A Mission for Jimmy

Jimmy Barclay comes out of church with a job he never asked for: his Sunday school class has voted him in charge of its missionary fundraiser, and he blames Stanley Longman for nominating him to dodge the work himself. His father George tells him missionaries are men and women working hard for the Lord in difficult circumstances, and that since Jimmy has to do the job, he may as well do his best. Jimmy's first attempt is a poster of a missionary in a cannibal's cooking pot, so George hands him a stack of books to read instead. Jimmy picks The Fire of God's Grace by Dan Isidro, the story of one man's mission in Central America, and falls asleep over page one.

Suddenly Dan Isidro himself is shaking Jimmy awake in a hammock in Nicaragua. A helper has run miles from the village with word that a child is desperately ill, and Dan's battered jeep - push-started, because the battery is dead again - is the only vehicle in that part of the country. At the little clinic, where the doctor has gone home with malaria and no one wanted to replace him, the nurse Esther shows them the boy, and Dan is shaken to recognize Pablo, a child who comes to the mission compound mostly to lift everyone's spirits. He is feverish, his throat too swollen to eat, and Esther fears he is dying.

Racing toward the hospital in Rosita with Pablo in the back, they are stopped at an army roadblock by a soldier who yanks Jimmy's hair and demands to know whether they are spies for the rebels. Jimmy blurts that Pablo might have "the Blue Bonnet Plague" - the bubonic plague, half-remembered from his history homework - and the alarmed captain orders them away. The hospital refuses Pablo anyway: he is an Indian from a tribe being persecuted and driven out of the country, many for their Christian beliefs, and government orders bar the door. Dan sets out for a Christian doctor twenty-five miles on, but the jeep's worn-out carburetor finally dies on the road, with no tow truck, no garage, and no money. As Dan despairs, Jimmy cries that they have to do something, that Pablo will die - and wakes in his own bed with his father beside him, still insisting "I have to do something," and asking his dad to help.

Some time later the church hall is decorated for Christmas in the wrong season, which Donna finds weird. The out-of-season party is Jimmy's idea, a Christmas party to collect money for the missionaries, born of the Christmas when the Barclays' own gifts were stolen and everyone in Odyssey brought food and presents to help them. Whit reckons Jimmy has raised more gifts this year than anyone before. Jimmy works the room with his Christmas bag, letting nobody off - until he approaches a newcomer and freezes. It is Dan Isidro, the real one, come to speak at the church's missions conference. On behalf of the many missionaries Jimmy is helping, Dan thanks him. "Muchas gracias," he says. "De nada, Dan," Jimmy answers. "You're welcome."