MASKED THE PLAY

After the meal, once darkness had fallen, we westerners shuttled our precious literature from the van. ‘We carried it into the cabin as if we were bequeathing a fortune.
Marta expressed her gratitude as we left on that snowy January day. But if you come again, she said wistfully, please bring oranges. We haven’t had oranges for years.”
Marta’s request surprised us. Treasure may not look the same to all of us. But it is probably closer to what you’d find in the simplest of kitchens than in any other room—including a library of precious volumes.
I think of Marta whenever I eat oranges and hope that she can now get them by the bagful.
I brought Marta to mind when starting my own writing business out of my home and struggling to put food on the table. During this difficult period a telephone interview with a Christian personality turned out to be a challenge, but not because she was in any way ungracious. It was my own interior stuff with which I was at war. Doralyn Luca do, wife of author Max Luca do and a former missionary to Rio de Janeiro, had a lot to tell me—stories of life with children and what makes a house a home. The previous week her family had moved into what she called a French country farm- style home in Texas. There I was, a journalist listening to a tale of transition from a tough missionary existence to the good life in the United States, and I was the one who had the problem.

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