roads, right?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a great car traveler.”
“Then, we’ll be able to go out tomorrow,” he said. “Up through Tsumeb, all over, visiting students who will be at the coast soon enough. I’d like to introduce you around.”
She smiled at this. “I’d love that.”