Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 1

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “But it is dangerous and foolish. What’s the point of missions if everyone who is going to get saved will get saved and can’t escape it anyway?”

  “Thank you, William Carey. There is more to salvation than that.”

  “Of course there is. That’s my point!” Sarah face-palmed.

  Jane rested her head in her hands. Free time. That was the problem with the live-in students. They had too much free time. If they had some real work to do they wouldn’t have time to waste arguing about election and all of that. She could wait three more minutes. If they weren’t done arguing in three minutes she’d have to leave, no matter how much she wanted a few moments alone with Isaac.

  They didn’t stop. At one moment Jane thought she caught Isaac glancing her way, but he didn’t extricate himself from the group.

  Jane packed up her small computer and her notebooks. She left without looking behind her.

  As Jane turned into the Crawfords’ driveway her phone rang.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from the class list.”

  Jane’s heart raced. “I don’t.” She felt like her heart was going to break out of her chest.

  “It’s been a while…I was just wondering how you are doing.”

  “Okay…hanging in there. Um…when I got home after coffee I found out I had been evicted.” Jane unbuckled, but stayed in her car.

  “What? Are you kidding? I’m so sorry I didn’t follow you home. I should have followed you. It was so late. What did you do?”

  “I’m okay. It is okay. It might have been weird if you had followed me home.” Jane couldn’t suppress the smile. Maybe, just maybe, he was interested.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought at the time.”

  “You were right.” Jane drummed the steering wheel with her fingers.

  “Do you have a place to stay? You must since it’s been days, but do you need any help with anything?”

  “I hate drama. I’m sorry if this seems like a lot of drama. Drama is totally not my thing.” In fact, Jane thought, she might die if he thought this was normal life for her.

  “I can imagine.”

  “So, my roommate stole my half of the rent for what seems to have been several months, and that’s why we were evicted, but the landlord has all my stuff locked up, something about selling it to make up for back rent. Is that right? Can he do that?”

  “You should talk to a lawyer, Jane. Do you want to? I can connect you with my dad.”

  “I really can’t afford a lawyer.” Her envelope full of cash that had represented hope didn’t have enough to pay a lawyer’s consultation, much less any real help.

  “No problem, just meet my dad for coffee or something. Let him talk you through it just once.”

  “But would he do that? For free?” Jane tapped her toes in rhythm with her drumming fingers. She couldn’t have been more excited if he had actually shown up at the house. She dearly wanted to turn the conversation away from her predicament.

  “He’d help a friend of mine, sure.”

  Jane bit her lip. She’d only known this guy for a few days, but so far absolutely everything about him was wonderful.

  “Let me talk to him and then I’ll give you his number, okay?”

  “Thank you so much, Isaac.”

  “I know you are pretty busy but I was wondering if you were free for dinner next Saturday?”

  Jane closed her eyes and pictured her schedule. The date of the funeral was still unannounced. Unless that changed, she was still free. “Sure, I’m free,” she said.

  “Great. Dinner then? Can I pick you up?”

  Jane looked up at the Crawfords’ brick mansion. “Let’s just meet this time.”

  Isaac didn’t answer for a moment. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Just because I’m staying with clients. I don’t know if housekeepers get to go on dates, you know?”

  “Ah! Okay then. Can you meet me at Hudson Station at seven?”

  “I’d love to. See you then.” She hadn’t meant to end the call, but the “see you then” and the awkwardness of arranging a first date took the wind out of the conversation.

  “See you then,” Isaac repeated, and ended the call.

  Hudson Station. That was a nice restaurant. She’d been there with her parents before. This was a real date. Not just a quick coffee or hanging out to talk about her drama. Too bad she didn’t have anything to wear.

  Chapter 9

  Jane was shivery with excitement on her drive down to the Mini-Missions Fair. She felt like she had some kind of a handle on how God was using her in the life of the Crawfords, but cleaning up for local families wasn’t her destiny. Cross-Cultural Evangelism was.

  Last year she had felt a strong connection with the Village Friends. She wasn’t a Quaker, but after research and prayer she felt like she could sign their statement of faith with an honest heart. The work they did with women in the 10/40 window made her heart flutter. She could picture herself settled into village life, learning from the women and sharing with them. The representative last year had been encouraging as well. She and Jane had hit it off. They had even exchanged emails on and off over the last year. Jane planned on hitting up the Village Friends booth first thing to reconnect and even, maybe, begin the application process.

  Of course, Jane reminded herself, there were many great organizations to work with. She’d have to attend the fair with an open mind and heart, listening to God’s call. She just hoped, and prayed, that His call would involve Village Friends.

  The missionaries’ cars filled the back parking lot at the Harvest campus. Jane tingled with excitement. Today looked to be a day of unalloyed pleasure.

  She parked in front of the dorms and headed to the old sanitarium building. Like last year, the organization booths were arranged around the perimeter and down the middle of the dining hall. The keynote speaker would be using the chapel/classroom and the library and boys’ and girls’ community rooms in the dorms would host the break-out sessions.

  The dining hall was packed tight with booths, tables, tri-folds, even video projectors. Missions recruiting seemed to have taken a high tech turn since the year before. The aroma of stale cafeteria food had been replaced by the smell of thousands of freshly printed pamphlets and excited kids. The room was bright, hot, and loud.

  There looked to be about twenty-five tables and a missionary for every student. Weaving her way through the bustle wasn’t easy, but it was fun. Jane kept her eye open for the Village Friends logo but it wasn’t one of the first booths.

  She tried to ease her way past the Youth Mission Adventures table, but her bag snagged on something. She turned to see the strap of her bag firmly in the hand of Amelia Long, her closest friend from last year’s class at Harvest. “Amelia!” Jane dove to hug her. “When did you get home?”

  “We made it in last Tuesday. Just in time for the Harvest Fair. I begged them to let me come rep here.” Amelia squeezed Jane. “You’re almost done, right? Are you ready to fill out your apps? I’ve been dying to have you on the field with me.”

  “Amelia—you know I’m not joining YMA. I’ve got my sights set on something long term.” Jane tilted her head away from Amelia, in search of the familiar brown logo.

  “This is such great experience, though, Jane, I don’t think you should dismiss it. So many of our staff move on to long-term missions after they serve with us. I think you would really benefit from a term with YMA.” Amelia grabbed a handful of pamphlets and shoved them at Jane. “Just reconsider it? If you join the Uruguay Station we could serve together!”

  Jane took the pamphlets. “I’ll pray about it. How does that sound? I promised myself I’d keep a completely open mind despite what my personal longing is.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, thank you!” Amelia threw her arms around Jane again and squeezed her. “We’ve got break-out sessions in the dorm lounges this year. Make sure you come to mine. I’m sure you won’t say no after you hear us share.”

  Jan
e nodded. She had already dismissed the conversation in her mind. Her year of hanging out with Amelia and dreaming together about missions work seemed so long ago.

  Jane moved on from the Youth Mission Adventures table. She had spotted Village Friends around the corner. A knot of students encircled one of the representatives, but there was also an older woman sitting at the table, doing some kind of handwork. Jane pushed through the crowd.

  “Good morning,” Jane said.

  “Ah, good morning, my dear.”

  “What is that you are making?” Jane spoke with a quiet reverence. The woman in front of her looked to be in her early seventies. She wore some kind of tribal dress that looked hand-embroidered. As she worked on a piece of her own embroidery, her hands shook. “This is suzani, a traditional Kirghiz embroidery.”

  The unbleached fabric was covered with soft cotton thread in vibrant primary colors. The hook looked like a crochet hook, but was sharper, and seemed to work like a regular needle.

  “This is the tambour,” the missionary said, directing Jane’s eyes to the hoop. “And this is the suzan, or needle. It’s rather different than your needles at home, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Jane watched as the missionary pierced the taut fabric with her needle.

  “This is what I spent many, many years doing with the women of Chong-Tesh. Mothers and daughters work the suzani together, and share wisdom. We find that letting the women of the village teach us their work is the best way for us to share our savior with them.”

  “I’m Jane, a friend of Sandra Obwey.” Jane stuck out her hand. She was too excited to keep talking about the suzani. She wanted to skip right to the paperwork.

  The missionary set down her tambour. She took Jane’s hand in her own thin, warm hand. “Lovely to meet you. I am Margaret Stowe, but you may call me Macha, my Kyrgy name for the last forty years.”

  “Wonderful to meet you, Macha. I’m really excited about graduating Harvest this year. Sandra and I connected last year and I’ve been interested in partnering with Village Friends.” Jane scanned the table. Intricate handiwork covered the whole table. There wasn’t a flier or leaflet in sight.

  “Sandra and I really connected. I was hoping to get more information today. Maybe an application.”

  “Please, take a seat.” Macha indicated a folding chair at the corner of the table. “Do you sew, Jane?”

  “Not yet.” Jane’s cheeks were beginning to hurt from her smile. Patience. She needed to be patient with Macha.

  “It would be a good idea to learn as much about sewing as you can. I don’t know where God is planning to send you, but all of the work we do with women centers on sewing. You should also know quite a bit about cooking.”

  “Oh, I do. I’ve been living on my own for two years.” Jane bit her lip. It sounded true before it came out, but as soon as she said it her life of ramen noodles and frozen pizza flashed before her. That, she was sure, was not what Macha meant by cooking. “At least, I should say, I’ve got a start. I’m learning.”

  “That’s very good. Young ladies do so much better with us if they have spent some time keeping their own homes. We find that women with a family connect much more deeply with the women we serve than single women do. In the 10/40 window marriages tend to be arranged and being a single woman is unusual.”

  Jane nodded. She hoped Macha wasn’t saying what it sounded like she was saying.

  “When I began my years of service, single women went into the mission field. We went all over the world. I began as a nurse you see, so I had something to offer the women.” Macha stitched as she talked. Her voice had the slow, sing-songy rhythm of reminiscence. “We could still use nurses. Nurses are welcome everywhere. But we have found, through the years, that standing out makes connecting at the heart level more difficult.”

  Jane nodded. More difficult to be single. Nurses welcome. She plastered the smile back on her face. She was going to keep an open mind. She wasn’t going to crumble at the first roadblock. Village Friends had sounded like the right place for her, but it wasn’t the only place.

  “What do you do, Jane?”

  “I’m a housecleaner.” Jane licked her lips. She was hard worker, doing a humble job—wasn’t that somewhere near the heart of missions?

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Well, I want to be a missionary, Macha. I want to go overseas and spread the gospel.”

  “That’s good, since you are at a missions fair, but what do you want to do on the missions field? How do you want to serve?” Macha’s eyes never left Jane’s face.

  “When I started school, I didn’t know about tent-making missions, but I’ve only got this one term left and I’m ready to go. I thought if I wasn’t a tentmaker, it would be okay. I want to do what you do.” Jane bit her lip.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.” Jane dropped her eyes to her hands.

  “What I do works so much better if you are married, but Village Friends isn’t the only organization, my dear. Why don’t you look around the fair a little? You might find a good fit.” Macha turned her eyes back to her needlework.

  “Thank you for your time, Macha.”

  “You might also consider continuing your education. Perhaps you could go to nursing school.”

  “Thank you.” Jane stood up quickly and turned away. Sandra Obwey hadn’t mentioned that she needed to be married, or a nurse. Maybe Macha was wrong. Jane tried to make sense of the milling students and missionaries. Macha might be wrong, but her heart told her not to make a snap decision. God hadn’t called her to be a nurse, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to.

  The milling crowd overwhelmed Jane. She needed to get a breath of fresh air and a moment of quiet. She grabbed a schedule as she passed a student handing them out. Jane found a quiet seat on the front steps to read it, but before she did, she closed her eyes and prayed silently. Dear Lord, give me the heart of a servant, and a heart to follow your lead. I’m scared that I’m going to make a mistake, Lord. I just want to serve you, however you have planned. She sat with her eyes closed for several moments, listening to the calm quiet, and being still before God.

  She opened her eyes again, but stared into the distance at the views of the farmland around her. The harvest is ready. Pray for the workers. This was what she had always been taught, what she believed, and what she had dreamed of. She did not dream of cleaning toilets, frying bacon, and solving murders. She was certain that the Crawfords were the trial of the moment, not her future life’s work. But what was her future life’s work?

  Jane spotted Isaac leaving the Chapel. He had a spring in his step. When he spotted Jane he loped across the gravel parking lot. “Hey there!”

  He took a seat on the step next to Jane. “I just got here. This looks like a pretty good fair.”

  Jane frowned. “Yeah.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry. It’s nothing.” Jane set the schedule across her knee so they could both look at it.

  “Trouble at home?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Jane pointed at the Youth Mission Adventures session on the schedule. “My friend Amelia is speaking. I might go listen to her.”

  “Pause. Don’t move on yet. I really do want to know what’s bothering you. I would have thought the Next Steps Fair would put a smile on your face, if nothing else would.”

  Jane chewed on her bottom lip. “It’s nothing really. I am keeping an open mind and trying to listen to God’s will.”

  “But you got disappointing news inside?” Isaac leaned away from Jane so he could make better eye contact.

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “What kind of news?”

  “It’s just that I really like one organization, but they kind of want married women, or like, nurses. I feel…unprepared.”

  “If you need to be married, I’m glad you’re unprepared.” Isaac’s face broke into a big smile. “Let’s go in and find a different organization. One that knows what you have to
offer.” He grabbed her hand and stood up.

  She stayed seated, but her heart felt a little lighter. “I just need to figure out what it is I have to offer first.”

  Isaac tugged her arm. She stood up and smiled. He put his arm over her shoulder. “I’ll do what I can to help. You have a good head on your shoulders. You’re a hard worker. You make people smile just by walking into a room.”

  Jane felt her cheeks heat up. “All admirable qualities, but useful overseas?”

  “You know your scripture. You care about people who are hurting.”

  “That’s a little more tangible.” Jane’s heart was in her throat. She walked into the Mini-Missions fest with Isaac—Mr. Daniels’—arm around her shoulders. What would the other students think? What did she think?

  “How about ELIC?” Isaac asked, stopping at the first booth.

  “That’s short term.” Jane led him away.

  “YMA?”

  “Also short term.”

  “Have you considered the Evangelism Fleet?” Isaac grabbed a glossy pamphlet from the table with a cruise ship model.

  “Short term. Am I picking up a theme here?”

  “Can I help it if I don’t want to send you away forever? I did just meet you, after all.” Isaac stopped in front of the Summer Institute of Language/Wycliffe table. “Ever considered translation work?”

  “No, I’m mostly interested in Evangelism.”

  The Church bell rang. According to the schedule this was the signal to go to Chapel for the morning keynote speaker. Isaac stood still, his arm around her shoulder, as the students flowed out of the room around them. “You didn’t want to hear the keynote, did you? It’s the director of YMA. You know, the short term people.”

  Jane rolled her eyes and laughed. “Maybe I could skip this one.”

  “I wouldn’t want to waste your time on something that wasn’t a lifelong commitment after all.” He grinned. “Where can two people go for a quiet conversation around here?”

  Jane stepped out from under his arm. “This way, to the library.”