Erin Mackenzie

It was almost eerie. It’s attributable to none other than the Holy Spirit, but it was uncanny the way every experience I’d ever had and every person I’d ever met prepared me to a T for the career missionary role I was interviewing for in early 2017.

For some people, it’s Saturday afternoon college football marathons.  

For my parents, it’s Jeopardy’s half-hour slot.  

For me, it’s a Friday morning Zoom Bible study. My Friday mornings are sacred. I am busy. Do not call me. Do not email me. Do not WhatsApp me. 

If you asked me about my earliest memories in the Dominican Republic (DR), I’d list being sandwiched between two then-seminary students farthest afield (Chile and Spain) in an airless backseat, a steeply inclined road with a sheer drop-off on one side, neon-colored chicks, and a little boy nestled between his grandmother’s legs in prayer posture.  

These snippets can only add up to one thing: visits.  

Missionary Erin Mackenzie reflects on some of her most cherished roles and experiences with her Latin America and the Caribbean missionary connections—especially at the latest regional conference.

I’m sitting at Newark Liberty International Airport as I write this, en route to the U.S. for a biennial stretch of “home service.” About a week ago, I had the foresight to request a few books at the public library in the St. Louis suburb where my parents live. Real, print books. I can already hear the protective plastic coating crinkling as I crack the spine, feel the creamy paper beneath the pads of my fingers, and smell the comforting must engendered by the raw materials of bookbindery and heightened by years of metal shelving in climate-controlled air.

My seventh-grade teacher used to tell my class about the concept for a book he’d always wanted to write: the “what ifs” of history. What if … Columbus had actually made landfall in India? … the South had won the Civil War? … Archduke Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated? Any number of present circumstances might differ: the side of the road on which we drive, the language in which you’re reading this, and so on.  

Merry fall, y’all.

Christmas starts early in the Dominican Republic. That doesn’t mean I’m a disgruntled traditionalist who boycotts Christmas music until Santa ushers in the season from atop his sleigh at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. No, a friend of mine shared a photo of candy canes in her local supermarket to her Instagram Story on July 21.  

This is a story about termites.

I’d prepared that week’s team of volunteers to expect schedule changes. To not be surprised if the bus driver arrived on “island time” despite being en camino (on the way) or if a conversation over cafecito (coffee) lingered and made us “late” for our next engagement. In short, to be flexible. But I did not prepare them for an infestation.

Pssssst. C’mere.

Closer.

I’m gonna let you in on a not-so-secret secret.

Five, actually: five things missionaries wish you knew.