It wasn’t a bad morning in the Kentucky hills – it was clear and bright, and there was the promise of spring in the air, although it clearly was going to be a while before it arrived. Nanci and Sarah were on their way back from Colt Creek Methodist Church, where Sarah had just finished giving the morning service. It was the third service she had given since the two got back from their holiday in Arizona, the second at Colt Creek. Nanci thought it had gone very well, and Sarah seemed pleased with it.

Sarah may still have been rather shy and withdrawn personally, but when she stood in a pulpit it was obvious to Nanci that the spirit of the Lord took her over, because she was a really good speaker. It was especially heartwarming that this time the people at Colt Creek had asked for her by name after the great service she gave there the first time, and when they left this morning, a number of people had said they were looking forward to her coming again.

But Sarah happened to be a little nervous right now, and under the circumstances Nanci was nervous, too, for it was Sarah behind the wheel of the Camry, driving rather slowly and tentatively down the nearly empty country road. She was doing all right, but it was still Nanci’s treasured little car, the one that had carried her out of the hell her life had been in Chicago years before. Ever since settling in Flagstaff Nanci had tried to keep it in good shape, with some help from Jeff Pleva, but it was still ten years old. It was nowhere near as bad as Jennifer’s Monza had been before Will had taken it on himself to have it restored, but it wasn’t a new car anymore, either.

But for now it was still her faithful companion, the key to her independence and the biggest and most valuable thing she owned. It was also a constant reminder of how far she had come with her life since that April day not quite five years before when, scared and hungry, she’d driven it out of Chicago toward Flagstaff, where her last remaining hope might be waiting. A junkyard was no place for it to end up, as far as she was concerned – the car had done much too much for her. She had no plans on trading it in, ever, and had given some thought to asking Al if he could find a barn somewhere where it could be stored when it was too decrepit to drive, and later having it restored if and when she could find the money.

So it was quite a leap in faith for her to decide to use it so Sarah could learn to drive. Having the Camry had been a literal lifesaver to Nanci, but it also gave her a good deal of independence. The longer Sarah’s parents stayed away in Africa – and they’d been gone longer now than either of them had expected – the more likely it seemed that they’d be there for years, even decades longer. If Sarah had to wind up spending the summer at Hickory Run, she’d be terribly isolated without some way to get around. The only solution seemed to be for her to learn how to drive, and maybe, if her folks stayed gone, she could appropriate their car, which as far as she knew was still sitting in Huntington.

That meant that the only thing Nanci could do would be to teach her to drive. It would have been nice if Sarah could have attended a driving school, but there were none nearby and the cost was a little steep. But being of age, state law didn’t require her to attend a school, so there was nothing Nanci could do but do her best. They’d arranged for Sarah to get a learner’s permit, but they’d only been out driving half a dozen times, since they both had a considerable amount of studying to do, and it seemed too risky to have a new driver like Sarah out in bad conditions. It wasn’t quite a case of the blind leading the blind, since Nanci was a good driver with over ten years’ experience, but it was the first time she’d ever tried to do such a thing and she felt she had a right to be nervous.

But although Sarah was very tentative behind the wheel – as she had every right to be at her stage – she was doing fine and slowly becoming more comfortable with it. It was enough that Nanci felt she could relax a little.

Once again Nanci thought back to the time they’d spent in Arizona. It had been a happy time, although they really hadn’t done much for the first few days after Christmas other than drive Nanci’s mother’s car around to check out some of the local sights. Nanci had even driven the two of them up to Lee’s Ferry, the only place they could easily get right down to the river. There was a party of private rafters getting set to leave, and they watched them for a while. The National Park Service allowed only one launch per day during this time of year. Commercial launches were done for the year, but the private boaters would go whenever their turn came up. It looked like they would have a good trip; Canyon Tours had run an experimental winter trip a few years before, but Nanci had been at Black Mesa College and had been unable to go on it. So all she could do was stand by wistfully watching; it would be over four months before she’d be back in a raft again, and it seemed likely that it could be her last summer on the river that had played a big part in changing her life.

In the middle of the week after Christmas they’d driven back down to Phoenix to stay with Jon and Tanisha for a few days. That gave them the chance to spend a little more time in the pool, in spite of the fact that it was on the coolish side, and also gave them a chance to do a little more shopping for new clothes for Sarah. There was nothing expensive or extravagant, just good, serviceable, modest clothes, but she looked almost like a new person.

Finally the day came when Jon and Tanisha drove the two of them back out to the airport, where they got on Jennifer’s Citation, not without some hugs. In two weeks Sarah had made many new friends in Arizona, and that had helped improve her spirits. The flight back to Lexington was all too short, both of them had hugs from Will and Jennifer when they got off the plane – it seemed that Sarah had made more friends out of a couple of very unlikely people. All in all it had been a very successful trip for one taken on something of a whim, and Nanci thought that Sarah had gotten a lot out of it.

They had a day to recover and get themselves set up for the new semester, and they needed it. It wasn’t exactly a case of “back to the grind” because they were studying things they were both intensely interested in. This semester they found themselves partnered with a couple of middle-aged men, Warren Daugherty and Norm Lewis, who they’d met casually the previous semester. They soon found out the two were both military retirees – Daugherty from the Navy, and Lewis from the Army. Although there was a certain amount of inter-service jibing, both of them proved to be very serious students who were looking forward to second careers in the ministry. In addition to the work they did together, they had some fine discussions down in the lounge of Mrs. Keller’s Place.

Nanci finally did get around to telling Sarah of her father’s Christmas Day phone call. Sarah wasn’t as upset at the news as Nanci had feared she might be, only saying, “I guess that means he still hasn’t gotten the message,” and Nanci had to agree with her. The subject of her parents and Reverend Abraham Bowman just hadn’t come up very often after that.

Sarah’s driving was going so well that Nanci decided to just let her drive the rest of the way back to Hickory Run, even though it involved driving through Madison. The Sunday traffic wasn’t heavy and she was doing just fine, although Nanci could detect a little relief once they were out of town and headed up the highway toward the seminary. She was still obviously a ways from being able to take a driver’s test, but things were going along well enough, Nanci thought. Nevertheless, it was something of a relief when Sarah parked the Camry in the small lot behind Mrs. Keller’s Place.

“Well, I guess we made it,” Sarah sighed as she shut off the engine.

“You’re coming along,” Nanci assured her. “After some practice it’ll seem like second nature, and you won’t have to think about it much.”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

The two of them got out of the car; both were carrying their purses and Bibles, and Sarah had a small folder with the notes she’d used for her sermon, although Nanci had noted that she hadn’t needed to refer to them very often. She was coming along with that, too. “I guess we’re back in time for lunch,” Nanci observed casually. “I think I was smelling roast beef before we left.”

“That would be nice. I really love the way Mrs. Ellison does it. At least we’ll have some time for some serious studying this afternoon.”

“I could use it. The Book of Discipline is important, but sometimes it puts me to sleep, too.” The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church was a rather dry book that was at the core of a number of their classes, and they both referred to it daily even if the classes didn’t directly involve it.

They were heading for the stairs when Norman stopped them. “There are people in the lounge who have been waiting for you,” he told them.

“All right, we’ll take a swing through there,” Nanci replied. “Thanks, Norman.”

They turned around and walked past the dining room into the lounge, where Reverend and Mrs. Lackamp were waiting for them. “Daddy!” Sarah grinned. “What are you doing here?”

“We came to see you, Sarah. We’ve been waiting for a while. Where have you been?”

“We were over at Colt Creek Methodist for the Sunday service,” she told him. “We just got back.”

“Did Reverend Chladek preach a good sermon?”

“No,” Sarah grinned. “I did it. Nanci just drove me over there.”

“You? I didn’t know you could do that.”

“She did a fine job,” Nanci explained. “I’ve seen her do several services now, and she’s really good at it. When she gets in the pulpit you wouldn’t think she’s the same person.”

“It’s something I never expected of you,” Reverend Lackamp sighed.

“So, Daddy,” Sarah said, “when did you get back? We haven’t heard anything about what happened.”

“We just got back this morning. We tried to call you, but your phone keeps going to voicemail.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t check it very often. There aren’t many people who would want to call me.”

That was reaching toward a fib, and Nanci knew it. Sarah hadn’t even taken her cell phone to Arizona when the two of them had gone there, and she’d never turned it on when they got back. The battery was probably flat, because she didn’t think Sarah had even thought about charging it, mostly because she didn’t want regular phone calls haranguing her about Abraham Bowman. It was one way not to get them. Nanci suspected that Reverend Lackamp hadn’t even tried to call her, mostly because of the curt way she had cut him off at Christmas.

“You should check it more often,” Sarah’s father chided her. “Sometimes there might be something important. We have some good news for you. Why don’t we go find some chairs so we can talk about it?”

Nanci braced herself. The odds were two out of three that this wasn’t news that Sarah would consider good.

“It was decided that they can’t try to reopen the mission?” Sarah said hopefully as they gravitated toward some comfortable chairs and a davenport in the lounge.

“No, exactly the opposite,” Sarah’s father said as they sat down. “They’re going to allow us to reopen in a small way. It’s not what we had hoped for, but at least it’s a foot in the door and we may be able to expand things after a while. The old mission station is gone, honey. There isn’t even a sign of it, and we even had trouble finding where it had been. A man we talked to said it was burned out pretty badly, and then bulldozed flat. It’s gone, and that’s all there is to it.”

“It seems to me to be pretty worthless to consider trying to reopen it then,” Sarah said.

“That’s what we think. We spent some time looking around and talking to people, but none of the people we were working with seem to be around anymore. There was a lot of violence in the area, and I think you can figure out what that means.”

“Refugees or dead,” Sarah replied soberly.

“That’s what we think. The man we were able to talk to told us that many of our people left for refugee camps in the Congo. I know that with all the troubles they had there, that doesn’t mean anything good happened. There was a lot of violence there, too, and the refugee camps were pretty bad.”

“From what little I’d heard, it’s no surprise.”

“Then it was probably worse than you heard, because it was worse than we had heard, too. Anyway, after a lot of discussion and prayer, we came to the realization that it wasn’t worth the trouble to try and reopen the mission station at the same location. We’re going to have to start from scratch, but it will at least be a little closer to the capital.”

Sarah shook her head. “So you’re going back.”

“Of course we are. We decided a long time ago that we’d go back if the door was opened to us. It’s been opened, granted, not very far, but at least we can get back to what we feel we’re supposed to be doing.”

Sarah let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess I didn’t expect anything different. I’ve heard you talking about going back for so long that I didn’t think you’d turn down the opportunity. How soon before you leave?”

“We don’t know yet, but as quickly as possible, so we can be there before they change their minds. I can’t imagine that it’s going to take more than a month, and hopefully less. I’m going to drive up to the Conference office tomorrow and give them my resignation from Huntington. We’ll have to give up the parsonage, of course, but they’ll allow us some time to do that. We’re going to put a lot of our things in storage, and only take the minimum it will take us to get along. We’ve been told that getting things shipped to us is a very chancy thing, and a lot of personal shipments get lost, which I take to mean stolen.”

“I wouldn’t expect any different.”

“That’s to be expected in Africa,” Reverend Lackamp shrugged. “Things are better there now than when we left, but they’re not back to what they were before the troubles started. But maybe we can be of some help in getting things back to normal. That’s part of why we think it’s important to get back.”

“Well, if that’s what you want to do, I guess it’s what you want to do,” Sarah shrugged. “I think you’re pretty close to crazy to want to try to start over from scratch at your age, but I guess I can’t stop you.”

Nanci kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t spent a lot of time studying things in that part of the world because she had other things to do, but she pretty much agreed with Sarah. Given the political and ethnic turmoil, she couldn’t see how the Lackamps could manage to accomplish anything useful, but she had to concede that they knew more about the situation there than she did.

“We both think it’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” Reverend Lackamp reiterated. “But look, honey, we’re concerned about you, too.”

Oh, boy, Nanci thought, here it comes, another pitch for Abraham Bowman.

“We’d really like you to consider coming with us,” Sarah’s mother put in. “We know you’re not really interested in it, but you could be a big help in getting the mission going again.”

“No, Mommy,” Sarah shook her head. “No. Never. Not after what happened when we left. I have no desire to go back there under any circumstances.”

“You were young then, and you’ve had time to get over it.”

“Be that as it may, there’s no way I’m going back there, ever.”

“Not even for the summer? I know there won’t be any classes here then. What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet, mostly because I figured you’d be back and would have given up on the idea. I have thought about taking some summer classes somewhere else, and now that I know that you’re not going to be in the country I guess I’ll have to look into them.”

Nanci knew that was a fib, or at least Sarah had never discussed anything of that nature with her. What’s more, she knew she couldn’t be any help to Sarah over the summer, because she would be in a raft in the Grand Canyon. But Sarah needed some help, too. “We were looking at Black Mesa College, out in Arizona where I went to school,” she said, not quite telling a fib herself. “They have some possible classes there.”

“But how would you get to Arizona?” Reverend Lackamp said.

“I could probably ride out with Nanci when she goes out,” Sarah shrugged.

“I suppose we could work out something,” Nanci agreed.

“Daddy, I was wondering. Are you planning on selling the car?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t know how to drive anyway.”

“I’m learning,” Sarah replied. “I’m not ready for my license yet, but I should be soon.”

Sarah’s father frowned. “Even if you had a license, you don’t have enough experience to consider driving that distance.”

“I would have if you’d let me learn to drive when I asked you years ago,” Sarah said sharply.

“We didn’t think you were ready for it,” Mrs. Lackamp said. “In fact, I’d question whether you’re ready for it now.”

“Well, it’s out of the question,” her father said. “We’re going to need the money just to get going. The society doesn’t have much money to put into this project, so we’re going to have to get along with what we have.”

“All right, I’ll come up with something else,” Sarah protested. “I don’t know what yet, but I’ll come up with something. I’m still upset with the way you abandoned me at Christmas without even a Christmas card by way of apology. Nanci and her family were nice enough to take me in and we had a wonderful time. Now, you’re just abandoning me again, and this time it’s permanent. Well, I’m fine with that if that’s how you want it. Go to your stinking mission and save all the souls you can. You might be able to get one or two. I’m sure that’s more important to you than I am.” With that, she jumped to her feet, grabbed her purse, Bible, and folder, and just about ran up the stairway to their suite.

“I hoped it would go better than that,” Reverend Lackamp said as he watched her go. “If she’d just listen to a little reason she’d see that she’d be better off if she did what we wanted.”

Nanci had about all of Sarah’s parents she could handle by that time, but she wanted to help calm things down if she could. “In other words,” she said, “your way or the highway, right?”

“I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” Reverend Lackamp huffed.

“You didn’t give her any other choice,” Nanci said. “I realize you think you’re between a rock and a hard spot, but there ought to be some give somewhere.”

“We’re worried about her,” Sarah’s mother said. “She doesn’t know how to get along out in the world by herself.”

“And when have you ever given her the chance to learn it?” Nanci asked. “Look, I know it’s tough to be a young woman out in the world alone with no family support. I was there and it came very close to killing me, but by the Lord’s Grace I managed to survive. I’m trying to help Sarah learn some of those things she needs to know, but you’re not making it any easier.”

A few minutes later Nanci knocked on Sarah’s door – from the bathroom side, since she thought it would be less intimidating. “Sarah, it’s me, Nanci,” she said. “They’re gone. They’re not very happy, but they’re gone.”

“Good riddance,” she heard a tearful Sarah say from beyond the door. “Come on in, Nanci.”

Nanci found Sarah lying face down on her bed, her face streaked with tears. “I guess that just shows where I stand,” she said angrily. “Their damn mission is so much more important to them than I am. At least I know where I stand.”

“Maybe it’ll blow over a little,” Nanci said in what she knew would probably be a futile attempt to soothe her friend. “I laid a few scriptures on them about the importance of family. Maybe they’ll take.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Sarah replied; Nanci noted that Sarah’s language was extremely foul, at least for her – she’d never heard her use that word in that context before. That said as much as her words did.

“There is a bright side,” Nanci said.

“What’s that?”

“They didn’t try to shove Abraham Bowman down your throat again.”

“Only because I left before they got that far. They were working up to it. I could see that. Nanci, what am I going to do now?”

“Sarah, all I can tell you is what I had to tell myself when I was trapped in a wilderness of sin, and that is to survive. Things could be worse, I know that. Now, come on, Mrs. Ellison is about to serve dinner, and we don’t want to miss her roast beef.”

“You go. I don’t feel like eating.”

“All right, I’ll have her make up a couple of plates and put them in the refrigerator for us so we can microwave them later. Then, as soon as I get back up here, we’re going to pray.”

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