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I read a lot of blogs. In fact, I currently have a little over 100 blogs that I access via NetNewsReader. I don’t read all of them every day (many of them only update once a week or so), but there are a few that I never miss. One of my favourite bloggers is Anne Jackson. She recently had a post asking others what blogs they read. I shared some thoughts in her comments section, but also discovered a few new bloggers thanks to the post.

One of the best new discoveries for me is Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary. Jamie and her husband El Chupacabra are missionaries in Costa Rica. Of course, I have an interest in Costa Rica since my daughter lived there for a year and would move back in a heartbeat. And, my very close friends Scott & Melissa Williams likely attended the same language school as Jamie before moving to El Salvador.

I started reading Jamie’s blog about a week ago, and have passed it on to a few people already. Now, I want to share it with all of you.

There are many things that I love about Jamie’s writing style. Her humour is bang on with the things I find hilarious. There have been a few times when I find myself laughing out loud over something she says. But even more than her humour, I love her realness. She helps you relate to a missionary. She makes missionaries seem … normal. Well, if you can consider Jamie normal.

I realize that my blog readers are pretty diverse. I have pastors, passionately spiritual people, bikers who love God, bikers who could care less about anything spiritual, and even a few tech geeks a diverse group who follow these posts. And yet, I believe that all of you would benefit from following Jamie’s adventures.

Let me quote a recent post to give you a sense of what goes through her mind. Let’s be honest, most of us don’t experience this kind of stuff in our daily routine. It truly makes me appreciate more what missionaries must face in order to live out the calling the believe God has place on them.

Ok, listen. I’m gonna tell you something, and I hope we can still be friends, but I will totally understand if you need to be like, “Hey Jamie, I like you and all, but this is just too much, ya know?”. And I mean that. Truly. But I’ll let you decide…
Oh. And also, just so you know, this is going to give you the heeby-jeebies. Big time. So sorry about that:

Um, for a while now, I’ve been growing a third eye on the back of my head. (I know, I know, just stay with me here…) It’s not like an awesome Shiva style third eye. No, nooo, nohohoho…*sigh*. This is no third eye of enlightenment, no third eye of consciousness. There is nothing sexy about it at all. In fact, it’s not even really an “eye”. That’s just what we’ve been calling it ever since I asked El Chupacabra to look at the back of my head bacause something was just, I dunno…not right…,and when he did, he sceamed, “GAH!! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT NASTY THIRD EYE!” So, “third eye” is kind of like a nick-name for “lumpy patch of itchy crust”. I warned you about the heeby-jeebies (jeez, why did you keep reading?!).

One of the sweetest things that happens when we work with our kiddos in the precario is that the girls play with our hair. The bigger girls usually braid it. The littler ones pretend to braid it by twisting two peices together until they are painfully knotted against your scalp. It’s pretty much guaranteed that if I scoop up one of the little ones to sit on my lap during the story, her tiny fingers will gravitate north to my messy ponytail and the whisps of hair floating around my face. And I love it. It’s a very tender and affectionate thing when a 3 year old tucks a wayward piece of hair behind your ear so they can see your face better from 2 inches away.
There is just one problem. It’s those tiny fragile fingers and the children they are attached to. They’re dirty. And I don’t mean like “wash up before supper” kind of dirty. These kids live and play in..well, basically poop. So naturally, they are teaming with all kinds of poop germs and other stuff. Which brings me back to the third eye on the back of my head, because I think that’s where it came from. Precario poop fingers. That’s the medical term for it, I’m pretty sure. No, but really, it’s like some kind of fungal thing.

And it’s really
———-> *fml side-note* A second ago, I got hungry, so I grabbed the Nesquik Duo out of the pantry which is also the laundry room. And I don’t know if you have Nesquik Duo in English, but I hope you do cause it’s THE BEST cereal to eat dry, straight out of the box, by the handful. The best. So that’s what I was doing, ya know, typing with one hand, and hauling loads of chocolate cereal to my mouth with the other, and switching hands occasionally. And then an itty bitty ant appeared on my keyboard. Which is not all that unusual, except that I’m in bed and there are usually NOT ants in my bed. And then there was one on my arm…and my neck…and then other arm… And I just now realized that this box of cereal is full of ants. And now so is my bed. And my belly. *shudder*
…grossing me out. (Ironic?)

And you wanna know how to fix it? I love this; Head & Shoulders. Like the shampoo from the 80′s for people that only wear black turtle neck with white flakes of dandruff on the shoulders. Yup – one month of Head & Shoulders and I’ll be good as new (God, please please please – let that be true!). And, guess what. The good, flake-free, people over there at Head & Shoulders now offer an anti-frizz conditioner so that you hair will look and feel great while you kill the crusty third eye inhabiting the back of your head! Win.

“Now I’m free to let my beloved babies dig around in my hair with their grubby poop fingers – Head & Shoulders will take care of the rest!”
- Mother Theresa (ok, I made that up. But I bet she would agree.)

So, please pray for my “condition” and for my “conditioner”. Thank you.

And again, I understand if this crossed the friendship line for you. I mean, Jesus hung out with Lepers and everything…but He was Jesus, so you know…whatever…

So, jump over to Jamie’s blog and check out some other posts she has. You can thank me later for introducing her to you.