Fifty years.  These men and women, all in their 70s now, graying and wrinkling, limping and slowing, still loving and laughing, traveled in their 20s to Brazil, sent by their Church to be proselyting missionaries, to share a gospel message of love and spirit and Christ, of pure living and eternal families and love of God, with the people of 1970s Brazil.  Dad began his three-year unpaid tour of duty as their 36-year-old leader, mentor, and president, Mom by his side, their oldest child (me) only eight, with Sarah’s infant arrival imminent.  Now these mature men and women gathered at Mom’s and Dad’s house, sixty of them, seated in tight rows and listening, and Dad did not disappoint them.  I sat in the back with Megan, with my head in my hands, weary from the day’s setting-up, listening to all his old stories for the three-dozenth time, and looked up to see his audience enrapt, admiring, joyful, reliving the old stories, which are true, after all: the story of Maria who during World War II kept her tithing in a glass jar buried in her back yard, delivering the coins to Dad, himself a young missionary in 1957, and receiving from him a receipt for her widow’s mites; the story of Dad translating for a living prophet of God who greeted, became acquainted with, prayed for, laid his hands gently upon, and quietly healed each of the twenty sick and distressed Church members, one at a time, who awaited with faith his blessing; the story of Dad’s impression that all persons he contacted on this particular street would answer, “Yes—please come back and share your message with my family,” and they did; the story of priests who had Dad arrested in 1958, and through the iron bars his cell Dad told the prison guard he had arrested a minister of Christ, and the guard growled, “Prove it,” and Dad replied, “Pull up a chair,” and preached of Christ and his ancient Church restored in our day, with living prophets and apostles, preached for three hours until the prison guard had to confess Dad was, indeed, a minister, and released him from his cell, and committed to reading holy modern scripture; another story of Maria, who cooked in an outdoor oven made of loose bricks and sheet metal, feeding the fire with straw, her thermometer the back of her hand, Maria who baked a cake for the missionaries on the first day of every month, and invited them to visit on that first day if they wanted a fresh cake, or later in the month if freshness was not a priority; the story of a second arrest, Dad again behind bars, the prisoner in the adjoining cell screaming as the guard wacked him with a rubber hose, and the voice of God whispering to Dad, Do and say exactly as I instruct, and you will be safe and let go. This is not a joke, and Dad followed that voice and demanded to see the warden and instructed the warden on the doctrine of Christ and on his calling as a missionary ambassador of Jesus, instructed further on unlawful imprisonment and bad press and police duty until the warden relented and released him and promised him the police would not harass the young missionaries again; and the story of persons who dreamt of church buildings they had never seen until accompanying Dad and his missionaries to Sunday services in the very church buildings of their dreams, be they a rented room or a remodeled house or a regular Church meetinghouse; the story of Arthur, an Italian giant, whose hard heart softened from flint to flesh over Dad’s fifteen years of gentle shepherding until Arthur finally went grudgingly to a Church meeting and cried like a baby and demanded baptism, now, not in two weeks—tomorrow—and who remained a meek and faithful Jesus disciple to the last of his long days.  Though I had heard these stories many times, Dad’s retelling was expert and touching, compelling even, as if this mission reunion might be his last, his final tender testimony of God’s miracles and of Christ growing his latter-day Church and changing hearts and lives.  Sixty sets of eyes moist with memories and the love of God and the love of sisterhood and brotherhood and Christ community.  I led the group in Dorival Caymmi’s classic 1956 swinging hit “Maracangalha” ending with “…eu vou só, eu vou só, sem Anália, mas eu vou…”  The reunion ended with plates of coxinha chicken croquettes and kibe beef croquettes  and pão de queijo cheesy bread balls and bom-bom candies and cups of cold guaraná soda and catching up on grandchildren and jobs and health and passings away and sufferings and joys and handshakes and backclaps, visiting until near midnight, the happiest of gatherings.

(Yours truly with my dear sister Megan)