Through the Outhouse Floor: and other real adventures of missionary life

Everyone who has ever considered the call to mission life should be required to read this book. Barbara Thomas totally destroys the movie myth/image of khaki clad angelic missionary with her gritty, real life, wholly (and holy!) truthful memoir of life as an African missionary. Barbara is a pioneer in the bug ridden, snake laden region of Africa, where she, her husband and her children make a home and fulfill a call to mission for 10 years. Hers is no sugar coated rendering of holiness and infinite patience; instead the reader gets a real live human struggling, vulnerable and triumphant in the end, living the Gospel, not just telling it. She shares intimate details of her life, both human and divine. Barbara's storytelling lures one in and without realizing it you are riding on a bike down the rutted clay road along beside her, gasping at each turn, delighting in the discoveries, laughing and crying with her. She presents an authentic voice in a world of pious "wannabees". Once picked up, it's very hard to put down "Through the Outhouse Floor". Thank you Barbara Thomas for letting us glimpse your world, it doesn't make me want to be a missionary, (I'm not nearly courageous enough) but it does make me want to meet you and spend a day of doing girl stuff together!

Here's a thought experiment for you. What if Garrison Keilor and Erma Bombeck had a daughter, married her off to a former Navy Submariner, and sent them both to Africa to translate the Bible into a language that until recently had no written tradition? You might wind up with a book as honest, compelling, and funny as Through the Outhouse Floor by Barbara Thomas. In the preface of her charming memoir of a missionary family's life among the Komo people of Zaire, Thomas relates a conversation that informs the tone of all that follows. Soon after her arrival in Africa, she commiserated with a more experienced missionary about the inadequate preparation she had received for the difficulties of her new life. "Why didn't they tell us what it's really like?" The answer was that writing about the daily difficulties and anxieties of life in the mission field had always been considered an unseemly sign of weakness - an admission of human failings among people whose ministry can at times seem something more than human to those of us who choose to stay home in the land of iPods and liposuction. It has not been considered "fashionable" to talk about such mundane details. Ms. Thomas' writing fills the void with rigorous honesty. She and her husband Paul both discerned a call to mission work early in their lives - before they had even met they wanted to carry the Gospel overseas. Once they were wed, they began the long preparation for work as linguists in Africa - translating the Bible into Komo. This is a self-portrait without pretense. In their home, a case of Malaria is as common as a head-cold. She and her family are tormented by insects, bullies, international conflicts and local bureaucrats. Privacy seems non-existent. Surprise visitors appear in the windows, stroll through the front door, and invite themselves along on bone-jarring journeys over (usually) impassable roads. Komo hospitality is far less reserved than the kind practiced in the American Midwest of her youth, and Thomas is candid about resenting the imposition. At times she can appear to be peevish or even downright selfish. Much of this modest author's power comes from her willingness to share her own flaws. That candor about the flesh's weakness helps us to trust her when she turns her attention to the spirit's strength. But don't let the hardships fool you - this is a very funny book (its title comes from an anecdote about a decaying privy, after all.) In one scene after many years in the forest, she explains to her queasy visiting mother-in-law that the fat caterpillars her son has carried into the house taste just like lobster if you cook them right. In another, she and her husband, Paul share a romantic stroll under the setting African sun. In their hands they carry pails to collect dung for their garden. After a chilling night when Paul awakens to discover a burglar reaching through their bedroom window to steal their short-wave radio, the family acquires a fiercely protective Ge

Many people think missionaries are saints. Barbara gives you peek under the halo to allow you to discover that missionaries have the same doubts and conflicts the rest of us do. They just hand them over to God quicker. Anyone interested in the mission field should read this book. My only criticism is that I wish they had included photographs. But after reading about the hardships endured, it is understandable.

As I have just spent time in Kenya and Southern Sudan, what Barbara has written really resonated with me. She has confirmed so many things which I have observed firsthand and have heard about for years. Although there have been changes in technology in Africa since she left, the people are the same and many situations have not changed. I think that Barbara Thomas' book could be of great benefit to many people, both those preparing to go to work in Sub-Saharan Africa and those concerned for people living under such conditions. In our Western comfort zone, it is so hard to understand how people cope with the challenges they meet in developing countries such as in Sub-Saharan Africa. Barbara Thomas' stories help us understand these issues. I heartily recommend this book.

A couple weeks ago I needed something for a two and a half hour plane ride and took this book which I'd just acquired a few days before I left. I'm so glad I did! Barbara's story is very readable and she must have a good memory or took very good notes in her journal years ago as the book brings to life the part of Africa in which she and her young family lived and served. I was given a better understanding and appreciation of the work of missionaries as I followed her account of their lives away from the States. It also made me thankful for the many things I take for granted in my daily life -- even the commode! I recommend this book to all who are interested in the mission field -- whether short term or long -- or have a heart for the people of one or more African countries.