Young Dana Marie “following” in her Daddy Jones’ footsteps.

An expectatant Mom with her husband and 3 daughters at the West Islip C/C in New York. Our Jones family moved from the South in America to the Northeast with Exodus Bayshore, and experienced culture shock. Both Stuart & Cecilia had been born and raised in West Texas.

Stuart C. Jones with his firstborn and only son, Harold Dean Jones.

Harry being fiercely protective of his Mom, Cecilia Jones.

Harry as a young schoolchild.

Dana with her sisters and brother on the way to public school in Cape Town.

Cecilia V. Jones is in New York, pictured with her 4 children, in clothes which she had sewed.

The Jones kids in home-made clothes by their Mom.

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Stuart C. Jones, a gifted Bible class teacher, and Education Director at Plumstead C/C (Cape Town), and he served on the Board for Southern Africa Bible School in Benoni, Johannesburg.

The Richland Hills C/C sponsored a furlough for the Jones family in the summer of 1976. The plea used was for the Jones children to see their grandparents, and the plea worked!

Excellent parents, Stuart C. & Cecilia V. Jones. They have weathered many storms together! They imagined, created, designed, and built Senior AIM at Sunset International Bible Institute and served as competent administrators for the program they had created for 20 years.

One of the most persuasive individuals my parents encountered while they were trying to decide whether to direct their energies towards mission work in South America or mission work in South Africa, was Conrad Steyn. Conrad Steyn had charisma and he spoke very persuasively from the pulpit at West Islip C/C. He spoke of how the South African government was prepared to pay stipends to recruit young professionals to immigrate to South Africa. Stuart, my Daddy, had a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech,, and he saw a missions opportunity for a self-supporting Missionary and his family. Stuart & Cecilia consulted with Conrad Steyn and began building a team to go to Cape Town, South Africa. Conrad helped them with visa approvals, etc. At the last minute the team to Cape Town did not form.

In 1966, the Jones Family had a huge send-off by the West Islip C/C (Exodus Bayshore), with the song I remember most was “God Be With You,” and I cannot sing this song even now without tearing up.

The Steyn family welcomed us in Cape Town. As the years progressed, we discovered that the Steyn family was very dysfunctional, and my Mom stated privately to me that it is like our Jones family had become the informally acknowledged minister's family. My Daddy was employed by MobilOil Southern Africa at the South African pay grade level. His children all attended South African public schools where each child excelled and each were recognized as leaders amongst their peers. My Mom taught beginner piano students to the neighborhood children in Kirstenhof. Our Jones family supported the Steyn family, and my Daddy worked very closely with Conrad at church.

Once, my Daddy said to me that Conrad was very talented, and that if he ever went wrong, he would go bad wrong. That was a quiet lesson that I learned early about the gift of charisma and how to be a proper steward of charisma.

I remember Conrad leading the little children in songs which he had learned in America, at the Rosebank C/C, and his sermons where he used unique phrases which were singular to Conrad Steyn and which us children would use at home when pretending to preach, and Conrad baptized me (although I wish now I had had my Daddy baptize me!), and Conrad Steyn came to the airport in Cape Town and gave me a beautiful Coffee Table book with a great inscription in his handsome cursive script which I later gave away, and now wish I hadn't.

After I left home, and was 10,000 miles away from home, on a visit by my parents to the States I heard the shocking revelations of how Conrad had embalmed post-humously (licensed embalmer) Petra, his wife, and was going to marry his long-time mistress with their hidden love child revealed, and how he had embezzled large sums of money from American churches on a real estate swindle. I immediately wondered how all this would affect our Jones family and our mission work in South Africa. My Daddy had uncovered these various sins, and how agonizing this must have been to his very soul. Stuart Jones and Conrad Steyn were best friends.

Although my parents were self-supporting Missionaries with no sponsoring Church in America, they were very well-connected with the Coloured (recognized group and term, not the Black tribes in Africa), churches on the Cape Peninsula, and churches on the East coast of South Africa, and with Americans and South Africans in Johannesburg, and they stayed close to both sets of their parents and their respective churches.

I think that my Daddy standing up for the integrity of South African churches , that we will not steal from American Churches was an incredibly brave stance and he served as an excellent bridge between cultures. I am sure, however, that gossip riddled the events surrounding Conrad Steyn. However, I think that overall a church-sponsored Missionary would not have necessarily fared any better than this self-supporting Missionary, my Daddy.

The lessons I learned from this betrayal by someone so close to our family after I had already left home for the States are:

(1) Charisma is one of the greatest gifts any minister can possess, but with it come some very tricky temptations.

(2) Self-supporting missionary families need loyal friends and team-mates on the mission field and best friends willing to protect and defend the integrity and legacy of their mission work after they leave the mission field.

(3) That Dr. Carl Mitchell of the College of Bible & Religion at Harding University (who is now deceased) was correct championing the veracity and efficacy of self-supporting missionary families, and during the time I worked for Dr. Mitchell, he took a great interest in the story of the Jones Family in Cape Town, South Africa.

(4) That only God knows where Conrad Steyn is now. The Bible teaches confessional living, repentance, and restoration to God if confession, repentance, and, in some cases, restitution happens.

(5) That my Daddy is a Christian hero to me. He does not gossip about Conrad Steyn. His best friend in South Africa betrayed his trust in their friendship, but my parents journeyed on towards Daddy serving as an Elder at the Ridgewood C/C, Beaumont, Texas, and he served as an Elder at the Sunset C/C, Lubbock, Texas, and together with my Mom formed Senior AIM which is still functioning even after their retirement as the SeniorAIM Administrators.

(6) That the Christian race is laborious and not for the sprinter, but for the distance runner. That there is great joy in being persistent, and never, never, never giving up!

(7) That there is great reward in being an intelligent and creative Christian with deep community ties. My parents imagined being self-supporting Missionaries, became a great force for Christian strength within the South African churches, raised 4 TCKs who all have significant leadership qualities developed in the South African culture, and returned to the States in time to care for aging parents in West Texas, and lived to see the huge success of their creation, SeniorAIM, at SIBI in Lubbock, Texas.

My Daddy is battling dementia/Alzheimers and it is imperative for his children and grandchildren to help preserve his legacy. He is gentle towards my Mom still. my brother, Harry Jones, is quite protective of his Daddy.

My previous 3 interview-essays are gaining all kinds of traction via Substack, and when Christine Walker Faith, Editor, Searcy Living, approached me at Church and offered to publish these interviews, I caught my breath, then breathed deeply and said yes. I will not be paid for these publications, but the fact that I am published as an author beyond Substack is still a fact I can hardly believe. I am thrilled!

My first interview was with Emily Fowler, who is now in Japan serving the Church there. I am connected with Clay Fowler (Emily’s husband) and with Emily on Facebook, and their adventures are fun to follow. I encourage you to scroll back through my archives (which are not presently behind a paywall) and read my interview with Emily. I loved spending time with her with her spritely humor and honest candor. I hope that my interviews stay honest because not only are they more interesting that way, they give the kind of insight into Missionary/TCK lives I am wanting to share with my readership.

My second interview with Tammy Reese Short was awe-inspiring to me. I have admired Tammy for a very long time and her personal and spiritual opinions matter very much to me. She gifted me her time and shared a deep and rich missionary heritage in her parents and now in the life of her immediate family. I hope that you will review this interview and plan to donate to her mission efforts with high school and university students in Tanzania. I hope to interview Lewis Short, Tammy’s husband, in the near future, and glean additional interesting facts related to the Short Family in Tanzania.

My third interview was with Jean Tate who turns 90 years old shortly. She is cute and steadfast and loyal to her family and I could easily see how she functioned willingly as the wind beneath the wings of her husband, Dr. Van Tate, for all his missionary zeal. Her 4 daughters are a living testament to the faith-building which Jean helped with in her daughters even when Van traveled a great deal. (Jean is an encourager for my Mom who cares for my intelligent Daddy who struggles with Alzheimers. Read the interview to find out how exactly Jean could be an encourager in this situation).

My fourth interview will be with Oneal Tankersley and I anticipate that interview being exceptionally interesting, so stay tuned.

I am also working on ideas for a product/service I could offer which might encourage you to become a paid subscriber. While I am not expecting to become wealthy as a Substack author, I am wanting to earn enough to pay for Coffees/refreshments for the Missionaries/TCK’s I choose to interview, so an occasional Venmo to Dana-Martin-85 is greatly appreciated. I am hoping that I can learn how to effectively monetize my authorship offerings to you so that you simply cannot imagine anything else except for subscribing to .

When we moved into this house more than a decade ago, our yards (front/back) were barren. In a previous post I described Tod's gardening skills. He applied his gardening skills to our yards, and now we have an oasis especially in our backyard with irises, rose bushes, Rose of Sharon trees, crepe myrtle, hummingbird feeders, and a garden Barn (red), and fluttery butterflies, and humming bees. In the Spring, I love to sit on our small patio in my sky-blue Adirondack Chair from Virginia and enjoy a “Nature bath” for awhile. I know that my mental health positively benefits from these “Nature baths,” and emotionally I am calmer and more well-fortified post-”Nature bath.”

So, when Tod and I spied the brave Praying Mantis inside our house the other day, we were mesmerized by our good fortune. I thought to quickly capture him in photography, and then Tod swiftly and protectively returned him to our thriving backyard.

For a moment, in our tiny dining room, we had a holy moment. I was reminded that our posture as Christians daily should be that of prayer-mode. We bring our supplications to God, and we wait in sacred anticipation for God to formulate His answers for us, his time table, his disciplines, his blessings. We should just stay bowed in reverence towards God, much like the posture of our visiting Praying Mantis.

I am so thankful for my phone camera and that it could, quickly, capture the sweet beauty of such a blessed Nature moment in our house.

Thanks for the tremendous response to the beginnings of my Missionaries/TCKs Interview Series. If you wish to gift me for future Coffee-Interviews in September and in November, please do not hesitate to send me a Venmo at @Dana-Martin-85.

I invite you to invite a friend to subscribe to “Vintage Missionary Kid.” I welcome free subscribers, although paid subscribers are priceless and I hope to add some paid subscribers as I publish more Missionaries/TCKs Interviews.

Jean will very soon turn 90 years young. She has lived a faithful and devoted life as wife to Van, and Mom to Susan Melody, Lori Lynn, Ann Janelle, and Jill Darlene, daughters who are all senior citizens at this stage of their lives.

Jean and Van met at Florida Christian College in Tampa, Florida. (Van was from Arkansas, and Jean from Florida). Van saw Jean in the cafeteria line and just knew he had to meet her, so he called her on the Dorm Mother’s phone line. Their first date was to a small Church adjacent to Florida Christian College campus. Jean was already engaged to a football player who went to a military academy in Georgia, and had a ring to prove it! There were several other beaux on campus who expressed an interest in Jean. For a little while, Van and Jean broke up, then got back together again. Van prevailed, Jean broke her engagement to the football player, and chose the “Preacher Boy” which made her Mom very happy! Van and Jean married at the very same small Church where they had their first date, with a Professor officiating, another Professor photographing events and presenting his photographs to Van and Jean as a wedding gift. Her Maid of Honor and other 2 bridesmaids simply wore college formals. Jean designed her wedding gown and her Mom sewed it. Van and Jean graduated college on a Tuesday morning, and married that night.

Van joked lovingly while he and Jean were dating that they would have a Baseball Team, 9 boys!

Van wanted to do missionwork in Africa. He thought Nigeria very well-served, so he began corresponding with someone in Liberia. Jean just wanted to go wherever Van wanted to go, thus becoming the wind beneath Van’s wings to Africa and elsewhere. The decision to move to Kenya will be discussed as the answer to another question.

(2) Why did you choose Kenya as your mission field?

Van attended a Harding Lectureship where he met an Elder named George Gurganus from the White Station Church of Christ in Memphis, Tennessee. This Church was looking for 3 families to send to the mission field, fully supported. Offering full support from just one Church was unheard of during this era of mission work. Ted and Martha Ogle, and Van and Jean Tate accepted the mission challenge of the White Station Church and spent a year in Memphis together, forming team. In August 1965, White Station gave the team a great send-off, having chosen Kenya as the mission destination due to political stability, receptivity, and the cost of living in Kenya. Kenya had just won independence from Great Britain and so the Church had anticipated the British leaving Kenya in droves thus creating a housing surplus. That is not exactly the way it worked out, however.

It was 5 years before their first furlough, but the Church brought the Tate family back to the States in 4 years, post-Jill’s birth. This is the year when Van earned his Masters in Pasadena at the Fuller Theological Seminary.

The Tate family’s final departure from Kenya as a missionary family was during January 1976. Fortunately, the Tate daughters had been enrolled in Harding Academy in Searcy, Arkansas for 1973/1974 and had made friends. They had been enrolled in a Mennonite School, Rosslyn Academy, for the last 3 years the Tate family was in Kenya. This School allowed the girls to learn under an American curriculum with other missionary kids and Embassy kids from all across East Africa.

(3) I remember the headdress to Dr. Van Tate’s baccalaureate garments was very unique and always turned heads. What is the story behind his earning his doctorate at the University of Nairobi?

Van earned his AA from Florida Christian College, his BA from Abilene Christian College, his Masters from Fuller Theological Seminary, and finally his PhD from the University of Nairobi. He wrote his doctoral dissertation of tracking families of a working class nature from the village to Nairobi. Van did not attend formal classes at the University of Nairobi, his emphasis being on practical field study. One man that Van studied was named Mbugua who beat his wife every time she produced yet another daughter. (This differs hugely from the respect Van offered Jean for her birthing his 4 lovely daughters). The villagers all flocked to Van’s field study for his doctorate, with only one family refusing to be included.

Dr. Jomo Kenyatta, President of Kenya, spoke at Van’s graduation from the University of Nairobi. Van was the only white graduate and just after Van shook hands with Dr. Kenyatta, Dr. Kenyatta fainted likely from heat exhaustion. Security was high. Dr. Jomo Kenyatta was revived and the graduation day proceeded without further incident.

(4) What are a few of the guiding principles that you and Van adopted in raising your daughters in Kenya?

The Tate family had family devotionals at night whenever Van was in town. Their family did not tend to be singers, except for Van and later Jill, the youngest daughter, who had been born in Kenya. Ann liked to sing, “Jesus Loves Me” with everything. To this day, Jean and Lori like to sit by people who “drown us out” when singing is involved. Later, Ann and Jill joined the Harding Academy Chorus in Searcy, Arkansas.

The Tate family, and especially Van and Jean stayed involved with their daughters incorporating a lot of love and a lot of prayer.

(5) All 4 of your daughters are faithful Christians affiliated with the Churches of Christ, correct? If so, how do you feel about such a parental achievement? I highly commend you for what you and your family have accomplished. What would you have to say to Missionaries, though, who “lose” a child/ren to the faith during or after serving on the mission field?

Jean feels wonderful about the fact that all 4 Tate daughters are faithful Christians and she gives God the glory and the thanksgiving!

And to Missionaries who have “lost” a child/ren either during or after serving on the mission field, she wants to console by simply stating that this type of loss happens all the time to families who choose not to serve as Missionaries as well. And as to why this might happen to Missionary families, she stated that this might happen if the emphasis of the Missionaries is too much on missions and not enough on family on the mission field.

(6) What were some of the greatest lessons you ever witnessed Van teaching and/or preaching in Kenya and in the States?

Jean said that she does not remember any particular lesson or sermon, but that Van’s life served as that Christian testimonial to others. Her impressions were that Van was a better teacher than preacher. He was involved with people. Van loved his family and his involvement with their daughters is one of the major reasons why the girls turned out so well, she believes.

(7) What were your various church and familial roles in Kenya as Dr. Van Tate’s wife?

Jean served Van as the wind beneath his wings and focused almost entirely on being Van’s wife and their daughters’ Mom. She did try to teach front porch Bible classes to the neighborhood children in Kenya.

Jean gave birth to Jill in Kenya. Their doctor was a woman British doctor. On the way to the hospital, Van and Jean were dropping off their girls at a missionary friend's house, when Jean turned around to see Susan's worried face, Susan said, “I'm scared!” Susan was 7-1/2 years old. Jean was kept in the hospital in Nairobi for a week. The Kenyan practice was for hospitals to keep new Moms in the hospital for a week in order to teach them how to care for a newborn. Since children were not allowed to visit the hospital, Van drove their daughters to the hospital lawn and Jean could wave at them through her hospital window. It was quite an adventure for Jean to give birth in a Kenyan hospital!

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(8) Do you still have special friends in Kenya? Are there other missionary wives with whom you have stayed close?

A missionary friend, Charlotte Hackett, still lives in Kenya and has since the 1970’s even though she is fairly recently widowed. She still helps with a high school. The local Church meets in the School in which she helps.

Martha Ogle, her Kenya team-mate lives in Tucson, Arizona. Faye Barr lives in Corinth, Mississippi. Avanell Merritt lives in Houston, Texas.

Jean stays in touch with all of the above present and former missionary wives.

(9) Do you speak an African tribal language?

Jean had trouble learning Swahili. She took classes but still had trouble. It was just so easy to speak English instead.

Van was fluent in Swahili and preached and taught in Swahili.

(10) Your life is one which has had more than its fair share of sorrow. Describe your mission as a wife when Dr. Van Tate was diagnosed with Alzheimers. Why did you stay with him until he passed away in recent years? What were the demands on your faith during this time? I see in you the fruit of the Spirit modeled beautifully. How is this fruit possible given the hardship on a family that is Alzheimers?

Van and Jean and their family accepted Van’s diagnosis with Alzheimers as “our life” and thought that it differed very little from the intensity of care involved in caring for a family member with, say, Cancer. The level of care required for both Alzheimers and for Cancer demands a lot of time and a lot of attention.

Jean had a great support system when she became Van’s caregiver. She names her 4 daughters and their husbands and her sister-in-law, JoLynn, and her husband Wayne, with huge respect and deep love. They were all there for her. The Church was sympathetic but did not really understand. (That fact is changing now that so many more are stepping forward with a visible Alzheimers diagnosis in the Church).

Jean and her family used affectionate humor to cope with Van’s increasing eccentricity and the Searcy community-at-large kept Jean and the Tate daughters and JoLynn well-informed of Van Tate-sightings when he left home without his tracker. The family tried to keep a tracker on Van at all times, but he did not like trackers and removed them as fast as they attached trackers to him.

During one story, Dr. Van Tate was spotted on a major street in Searcy on his bicycle without a helmet. Ann and her daughter, Niky, found him close to JC Penney without his bike (still do not know what happened to the bike) and with his shirt wrapped around his head like a turban. He did not know Ann and Niky, but got in the car with them docilely and let them bring him home.

Another story is when Jill was told by her Daddy to “Get out!” so she left the house, walked around to the front entrance, knocked, and Dr. Van Tate answered the front door, saying courteously, “Oh, hello!”

These “amusing” stories help the Tate family cope even to this day with memories of a beloved husband and brother and Daddy who had Alzheimers for many years and was truly an unlikely candidate for Alzheimers with his language learning, intellectual learning, travel, social connections, attention to health in general, etc. My impression is that their laughter is empathetic and affectionate and respectful. How they loved that Dr. Van Tate. He was a fortunate Christian gentleman!

(11) Have you ever been on a traditional African safari?

Yes, Jean went on an African safari to Kenya in October 2021. She enjoyed the good accommodations and the good food. She went with JoLynn and Susan and Ann during Covid so everyone stayed masked.

Van had died in January 2021, Jean had hernia surgery in June 2021, so an African safari in October 2021 was a great stress-buster.

(12) If you had your life to live over again, are there any significant points you would change? What has been a guiding spiritual scripture or song in helping you both celebrate life and navigate difficulties?

Jean wishes that she had been more involved in language learning and teaching in Kenya.

Van and Jean did enjoy several short-term mission trips to Albania where Jean successfully taught English by using the Bible. In 1992, they also went to Hungary and Romania. In addition, they went on short-term mission trips to Guyana, South America, and Belize, Central America, where Jean primarily kept house and served as the wind beneath Van’s wings yet again. Van and Jean also escorted groups of Harding University students to Kenya on short-term missions during Summers after they had already returned to the States to live. Several Harding students who studied with Dr. Van Tate subsequently became Missionaries to Kenya. (Oneal and Betsy Tankersley, for instance, were students of Dr. Van’s and they later went to Kenya as Missionaries).

The 2 songs which encourage Jean in times which are bleak or in times which are celebratory are “The Lord Is In His Holy Temple” and “Be With Me, Lord.”

My Conclusion to This Interview:

A Coffee and a Missionary Interview is a very pleasant way to spend a morning together. I have admired Jean Tate for years and years. What an honor it s to help Jean tell her Missionary story and simultaneously celebrate the lives of her 4 TCK daughters! I have seen evidence of how dearly and deeply they loved their Daddy, Van, and how they deeply respect and adore their Mom, Jean. I am calling this interview-essay, “Marvelous Mission-Minded Matriarch.”

The following questions and answers will bring you into “the know” on the above.

(1) I am wondering if you were born in Zimbabwe as a TCK? Do you have a story or 2 about your birth and/or childhood?

Tammy stated that she was not born in Zimbabwe, but that when her Mom was 8 months pregnant, she and her husband, Tammy’s Dad, moved suddenly to Johannesburg where Tammy was born. Tammy lived in Johannesburg from birth to 13 years old, during Apartheid. She attended an English-speaking all-white school and lived in an all-white neighborhood, as the country gave no other option. Her parents were involved with a local Church during 1/2 of Tammy’s 13 years in Johannesburg, and then were involved with World Bible School (WBS) the other half of their time in Johannesburg. Her parents organized seminars for those interested in WBS, and offered to baptize those who expressed an interest in baptism into Christ.

(2) Describe your parents to me, John and Beth Reese.

Tammy’s Dad, John, had made a commitment to do missionwork with an emphasis in missions in Africa due to his heritage of having grown up in Zimbabwe. Her Mom had planned to be a missionary, but had not planned on Africa. They were aligned on missionwork though. Tammy stated that her Dad and Mom were good parents who balanced family needs with their missionwork. Her parents are people of integrity, their life matched their words.

(3) When did you return to the States from South Africa? How did culture shock affect you? Can you share a story or 2 illustrating the culture shock for a TCK between South Africa and the States.

Tammy returned to the States when she was 13 years. She had visited the States before on furloughs which were every 3 years. She had previously attended 1st Grade in Searcy, Arkansas, while her Dad served as visiting missionary for Harding University.

The main difference between the cultures in South Africa and the States for Tammy was her accent. And in South Africa, she was called “The American Kid” and in the States, “The South African Kid.” When her family moved to Austin, Texas, she joined the Girl Scouts and band (played the flute). These 2 joinings helped Tammy make friends.

(4) How did your Dad’s former presidency of World Bible School affect you? Describe World Bible School to me.

World Bible School teaches Bible through paper correspondence and the internet world-wide.

Tammy’s Dad had worked with WBS in South Africa and then Austin, and eventually became WBS President. His work gave her a world vision of the need for evangelism.

At age 16, Tammy and her family went back to sub-Saharan Africa, and worked in 8 countries from Tanzania on down to recruit students for WBS. They signed up new students at gas stations, police roadblocks, and just everywhere. There was such a positive reaction to these pamphlets and there was a huge boost to WBS enrollment registered in Austin, Texas (100,000 people signed up in Zimbabwe alone)!

It was not just Tammy’s parents involved in this mission effort, but the children, too! The kids helped to distribute the pamphlets when they had breaks from living in their RV (lived in an RV for 9 months, parents & 3 kids). Tammy’s Mom home-schooled the Reese children during the WBS mission effort to sub-Saharan Africa.

(5) How did you and your husband, Lewis, decide on serving in missionwork as a family in Tanzania?

Tammy met Lewis at a World Missions Workshop. Lewis had already graduated, while Tammy was still in college. Lewis had just been involved with Harding University in Florence (HUF) and Avanti Italia, both programs in Italy, at the time, had just finished Avanti Italia and was living in Nashville, raising funds to move back to Italy permanently. In 1999, Tammy was a Nursing student in the School of Nursing at Harding University (where Tod, my husband, was Assistant to the Dean of the School of Nursing!). Lewis got the funds to return to Italy and he was ready to go. He went. Lewis and Tammy were engaged. When Tammy had graduated from Harding University, they married in 2000 and Tammy joined him in Milan.

With Lewis having grown up in Taiwan as a TCK and Tammy having grown up in South Africa as a TCK, these 2 TCK’s had decided together to move to Italy to serve in missionwork where they stayed for 11 years. Tammy gave birth to their 3 daughters there. (Lewis and Tammy were acquainted with Robbie and Mona Shackelford and with Jay and Alicia Walls, fellow missionaries in Italy). They worked with a Church in Milan, Italy, for 11 years, where they knew Mark and Rose Miller (who now live and work in York, Nebraska).

In 2011, Lewis and Tammy moved back to the States, specifically Memphis, Tennessee for 3 years. They decided, during this time, to go to Tanzania to serve as missionaries. They chose Tanzania because it is safe and close to a city where their kids could have access to services/amenities, and because they would be just 3 hours away from Tammy’s brother David Reese and his wife Jenna. (David and Jenna were supported by the Cloverdale Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas). Lewis and Tammy are aware that one of the biggest challenges for missionary families is the great geographical distance from family, so they opted to be close to family in Tanzania which helped their kids to enjoy cousin camaraderie, and allowed for adult support for Lewis and Tammy in the form of mutual encouragement and practical help. Some of the local Christians who were of the greatest help to Lewis and Tammy were originally with David and Jenna, and which Lewis and Tammy inherited once David and Jenna had left Tanzania. Lewis and Tammy were in Tanzania as a family serving as missionaries from 2014-2019.

(6) Describe what your missionwork in Tanzania looks like.

When Lewis and Tammy arrived in Tanzania in 2014, there was already a medical clinic there which had been established by Drs. Danny and Nancy Smelser from Florence, Alabama and Fielden and Janet Allison from Searcy, Arkansas. That group started a Christian High School boarding school called Alpha Omega Secondary School. Lewis and Tammy worked with the high school both with practical details and building relationships with the students. Lewis and Tammy collaborated with local Churches and Tammy served in medical outreach as a Community Nurse. Most of her nursing skills were used when people stopped her on the street and asked for medical care, especially wound care, which the local hospital had given up on treating.

Lewis now serves as the Chairman of the Board of Tanzanian Christian Services. He is an administrator for the high school and medical clinic. He works closely with local Tanzanians. Tammy is invested in the high school students who graduated from Alpha Omega and need to pursue more education or secure jobs but cannot see their way clear to do so. Presently, Tammy supports 60-70 students at the university level in Tanzania. She strives to personally connect and reconnect with those alumni. This is where she serves selflessly and humbly more like a self-supporting missionary than being on a church payroll. When donations may fall short, Tammy picks up the difference with her Nursing salary from her Stateside job. which is amazing. There are a few individuals who donate generously to the student project, and Tammy stretches their money. The donations are for food, board, and tuition. Tammy feels convicted about her mission to the students, as without her investment, they may be without further education which may result in no jobs, and all of this leads to no respect in their community. Tammy says that their mission in the Christian High School boarding school is to raise up Christian leaders, so she feels like post-high school is a very important time to invest in these students to help complete the mission goal of raising up leaders in Tanzania.

This is why I want to insert a link to the Shorts’ Facebook page here, as you may be inspired to donate to their missionwork in Tanzania by reading the answer to question 6 above. Short Family in Tanzania

(7) Are you employed, and if so, how do you work your employment around your missionwork in Tanzania?

Tammy is employed full-time as a Nurse here in the States. She chooses her employment based on how flexible her employer will be for her needed travel to/from Tanzania. If necessary, Tammy takes unpaid vacation to go to Tanzania for her missionwork.

(8) What are some of your favorite foods from your childhood? Are there any connections between this food and food which you eat in Tanzania.

The South African village food, specifically a porridge, is similar to food in Tanzania.

Since Tammy’s Mom is American, Tammy and her siblings ate American foods growing up, and/or white South African food.

(9) What are some of the favorite Bible lessons you have taught on the mission field? Describe them.

In her missionary effort to Italy, Tammy worked with children and women and teenagers. In Tanzania, where Tammy taught high schoolers for 4 years, she primarily focused on life lessons with a Bible emphasis. In Africa, many believe that if you follow God, He will bless you with wealth and success. It is important to Tammy to teach to challenge this belief, and to encourage the Africans to follow God even if they do not receive material blessings.

(10) You are multi-cultural. Are you bilingual? If so, what are the languages you speak and/or write?

In Johannesburg, Tammy only spoke English, and was only exposed to other languages which she did not learn. Tammy speaks and writes Italian. Tammy speaks and writes Swahili.

(11) Some TCKs never return to the mission field. What makes the difference, in your estimation, to a TCK returning to the mission field and those TCKs who opt not to return?

Tammy stated that being a TCK can be challenging. If an opportunity to process and heal those difficult parts arises, then the TCK can choose to do missionwork as an adult from a place of healing. If they have not processed their childhood, they might choose where to live based on comfort not mission. If a TCK never felt comfortable in American upon return from the mission field, then the first chance they get, they will head back overseas because they never found a way to be at peace with America. Some TCKs are scarred on the mission field as they live in a fish bowl and endure multiple farewells. They opt to just stay in the States where they finally got comfortable to avoid trauma and not expose themselves to hurt again. Although it is okay to survive, the goal for a TCK is to be able to process and make peace with all of it and then to make decisions from a healthy foundation and not from trauma-reactions. Some who heal will choose to stay in the States. Some who heal will go back overseas. When a TCK has healed, there is no wrong choice about where to live.

There is a camp for TCKs in Oklahoma called Global Reunion, established by John and Beth Reese and others. Lewis and Tammy have encouraged all 3 of their daughters to attend this camp at Oklahoma Christian. Lewis and Tammy are involved with missionary care with InterMission Ministry which is for adult missionaries and their TCKs. So far, Tammy has been to Ecuador, Albania, and stateside Global Reunion with InterMission. Her heart is sad for the deeply troubled missionaries and the deeply troubled TCKs which she encounters.

Since Lewis is a TCK and Tammy is a TCK, this has deeply affected how they raise their children. TCKs face unique challenges and they have tried to connect their 3 daughters with resources like Global Reunion which was established 20 years ago.

The website for the InterMission Ministry is www.intermissionministry.org

(12) Could you share the story of your baptism into Christ?

Tammy wanted to be baptized at age 11 or 12 because she knew her family would be leaving South Africa soon and she wanted to be baptized where she grew up. She verbalized her yearning to her Dad. Her Dad questioned her as to whether she felt a spiritual conviction or just an emotional response to leaving her childhood home? Tammy realized that it was purely emotional, so she opted not to be baptized at that point. A year later, at the Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop, Tammy made a decision to be baptized based on spiritual conviction. Her Dad baptized her.

Conclusion:

Tammy impressed me with her humility and her genuine love and sense of urgency for the lost who need Jesus Christ. I enjoyed spending time with her and I was especially excited when I listened to her on question 11, as a fellow TCK. I hope that you are blessed by this interview, will click on the link for the Shorts’ Facebook page, perhaps donate to help Tammy with her support for high school graduates in Tanzania, and write to the Shorts to encourage them.

However, it is important to note that I want to begin to grow a bit more. In order to achieve this goal, I need more “Likes” and “Shares” on essays which I have already archived, plus my present offerings.

If you genuinely like and appreciate what I have written, then please click “Like” and “Share.” This will allow my work to eventually be more seen, and that will help bring in more free and paid subscribers which will allow me to begin to generate some more income. I have no visions of grandeur of growing wealthy off my Substack offerings, but I think I could bring in something modest which would make a great difference in my cash flow, and, therefore, what I could possibly additionally create, and the more comfortable lifestyle my husband, Tod, and I could possibly revel in.

Tod and I need a vacation and if my Substack income could fund a vacation to say, for instance, Seattle, Washington, that would be just groovy.

In addition, I like to receive feedback, so “Comments” are always welcome. I am thinking I may want to produce more Missionary-themed Interviews. I would like to hear from you, though, if that is something you enjoy and want more of.

I hope my plea is well-received. My intent is to help educate my followership on what I most need right now. Sometimes a reader may just not realize that a simple action like clicking “Like” when the reader really already likes the essay could make a big difference for me, the author. So, without being annoying, I hope you will spend a minute or 2 honoring these requests tonight. I would really appreciate the kindness and good will.

Although Clay and Emily publish a monthly newsletter and they have a website at www.fowlersinjapan.org, I decided I wanted to feature them on Substack, too. I feel an affinity for Emily as a fellow TCK, and although South Africa where I lived and Japan where Emily lived are vastly different culturally, we still discovered points of commonality between us. I interviewed Emily at a Coffee on Tuesday, July 7th, and we had a lovely time together.

You will see following some of the interview questions which I posed to Emily and her very fascinating answers, as reported by me. Her answers were alternately light then deeply sober, and she interspersed all her answers with pretty smiles and occasional laughter.

I will post photographs which Emily has shared with me on Notes in Substack. I hope to keep the interest going via these Notes, so stay tuned for photographs from Emily Fowler in my Notes.

(1) What are a few memories you could share with me about your childhood in Japan as a missionary kid?

In August 1977, on moving day, Emily got up early saying, “Ready to go to ‘Pan!” Her 4-person family had an 11-day journey across the Pacific on a Cargo Ship. Emily’s little brother, Jon, learned to walk on the ship. The family was excited when they reached Japan, and, seeing what looked like an American corndog, Emily’s Mom thought to buy her children those corndogs. Unbeknownst to her, the “mustard” on the corndogs had something like horseradish in it which shocked Emily and her brother. Another food mishap was wasabi in a peanut butter sandwich. So, food culture shock! When Emily went off to school, an Academy, in Tokyo, she was 5 years old, and traveling alone by train. One day when she got her leg caught in the space between the platform and train, a kind Japanese businessman rescued her just in the nick of time and seconds later the train doors closed. She acknowledges providential care in this train incident and in another incident while she was walking to/from school. She did not know to signal a taxi to stop, so when the taxi suddenly saw her, he braked, but not before the taxi gently tapped Emily.

A decisive philosophy of Emily's parents was that their children stay steeped in their original American culture, yet be deeply immersed in Japanese culture simultaneously while they lived in Japan for 9 years during these formative years. So, Emily and Jon attended Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ) for their schooling where students from various other international cultures, including the Japanese, congregated on a daily basis. While the children were away from home during the daytime, they ate all kinds of other types of food from other cultures, but at home Emily's Mom cooked American recipes.

(2) Are you skilled at cooking food the Japanese way? If so, what are some of your favorite Japanese dishes that you are proficient at cooking?

Emily makes Kanten. It is a beautiful and iridescent gelatinous dessert, and I will post a recipe for Kanten in my Notes soon, compliments of Emily. Emily likes to make simple Japanese dishes like Rice Balls (Salmon + Plum). Emily also makes Japanese Curry & Rice. She noted that “Sushi,” technically-speaking is not raw fish but a description of the particular way rice is prepared in Japan.

(3) Would you describe yourself as bilingual in English and Japanese?

Emily says that although she dreams sometimes in Japanese now, most of her early language learning was informal while playing in the streets with Japanese children. Her Dad enrolled in Language School for 2 years, and her Mom for 6 months. When Clay and Emily have moved to Japan in August 2026, they will spend some of their days commuting to/from Language School via monorail or regular train with 1-hour commutes each way.

(4) What are some of your feelings as you anticipate leaving the States for Japan on August 3rd of this year?

Emily stated, and I quote, that she is “soberly excited.” Her children are 25 and 22, young adult kids, and they are married and establishing first homes Stateside. She will miss her children and acknowledges that she had always imagined herself very involved with grandkids. Her son, Ben, and his wife Naomi live in Searcy, AR where Emily and I had this Coffee/Interview. Emily, though, said also that she has thought internationally forever. Her parents have been involved with Japanese missions for 40 years via mini-mission trips to Japan of 9-10 weeks duration at a time. Emily’s family lives and breathes Japan. And her parents even splurged on a trip for Clay and Emily’s, and later Jon’s, children for a 2-week tour of Japan. Emily does not have a romantic ideal of mission work; she mourns the possibility of little involvement with her future grandkids. The contact person for Clay and Emily on the Missions Committee at the Cloverdale Church of Christ is Sandy Rogers who lived in Japan on missions for decades.

(5) How often will you return to the States to visit family and friends? How do you stay in touch with your children in the States while you are living in Japan?

Emily stated that their first furlough will be in 3 years, then every 2 years thereafter. Clay and Emily plan to use an Asian social platform called LINE (which is similar to Face Time and/or What’s App). Emily will communicate via email with their children. They will no longer have access to texting once they land in Japan.

(6) What will your accommodations look like in Japan?

Clay and Emily are still researching their options. They look daily at apartment listings in Tachikawa, Tokyo. Because they are foreigners in Japan, the Japanese landlord will require 12-months rent upfront which funding they have already secured. Clay is a big man; they have already shipped their bed from America to Japan. The apartments are small. Initially, they will live in a dorm room at the Tachikawa Church of Christ.

(7) What role will you adopt as you serve side-by-side with your husband in Japan?

Clay wants Emily to serve side-by-side with him in their mission efforts; they will function as equals. Their mentors in Japan will be an older couple whom Emily first met when she was 3 years old and later witnessed marrying, Nao and Noriko Fukushima (which surname is like a “Smith” in Japan). Clay and Emily have been communicating with this the Fukushimas, the ministry couple via ZOOM calls for the last 2 years. Nao attended SIBI (Sunset International Bible Institute) in Lubbock, Texas, and earned his doctorate at ACU (Abilene Christian University). Emily stated that although the national birth rate is low in Japan, there has been a large influx of young families into Tokyo, and specifically into the Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa. Therefore, Emily will serve in missions in an inter-generational Family Music program which will resemble Kindermusik. I told Emily this idea sounded exciting for a mission effort!

(8) Have you lived in Japan before as an adult?

Emily and Clay have been on several mini-mission trips to Japan during their adulthoods, and in 2017 they were blessed by Emily’s parents to go to Japan on a 2-week tour with their children.

(9) How did you and your husband discover together that your mission goals in life aligned and that Japan ultimately would be your mission destination?

Harding School of Theology professor, Dave Bland, was a mentor to Clay. Dr. Bland’s son, Justin, happens to be at the sponsoring church, Cloverdale, for the Fowlers. Clay and Emily worshipped with the White Station Church of Christ in Memphis since 2009. Clay was advised that his particular ministry skill set would suit for him to serve in a church where he would be allowed to wear many hats and/or serve as a missionary in foreign missions. Clay and Emily have prayed for help with discernment throughout their careers in Kindermusik (Emily) and Graphic Design, Elementary Art, Elementary Librarian, and Churchwork (Clay). Emily’s parents counseled Clay and Emily to go on two 6-week mission trips during the last 2 years. Clay wrote his vision for working in Japan on missions while they worshipped at White Station Church of Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, so that Emily could buy into what he had in mind.

(10) Describe the first few months of your being back in Japan. What will you tackle first, second, third?

Emily stated that they will file for Residence Cards (temporary to permanent) before they ever leave the airport after arrival in Japan. They will stay in the dormitory residence at the Tachikawa Church building until they move into an apartment of their own. In September, they begin Language School and will spend a lot of time commuting to/from (1-hour commute each way) and begin formal study of the Japanese language.

(11) Do you have any Japanese childhood friends you have stayed in contract with through the years?

Emily noted that most of her Japanese friends are via Facebook. She has stayed in touch with Mitsuko who is the daughter of their mentors, the minister and wife team at Tachikawa Church. Emily had Norwegian friends at the Academy in Japan where she went to school and she still stays in touch with them and with the British friends and neighbors she had at the Academy.

A Thank You

I want to thank Emily for spending time with me and sharing her sober excitement about returning to mission work in Japan. I will stay in touch with her while she is away from the States, and try to encourage her. I believe that her Family Music idea, which originated with a communal idea, for mission work is inspired and I cannot wait to hear more as the idea develops and grows in Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan.

I firmly believe that the Lord God is with the Fowlers as they make the challenging transition from American culture to Japanese culture. It will be a blessing to see Emily in another 3 years (the Fowlers’ first furlough back to the States), then in another 2 years (the Fowlers’ furloughs will then be in 2-year intervals).

The Fowlers invite you to visit their website at www.fowlersinjapan.org, which is in its third year of publication, and sign up for their monthly email newsletters.

If you enjoyed this Coffee/Interview Essay, please let me know so that I can enlarge my repertoire of TCKs to feature in Coffee/Interviews.

So, not only were our Moms sort of Twinkies (shared birthdate 10/28/35) and both alumni of Abilene Christian College as contemporaries, but unbeknownst to us Pat was raising Tod on Jule Miller church materials, and Cecilia also was raising her firstborn daughter on Jule Miller church materials across the globe from Houston in Cape Town.

The evangelistic Jule Miller filmstrips were quite primitive compared to modern-day technologies, although they were closely aligned to the biblical narrative, factually by most accounts. The filmstrips required a simple projector whose light bulb invariably blew out whenever our family had an appointment to teach a family interested in the Gospel in their home. Then, my Daddy would simply begin pointing us to the biblical texts and teach from there. He was quite a capable Bible teacher and I noticed that his face would glow whenever he began sharing the Gospel, from either the Jule Miller filmstrips or straight from the Bible.

The Jule Miller church materials were ubiquitous within the Churches of Christ during the 70's. They were a piece of our collective church dynamic, which united Christians within the Churches of Christ, across the globe.

The filmstrips began with the Creation Story and went through the establishment of the Early Church. They were simple yet intelligent enough to reach the un-churched and the practiced theological debater. To some in more modern times, the filmstrips might seem laughable in their simplicity, but they were profoundly effective at evangelism back in the day.

I just find it sort of amazing that my future husband studied at the feet of Jule Miller who was kind of iconic within the Churches of Christ in the 70's, and 10,000 miles away, Tod's future bride, me, learned about Jule Miller via church materials being used in South Africa, most notably being the Jule Miller filmstrips church materials.

God moves in a mysterious way.

The church tracts held miniature articles in booklet form on many various religious topics. I remember specifically the issues of church attendance, heaven/hell, the Lord’s Supper, church leadership organization, baptism being discussed in those tracts. They were sort of colorful and they were FREE. I seldom to never took one on heaven/hell. I looked for topics like the Holy Spirit, church leadership, the Lord’s Supper, and baptism instead. The topics differed from topics which you might see inside a Church of Christ building nowadays. They were very fundamental topics.

If I had a purse with me, I would slip several tracts into my purse to read later. I do not have any of those tracts left to show here. I liked that the tracts were succinct, got to the point virtually immediately, and were sort of colorful graphics-wise.

I do not know whether or not the church tracts resulted in baptisms, but they were readily available for church guests and for those who might want to invite church guests but not know exactly how to answer questions about their Christian faith as related to the Churches of Christ.

The feeling in these tracts was that the Churches of Christ were THE only true Church in Christendom. In present times, that assertion is often softened within the Churches of Christ which I am more comfortable with. In truth, in Bible Classes I was taught that properly baptized believers in any faith in Christendom were New Testament-style Christians. I firmly believed back then that to be the case and I still believe that this is the truest truth.

There is still a church tract rack in the lobby of the Church of Christ I currently attend, but the offerings are a great deal smaller than in the 60’s and 70’s. Excitedly, there are very many more avenues to reach the church guest or even a rare un-churched individual who might enter our buildings. Nostalgically, at the church where I attend, I may collect some of these current church tracts some Sunday and slip them into my purse for later perusal.

The Churches of Christ in the 60’s and 70’s were more given to being combative or were likely to engage in debate to win. The church tracts served often to bolster arguments which might be brought up in an argumentative evangelistic attempt.

It is not that I think that the Churches of Christ, in general, have grown lax where the truth is concerned. I just think that we are sharper psychologically with those who might express an interest in joining the Churches of Christ, more humble, and patient, and kind, though still stalwart about the fact of eternity and heaven/hell, for instance.

There tends to be a greater pluralism in society and more acknowledgment of disability and giftedness, and deeper teachings on home life which home life patterns differ from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and even an emphasis on the fact that physical abuse should never exist in a godly matrimony. I am not arguing to the point of whether societally the Churches of Christ or better off or in worst condition than way back then, just stating factually the societal differences being addressed presently within the Churches of Christ. The problems may cause us headaches, but the tenderness with which the Churches of Christ addresses thorny issues now, I believe, draws others to Christ in the Churches of Christ.

However, the Churches of Christ were very interested in global evangelism in the 60’s and 70’s, and that remains a constant within the Churches of Christ to this day. Our evangelistic materials reflect still a great interest in global evangelism, and this is to be highly commended.

Paper-wise and electronically there are so many more attractive methods in which to interest the actual church guest nowadays and the potential church guest. A church tract might still fit the bill occasionally because it is very respectful of the reader’s time and attention span.

I just wanted to pay tribute today to the church tract rack and the authors who have written for those tracts. Churches have definitely become more sophisticated and the materials offered are amazing, but the humble church tract had its day, and the church tract rack was ubiquitous during my childhood and adolescence in South Africa, and noticed during my brief visit to the States in 1976.

At Southern Africa Bible School in Benoni, Johnannesburg, I was the only girl in a class of highly competitive boys. I had fun competing and took first place in Koine Greek. (I was quite disappointed when I could not compete in Hebrew, too, but only boys were allowed to take Hebrew). If I had stayed at SABS for 2 years, I would have been only the second woman to graduate from Southern Africa Bible School! I decided to leave SABS after 1-1/2 years and when I attended Lubbock Christian College (LCC), ironically, I took no Bible courses because the LCC Registrar accepted all my Southern Africa Bible School Bible credits! This fact saved my Jones family and I alot of money!

During my time at SABS, I lived with Jerry and Ann Hogg, Dave and Liz Savides, and Al and Donna Horne. My room-mate at the Savides’ was Valda Rain. I remember cold showers and sleeping under a stack of blankets in our room. One night, the boys serenaded us and it was very sweet, except that Valda thought that the serenading was all for her. Ha! Cute! When I lived with Al and Donna Horne, I roomed with Lynda, their middle daughter. She taught me to jog, and I remember once jogging around the block with Lynda and while we pounded the pavement we hammered away at a theological argument. We decided to remain friends after our run together even though we had not reached complete agreement on the theological argument under discussion. Lynda and I talked about what we wanted in our future husbands. Lynda wanted to marry a preacher, which she accomplished and is now living in New Zealand where she helps to strengthen the church and evangelize the un-churched. I said I wanted to marry a business man who served the church kind of like my Daddy, a self-supporting missionary. I am married to the Registrar of Harding University who has spent his career during our marriage supporting Christian Higher Education. Lynda had a favorite verse, “Give me neither poverty nor riches …” which I quickly adopted.

I studied efficiently at Southern Africa Bible School. My Daddy served on the Board for SABS, so that served as a great introduction for me to the school. I did, however, earn all my excellent grades on my own merit. I especially enjoyed the teaching of Al and Donna Horne. I arrived at Southern Africa Bible School with a bit of lingering agnosticism from my year under psychiatric care in Cape Town. At SABS, I discovered the beginnings of a deeper faith in God that both resembled my childhood faith learned under my parents and differed dramatically from that faith. I am forever grateful for the 1-1/2 years I had at SABS for I would need all that deepening faith and more to travel 10,000 miles away from my Jones family, changing cultures, and becoming re-acquainted with the Jones/Wester relatives and my Puckett/Campbell relatives in the States. And I lived on only $100-cash monthly while I lived in Johannesburg.

I took great notes in the Bible classes, so taking tests was not too difficult for me. The hardest part of my homework was typing up term papers. It was a laborious effort every time. I still have a notebook with the transliteration of Greek to English of the writings of the Apostle John. I hope to never lose that notebook.

On Monday nights, the ladies learned under Donna Horne. I loved Monday nights! Auntie Donna (a term of great respect for an older woman in South Africa) arrived with her blonde hair well-coiffed, and a speech very well-prepared with funny stories, inspiring stories, quotations of Scriptures, and an invariable challenge for us ladies to grow in maturity. I still admire Auntie Donna.

While living in Johannesburg, Mexican food began to be imported, so I put together a care package to send to my parents in Cape Town, (My Mom had all these years made Mexican food from scratch and what I had to send would save her substantially on labor-intensive kitchen jobs). My Jones family loved the care package!

While at SABS, I continued to recuperate from my year under psychiatric care. I earned great grades, I paid attention to my clean neat clothes, and grew my hair. My Mom expressed her pleasure in my growth. I was at peace in the classroom and the pastoral setting further soothed my psyche. I searched for God and I found a deep faith and an amazing resilience at Southern Africa Bible School. I enjoyed a sterling reputation on campus and I was bouyed up confidence-wise to make the quantum leap of faith Stateside in 1979.

The last fundraising effort I have heard about to do with Southern Africa Bible School is to do with their Library. I hope that that fundraising is progressing well. The school is growing in number, racial integration, and the granting of degrees. I am so pleased that I was a part of the formative years of SABS before she became Southern Africa Bible College. SABS is one of the best decisions in life I have ever made and I love remembering my time there.

Emily and I hope to have a Coffee together in July at a coffeeshop on Harding University campus where I will interview her, then write up the interview to publish, with her approval, later in July, on my Substack account. If you care to help fund our Coffee/Interview in July, please Venmo me @Dana-Martin-85.

It brings me great joy to share memories and experiences with other missionary kids, so I am excited to bring you Emily in July.

If you are new to my Substack newsletter, I grew up as a missionary kid in South Africa 1966 - 1979 and lived in Cape Town and Durban and Johannesburg before flying across the Atlantic to attend Lubbock Christian College, 1979 - 1982. I worked in Houston before marrying my husband, Tod, and moving to Arkansas and Texas and Nebraska, and back to Arkansas where Tod serves as the Registrar for Harding University and I volunteer for a local hospital, Unity Health, and perform SIMS, medical simulations for the College of Pharmacy at Harding University. We have one child, a grown son, named Matthew. And Tod and I own Sam, a labrador.

While Tod and I were dating in 1987-1988, we discovered that our Moms shared the exact same birthdate, 10/28/35! Thus began a fun and friendly tradition of the Moms sending each other birthday cards during October. The birthstone of October is the Opal and my mother-in-law had amassed a beautiful collection of Opals during her lifetime. (She taught me how to read the “fire” inside an Opal). I gave one of my inherited Opals from my mother-in-law to my Mom post-humuously of Mom Martin's death. It is a pretty ring with four Opals in it representing to me Mom Jones’ four children. My Mom cherishes this ring. The picture above is of Mom Jones’ hand wearing the delicate Opal ring which she cherishes.

During my marriage to Tod, I have discovered that Tod and I do many tasks similarly just like our Twinkie Moms taught us, all the way from how we wrap the cord on the vacuum cleaner to how we like to make tuna fish salad. Both Moms liked having the family gathered around a dining room table for the evening meal. They both liked to make pies with Mom Martin excelling at berry pies, and chocolate pie, and Mom Jones excelling at pecan pie, and chess pie, and milktart (South African recipe). Mom Martin loved classical music. My Mom taught piano in Cape Town, South Africa. They both sewed. Mom Martin excelled in Art, and was able to supplement her family income handsomely by teaching Art classes and selling her paintings. Mom Jones never developed her artistic flair, although she showed some promise. My Mom cherished a Gazebo painting by Pat which Tod and I gave her for graduating from Lubbock Christian University with a Masters in Religion. Both Moms are/were faithful members of the Churches of Christ with Dad Martin having been baptized when Pat was pregnant with Tod. Mom Jones married a Christian leader at the Bible Chair of the Broadway Church of Christ. Both Moms are/were godly women whom their children rise up and call blessed (Proverbs 31 women).

So, Twinkie Moms raised their firstborn on separate continents 10,000 miles apart, and yet their firstborn discovered each other in Beaumont, Texas. Tod proposed, later flew with Dana to Cape Town, South Africa for a spectacular visit when we still lived in York, Nebraska. Mom Martin's firstborn showed a keen interest in Mom Jones’ firstborn's childhood home.

My point is with this essay is to try to illustrate how unusual our shared heritage is between Mom Martin and Mom Jones. In fact, my Daddy and Mom attended Mom Martin's memorial service in Texarkana, Texas where Tod gave a magnificent eulogy on behalf of the Martin family to Pat Martin, his Mom, and Pat's firstborn grandson, Matthew, read Romans 8 boldly, one of his Grandma Martin's favorite Scriptures, and his Gramdaddy and Grandmom Jones got to witness their firstborn Jones grandson give tribute to his Grandma Martin, post-humously. I admired the memorial service and appreciated my parents making the effort to be there with my sister Melanie and her husband.

Mom Martin left behind many beautiful items to be celebrated and cherished. Mom Jones is 90 years old and still growing and thriving. They are both iconic women to Tod and myself, and Matthew. Sometimes Mom Jones murmurs to me that Pat's children don't have a Mom now and I detect that she might want to help an old friend, her Twinkie, by mothering Pat's children for a bit. Of course, it would not be the same. I appreciate Mom Jones’ sensitivity, however.

Both Moms encouraged close-knit relationships within the maternal side of their families. Mom Martin was the youngest daughter of an all-girls family. Mom Jones was the firstborn child, a daughter, of a family where her three younger sisters grew up in a completely different generation, and she had a brother. So there were some major differences, and so I say, viva la difference, in those instances. However, the significance of a shared birthdate is still pretty incredible!

I do not want the significance of this shared birthdate by our family Matriarchs to be lost. It is very unusual and fun, and I wonder if the Matriarchs saved each others’ birthday cards to one another. If so, I would like Matthew to have those birthday cards eventually. The shared diplomacy of both Matriarchs is a very treasured memory for me.

This picture is beautiful and mysterious to me, all at once. The fact that a Church is pictured really resonates with me. Church is so core to the lives of my husband Tod and me. The mist reminds me that our lives are like a vapor, a mist. If so temporary, elusive, do our lives even matter?! Of course our lives matter.

The admonition in Scripture is to celebrate each day that the Lord has made and given to you to enjoy. If we dwell on the past virtually exclusively, sentimentally, we miss opportunities to live in the present with great intention. Today will be tomorrow so quickly and just a set of memories in our past. Also, if as visionaries often do, we keep scanning the horizon for possibilities we may miss the opportunities presented today to build our lives in the present to better our futures. The Scriptures are wisest in admonishing us to redeem the time, the day, we have been given to live as it is the only time guaranteed us. In fact, each minute lived is really the only guaranteed time we have.

This could cause us to live with such intensity that we might be unbearable to live with. The Scriptures also admonish us not to worry about food or clothes and notice the birds and the flowers which are provided for by God and they are not stressed-out. They are well-provided for because they acknowledge their dependence on the Maker and know He will provide for them abundantly and sumptuously.

Should we just not care to toil and work for a living?! No! The Scriptures warn us about eating the bread of idleness. We should daily rest our hopes for our toil in God and just rest more than frantically strive.

The mist is everywhere in the picture. It does not last. The sun burns off the mist eventually but for a time the mist is everywhere! We have opportunities to go exploring and share the mystery which is Christ. Then when we are called home, we go rejoicing to heaven to be with God.

Mist is beautiful, cannot be hurt with knives or swords, and it tends to slow us into a reverie, occasionally of wonder and awe. Our lives being likened to a mist is a beautiful word picture. Our lives are ethereal, barely here, and yer of great consequence.

We need to pay attention in the mist. Our sight must be keener. In fact, all our senses in a mist are at a heightened alert level. We do not want to be unpleasantly surprised but be prepared for any number of eventualities. In novels, apparitions often rise from the mist, so we would need to be prepared to battle Satan should a satanic apparition appear.

Yes, mists can be very beautiful. We need to be at alert status in a mist. Mists often mysteriously disappear just as quickly as they mysteriously appear. Our lives matter even though likened to a mist or vapor in the Bible.

Live for today. Celebrate the day you have been given. Redeem the time. Express gratitude. Dwell less on the past and the future and dwell more in the present. Praise God for the breath you breathe. And remember, This is the Day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

As missionary kids, our Mom Jones had specific ideas about our ethical practices, even on school playgrounds.

In the Natal Province of South Africa, in Durban, at our elementary school, the playground regularly became a marble-playing oasis. I discovered that I had skill at marble-playing, but when I went home my Mom said that is like putting in a little and potentially gaining an unfair windfall. That if I won something really big, it would have to be all evenly divided between all the competitors. Yikes -- how complicated that would be, and embarrassing at my age to seem like an oddball on the playground rules, so I packed away my marbles and ended a possible great run, highly successful, at marble-playing.

Did I understand Mom Jones’ reasoning? Not exactly but I decided not to create a big family drama. Our Mom Jones had stayed adamant on her ethics and solid principles pitch. So, I decided thst when I grew up I might understand better, and so sometimes I sat admiring my beautiful marble stash but I never played again.

There were great expectations placed on my siblings and me as missionary kids, some expectations were unfair, some fair, and the practices within the Churches of Christ have changed across the decades but during the 1960's and 1970's, the Churches were big on being anti-drinking and anti-gambling and Mom Jones had just tried to teach her oldest child, me, what she had understood on the subject of anti-gambling in the States. There was no great harm done to my psyche, just a pretty severe disappointment to my budding career winning more and more beautiful marbles, a hoped-for potentially huge heap! And I liked the fun of marble-playing, the camaraderie, the great spirit of friendly competition on the playground. And then I became a wallflower, just stayed on the playground sidelines and practiced clean ethics.

I guess Mom Jones liked developing leadership qualities in her children (not following the crowd, and rising above popularity bids), and her motives were pure, even though I had to leave marble-playing behind on a South African school playground!

Our Mom first discovered MILO, a warm bed-time chocolate-y milky drink on a train ride from Johannesburg to Cape Town while traveling with four young Jones children. At first, she was insulted thinking the train steward had offered her food for animals as, having grown up in farming country in West Texas, that was her point of reference for MILO. MILO later became a beloved soothing milk-y beverage for our Jones family. Then we discovered banana Pro-Nutro, a breakfast cereal, which really absorbed the milk, and absorbed the milk, and absorbed the milk. And, on Sunday nights, post-Church, our parents would have a colorful, albeit occasionally dubious, Trifle waiting for us in the fridge at home. It was quite a conglomeration of puddings and gelatins and Lady Fingers lining the bowl. We loved it, overall. Our Mom learned how to make excellent milkterts, milk tarts, and she will still spoil us at family gatherings in Texas with milkterts. And rusks became a Jones family favorite at tea-time. Rusks were gently dunked in your Rooibos tea to soften and then the rusks were eaten. They were absolutely delicious. There were Marie Biscuits (which I initially thought were named after me -- ha!) and Tennis Biscuits and Cadbury Chocolate Bars (Fruit & Nuts were favorite bars) and Flakys (which were very messy and so good), all of which we can now pick up in Dallas at a cafe owned by Jewish South Africans. Romany Cremes were one of our absolute favorites as the Jones kids (they seemed a cut above the rest, so classy). Appletizer (see earlier post) is still the most beautiful of drinks and had its origins in the Cape Province of South Africa. Our Daddy loved Kingklip and Swordfish (and he misses Southern Hemisphere seafood), and our family learned to love boerewors (hearty sausage) at braais ( the equivalent of American barbeques). Scones were heavenly, and LYLE'S Golden Syrup ubiquitous at our family breakfast table. The Jones family all loved a lemon custard for tarts which we would spoon right out of the jar. Our Mom often stewed dried fruit to make a fruit compote for breakfast. In Durban, during our family's brief sojourn there, our Mom perfected her curry dishes. (Durban is populated by large Eastern Indian communities who are famous for their curry dishes). We enjoyed our FANTA sodas. And there is so much more we loved to learn of South African fare. The bananas were different, and we learned to love mangos. The squash were different and very delicious. And once or twice our parents even sent us kids to our Durban elementary school with sugar cane in our lunch boxes. (That was very tricky to eat).

Two of the Jones grandkids sampled zebra at a gourmet wild game restaurant during a trip to South Africa during the mid-2000's. Harry, our most South African sibling, brings Appletisers regularly to our family gatherings in Texas. Our Mom and Harry made a curry dish for Christmas dinner last December in Texas. It was pure nostalgia and tasted great.

When we were growing up there, there were no Kentucky Fried Chickens or McDonalds. Everything is far more Americanized there now. During our sojourn there, South Africans were intrigued by our Mom Jones’ Blueberry Jell-O Salad, and my Amerucan Coca-Cola Cake and Angel Food Cake in Home Economics at Bergvliet High School, more intrigued then than they might be now.

At suppers, our Mom most often prepared American dishes and often brought in large bowls of fresh strawberries from our strawberry patch. On birthdays, us Jones kids could request any menu items for our birthday meal and my most requested menu was: Swiss Steak and Appletiser.

Our parents were very hospitable and were always inviting guests in from church and visiting missionary families, too! Our Daddy liked to surprise everyone with ostrich egg/chicken egg scrambled eggs for breakfasts. He had to go to the local butcher to buy an ostrich egg and then use an awl to drill into it. The mixed scrambled eggs really caused the conversation to flow at table.

Our parents taught us early to try a little of everything offered to us when we were guests just to see if we might like the new taste sensation. However, if the host/hostess heaped up a new taste sensation for us, we were not required to finish it. At that point, our parents would not think their children rude or discourteous -- only that we had to try just a little to show that we were culturally sensitive and courteous.

I think that a Vintage Missionary Kid learns a great deal about multi-cultural sensitivity at an early age without even realizing what she is absorbing. And hospitality is so discussed in the Bible and Jesus especially seemed to understand the importance of being an appreciative guest. We might all yearn for the familiar, and yet the blessing (which may not be clearly understood at the time) is being put in multi-cultural situations where it is imperative to learn new rules of common courtesy and how exactly, as you grow, to express appropriate appreciation for a meal.

I love that the global community is “smaller,” more interconnected nowadays, and our Jones family can love the foods we grew to love in South Africa, during our mission, in the States, too, today.

Today I am writing to inform you that if you subscribe monthly and give me your mailing address, I will send you a Cape Town postcard, like the above. And if you choose to become a Founding Member, I will send you 3 postcards. For yearly subscriptions, I will send you 2 postcards if you give me your mailing address. I have already sent 3 postcards to my only Founding Member so far, my brother, Harry Jones. I will send the postcards enclosed in a card to the mailing address you give me.

Since this is “Vintage Missionary Kid” and I am a “Vintage” Senior Citizen, I have typed and typed and typed to exhaustion! Compared to the fluidity of computers and cell phones which require only a light touch and present very easy ways to correct a mistake, typing on a Typewriter required strong hands/fingers and dubious ways of correcting mistakes! I had a Professor once who would not accept a Term Paper from his students with any method of correction known to typists. I was known to sit at the typewriter late into the night, with tears in my eyes, starting over again and again until I had an error-free Term Paper to submit. So to the younger generations -- you are fortunate, indeed! Computers are so user-friendly and corrections are just not a big deal anymore. The Computer keeps no records of the wrongs! The final product is just beautiful almost every time, without fail!

The correction processes for the Typewriter in the 60's, 70's, and 80's had little correction strips which you would back up and type out the offending mistake and then re-type. It never looked really great and the correction was noticeable. There was also White-out, a liquid that you could paint delicately over the mistake, let the liquid dry (sometimes blowing on it to hurry up the drying process), and then typing correctly over the thin layer of White-out dried-out really well, so that the correction looked nearly perfect, but not quite, especially if your White-out was old and gloppy!

Then Electric Typewriters with auto-correct burst onto the scene and I had to have one! What bliss to lightly touch the keyboard and see words magically appear before you below the paper with the typed words, electronically. If you caught your mistake quickly and while you were still in the correct time frame electronically, the correction would be undetected by any Professor because you repaired the mistake electronically before authorizing the Electric Typewriter to print off the approved electronic text on your Term Paper. Sometimes the Electric Typewriter with electronic window went on the fritz though and you had to submit the machine to a Typewriter Repairman Specialist, and revert to the Manual Typewriter which required more hand strength and, depending on exactly how picky your Professor might be, many, many drafts typed searching for a clean copy with absolutely no corrections! Or -- if your Professor were not all that picky, your final draft, submitted, never looked as clean as modern-day computer submissions!

The speed with which I can produce an Essay with corrections corrected, in comparison to typists in the olden days would be mind-boggling for those who had only Manual Typewriters to author with. However, when I looked for stock images of Typewriters to display an example for this article, I met with great nostalgia for ancient Manual Typewriters! They reminded me of Agatha Christie Murder Mysteries, for instance. The Typewriter sightings for Journalists submitting Press Releases are ubiquitous in the Film Industry. And the ancient Typewriters are really attractive in a sentimental sort of way.

When I worked as a “Headhunter” for M. David Lowe in Houston during my Single Years (before I met and married Tod ❤️), we still required Typing Tests and anyone applying for Secretarial/Administrative Assistant Roles had to make a certain grade on the Typing Tests to qualify. Some Firms in Houston still had Typewriters; most were integrating Computers at that point, albeit really clumsy sorts of Computers.

I am not a Computer guru. My son, Matthew, is helping me on questions which I generate to him about Substack and electronics. The point I am making for this Essay is that I find the progress from Typewriters to Computers and Cell Phones phenomenal, and I want to celebrate that great progress in Tools for Authors, specifically, and that not everything in modern society is dooming civilization! (I know that AI is both positive and negative and that specific guardrails may need to be applied to AI, but that subject is beyond the parameters of this article, and my expertise). I am simply grateful today that I am authoring on Substack and that Substack is phone-friendly and computer-friendly, and that all of this might not have been possible just mere decades ago!

And my hands/fingers have such a great break from where they had been at Southern Africa Bible School (Benoni, Johannesburg) and Lubbock Christian College (Lubbock, Texas). Anyone else what to Comment with a Typewriter Story from their life?

I would love to receive your “Likes” on my Essays as that signals Substack to distribute my Essays a little more widely. Also, I love receiving “Comments,” especially with interesting stories from your lives.

During the 1960's and 1970"‘s, the Joneses owned a succession of VW Kombis. An examole is shown above. It is into a Kombi like this one, we would pack suitcases, snacks, books, and pillows … and PEOPLE pre-dawn each year to make our annual pilgrimage to the Southern Africa Bible School Lectureships. We always seemed to have room for one more PERSON, although how, I do not know to this day!

We prayed a prayer solemnly, though with great expectation as we left the driveway to our house on Cranko Avenue in Cape Town. We traveled a hard 2 days, covering 1000 miles each way very efficiently. There were occasional annoyances to the driver, primarily Stuart C. Jones (Daddy) like the time he discovered Sakkie and I had been throwing our chewing gum out the tiny side windows and the chewing gum had stuck in neat little rows all along the side of the Kombi. Sakkie and I had to scrape it all off, gently. Ha! Cecilia prepared our snacks at rest stops and she prepped the snacks attractively. Stuart timed our bathroom breaks at rest stops down to the minute. We were always kind of scared Stuart (Daddy) might drive off and leave us if we ran even one minute behind. Ha!

Once, we had a Rhodesian named John traveling with us and when we reached Swaziland, the border guards would not recognize John's Rhodesian passport, so John slept in South Africa that night and the rest of us slept in Swaziland that very same night. Swaziland is where I first saw peacocks spread their plumage wide. Magnificent, although peacocks screech terribly!

We also stayed on an Afrikaaner farm once traveling to or from Jo'burg. The beds were scrumptious, deep and snuggly, and then for Breakfast we were served warm cows’ milk.

In Johannesburg (specifically Benoni), we stayed with fellow Christians, in their homes. And nightly, we sang “Our God, He Is Alive” at the Benoni Church of Christ. Since the Churches tended to be small in South Africa, a gathering of a 1000++ Christians at one time felt quite thrilling!

The big deal for the young ladies at the Lectureship was being asked to the Lectureship Banquet. For weeks before Lectureship our Mom Jones’ sewing machine would be whirring with the sounds of her making Formals for my sisters and I to wear to Banquet. There was the year I went to Banquet with Stanley Mitchell, then Chris Burke, and of course my favorite, Andy Bester. I performed on stage, “Thy Brother's Blood Crieth,” by Amy Carmichael in a dreamy light-blue Formal my Mom had made for me. I was Andy Bester's date that night.

There was the year that our Daddy met with contacts from the Richland Hills Church of Christ at the Lectureship, and they took on the sponsorship of bringing the Jones Grandchildren and their Parents “home” to the States during America's Bicentennia), 1976. (Of course, “home” to the Jones Kids was South Africa, but we were excited to see the land of our births). Our Daddy also served on the Board for the Southern Africa Bible School (SABS), so our pilgrimage allowed Stuart (Daddy) to touch base with his fellow SABS Board Members.

Cecilia (Mom).spoke at one Lectureship, and I remember she led the song, “My Stubborn Will, At Last Hath Yielded.” I will never forget that song. I spoke, too, at one Lectureship, impromptu, and made everyone in the audience cry with the tribute I paid my Mom. Another ladies’ speaker was Donna Horne and I always loved hearing her speak.

Now back to driving and the Kombi: In the ancient Kombis there was a bench where you rode backwards and one where you rode forwards. The Fairness Guru, Cecilia Jones (Mom) always made sure we took turns on each bench, plus there was also a Rumble Seat which I, invariably, fell off every time I had to take a turn sitting there. We leaned on each others’ shoulders with our pillows to sleep and that felt cozy. Still, I just loved it when I was home again on Cranko Avenue in Cape Town in my own little bed. Church at the Plumstead Church of Christ felt very small after the big Benoni Church of Christ at Lectureship, but we were home and the Plumstead Church of Christ was where we attended, and picked figs and ate figs from big fig trees in the church yard, after our worship services on Wednesday nights.

And we knew … next year, there will be another pilgrimage to Johannesburg with more laughter and singing and Lectureship Banquet invitations, but for the time being, we were home in gorgeous Cape Town, and we were fortunate! The city evidenced the supreme Artistry of the Creator God and we woke up every day on a peninsula surrounded by Table Mountain and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Cape Town is a masterpiece of grandeur and beauty. Praise God!

Then, my walking buddy, Alicia, with her husband, Jay, is co-leading Mostly Music with Harding University Students across Europe, and having a sweet reunion with her children and Mom in England. I will miss Alicia deeply, however, I am glad for her and her family.

I am very happy Dianne is staying in town, although she will be recuperating from Knee Replacement Surgery. Dianne loves to travel and is frequently gone to Harding University in Zambia (HIZ) or Harding University in Greece (HUG) during the Summer/Fall Semesters. I wish Dianne could travel this Summer versus having to rest and recuperate post-surgery. However, my heart is happy she will still be in Searcy for me to chat with and shower with little gifts. Dianne's best friend, Debbie, will be touring with her husband, Tim, for Harding in Eurasia this Summer/Fall. I am sure Dianne will be eager for her stories.

The reason Tod and I do not tend to travel during the Summers is because he is Registrar year-round for Harding University. We will go away for a Miata Drive to 4 Arkansas State Parks which should be a beautiful drive and very fun. And Tod is cast in Peter Pan Gone Wrong this Summer in Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre, so that will be great fun, helping Tod learn lines in a Comedy. Laughter between us is so emotionally healing.

The Jones Grandchildren travel, too! Bay Jones will jet-set to the Bahamas and London. Matthew Martin may visit Kendra Brock in Washington DC.

I guess having grown up traveling internationally, I am just wistful when everyone else is going away and Tod and I are not, so I have to flex my contentment muscle, be genuinely pleased with others’ great fortune, and prepare myself for all sorts of exciting storytelling this Fall 2026. I hardly imagined being left behind so much during my adult years, but it teaches me to find the joy in the changing rhythms and moods of Searcy, and I greatly anticipate the return of my fellow Searcians so very deeply this Fall, which is a fun emotion to feel.

I wish my fellow Searcians Godspeed and healthy servings of grace and mercy within their Educational Groups and Christian Mission Groups. How exciting it is that I do not live in just any small town in Arkansas, but in Searcy, which shines a light across all nations. I pray that my fellow Searcians travel boldly and well and bring the best that is us in Searcy to the global community.