When I was a kid, mom and dad and the others working with them were mostly in Kenya on five year “terms” with one year “furloughs” back in their sending country. During our first “term”, from when I was four to nine years old, we had a blue Volkswagen beetle. The picture isn’t our bug, but it is a 1959 very like ours. Take special notice of the roof rack 😊
Like all beetles in those days, the engine was in the rear, and the battery was under the back seat. Once when we were, I think, going to visit a remote church, sparks started coming out from under the back seat
where my sister and I were sitting. We were on a narrow dusty road between small family subsistence farms. Dad pulled over. Children ran up, and then yelling excitedly, ran to get the adults who welcomed us warmly. Dad left mom, my sister and I there, and set off to find help. Mom was given a chair and tea. I remember my sister and I standing very close to her knees the cool and dim light inside one of the little round houses. All the kids crowded in and stared at us. Mom and the adults made polite conversation in Swahili and the kids giggled. I don’t remember how long dad was gone, but it seemed a long time.
During the sixties and seventies, as I remember it, AIM asked that all their missionaries take some vacation time. I believe this was because so many burnt out and left in discouragement and exhaustion. Each August, our family would go to the coast in Kenya. This was an epic journey that often took eight or ten hours depending on misadventures. Into the beetle would go all we needed for two weeks including imperishable foods since other than local fruit and fish, groceries were hard to find at the coast in those days. Dad would pack the car as if it were a puzzle, tightly stacked and interlocked.
One year, two other people were to ride with us. Dad said he had a secret and spent the day making something. Finally, he showed us. A tiny seat that fit between the front seats above and behind the emergency brake. My sister was to ride on this special seat. At first, I wondered if I was jealous, but it didn’t look very comfortable! I rode wedged between two adults in the back seat.
We often stopped for lunch at a place called Hunters Lodge near Voi, a green oasis with wide lawns. Once my sister and I ran off to explore while mom was getting out the picnic lunch. There were domestic geese near a pond. Hissing, flapping and clacking beaks, they chased us! We ran back screaming. Mom’s farm girl side was suddenly apparent. She ran at geese swinging her purse and telling them in no uncertain tone to get lost. I watched impressed and open mouthed.
One trip, terrible noises started to come from the overloaded bug. The clutch had gone! Dad could gear up by listening to the engine, but each time we stopped he had to get at the clutch and manually somehow gear down to start again. The Volkswagen bug had a roof rack on which two packed steamer trunks were placed. One year, the roof rack started squeaking loudly. Suddenly the two trunks and the whole roof rack flew off. We played in the hot red dust while Mom and dad repacked. The two trunks were somehow wedged in the back seat with a rag rug on top. “Okay,” Dad said, “Come and see if you can get in.” My sister and I crawled over the back of the front seat into the slot above the trunks and lay spreadeagled. I think that space was too tight even to turn over! That’s how we traveled for the rest of that hot bumpy day.
Eventually the journey’s end was near. The dusty red turned to green. There were groves of coconut palms and mangos. Finally, the ocean!! The wind off the sea, and miles of blue! It was all worth it!
