The Royal Handmaid Read Online Free PDF Page A

Joy said, punching her brother’s arm.
    Travis leaned back in his chair. He looked loose and limber; his physique was the flat, angular shape of a man who made his living with his muscles. The overhead light illuminated his face, making his cobalt blue eyes look darker than ever. He smiled in the self-deprecating way that Joy knew well, his teeth appearing milk white in contrast to his weather-bronzed skin.
    “Actually, I don’t rightly know what I’ll be doing next, but the Lord told me it was time to leave Guatemala.”
    “I’ve often wondered how you hear from God,” Chase observed. “How do you know where to go next?”
    “Don’t always know, but if I wait long enough, it sorta swims together in my mind.”
    Joy laughed, the sound a musical note in the air. “Well, you can stay with us until it all swims together. Oh—I saw an article you might be interested in.” Jumping up from her seat, she went into the living room and rifled through the newspapers and magazines stacked on the couch and coffee table. “Here it is,” she said, waving a newspaper. She laid it in front of Travis and put her finger on the page. “That story right there.”
    “ ‘Going First Class,’ ” Travis read the headline, then began the article.
    “A new sort of missionary is being birthed in San Francisco. Miss Rena Matthews will lead a group of missionaries, calling themselves ‘The Twelve,’ to the South Pacific. Unlike typical missionaries, these twelve people are mostly from the upper strata of society, all of them college graduates, and a few among them highly trained scholars. According to Miss Matthews, they are a new and different breed of missionaries. Not content to simply follow in others’ footsteps, they plan to forge new paths and lead the way into a new era ofmissionary work, work that is well-funded as well as scientifically devised and executed. Missionary Rena Matthews, a bright and attractive woman of twenty-two with a wealth of curly auburn hair, said, ‘We’re going to use new methods, scientific methods, and all of us are confident that God’s going to do great things.’ ”
    Travis looked up, amusement curling his lips into a smile. “A bunch of rich missionaries, huh? Well, that’ll be a switch from anything I’ve ever seen.”
    He read the rest of the article and shook his head. “Going first class to the South Pacific. I read a book once about the first missionaries who went to the South Seas. Most of them were eaten by cannibals, I think.”
    “She’s pretty, though, isn’t she?” Joy said. “Let me see.” She pulled the paper over. “She comes from a very wealthy family. Her father is putting up all the money for the mission work and sending them down there in his yacht.”
    Travis found this doubly amusing. “Well, that’s going first class, all right.”
    “Do you think they’ll be successful, Travis?” Chase asked.
    “If God’s in it, it’ll work.”
    “That’s what you always used to say,” Joy said, putting her hand affectionately over Travis’s. “Now, how about wrestling down another piece of that apple pie?”
    “You bet!”
    Joy dished up the rest of the homemade pie while the men continued the conversation. When they’d scraped their plates clean, she said, “We have to get up early, Travis. Why don’t we read a chapter of the Scriptures together and have a prayer.”
    “Why sure, sis. I need all the prayin’ I can get,” Travis said. “Before I went to Guatemala, I had to wait for four months to figure out what God wanted me to do. I hope it won’t take so long this time.”
    ****
    After a good night’s sleep, they all gathered again at the kitchen table. This time Travis was presented with a huge stack of pancakes that completely hid his plate. In the middle of the table was a platter filled with juicy sausage patties. “You remember what I like best, sis.”
    “I do, indeed. And there’s plenty of Vermont maple syrup. The real article.”
    Chase