This episode is about a gopher. Not the little critters that tear up golf courses and your back yard, but a specific role that I played for 1 year as a Gopher; as in “go-for this” and “go for that”. I tackled this job to essentially provide logistics support to our mission in Gemena, Zaire/D.R. Congo by helping with transporting fuel, people, freight and driving all over the region. In addition, I handled shopping when supplies were in the stores, immigration issues, customs & duty negotiations, meeting both our mission plane and commercial planes when they landed to coordinate peoples’ arrival and departure. Though not acting in the normal role of missionary, my job was to ensure that the doctors, nurses, pastors, teachers and builders could focus on their ministries by having me do considerable behind-the-scenes functions to keep the mission effort running. I interviewed Jim Aiken who was a Gopher for 2 years in Bangui, Central African Republic, as his experiences mirrored mine. Thelma Landrud, a career missionary nurse weighs in as well in this episode to reflect on how Gophers were considered part of the mission effort and team and to explain the shift in us as kids growing up to becoming contemporaries with the mission effort. It was a tough and challenging job, fraught with long trips, physical challenges, delays, mud, dust and mechanical breakdowns. Stories include taking several days to move a truck and container of stuff less than mile across a sandbar in the middle of a river, and paddling barrels of fuel across a river in a dug-out canoe. Indeed being a Gopher was full of adventure, hard work, surprises, frustrations, physical endurance and much satisfaction. Thanks to Jim Aiken and Thelma Landrud for their contributions to this episode.

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