The Outhouse at the End of the Earth: A Missionary's Story of Her Challenges and Victories in Papua New Guinea

The experiences of a city girl thrust into a very remote part of the world in Papua New Guinea. Focusing primarily on her first year, Sherry tells the story with candor and humor in a way that allows the reader to easily identify with and learn from her experiences. Sherry's initial reactions to the family's outhouse were causing her much anxiety which was fast becoming debilitating. Below is a description she gives of the outhouse that appears in the book: "Others began clearing a path to our liklik house (an outhouse). I could see that the outhouse was perched on the edge of the back side of the very mountain that we had just climbed up, and I prayed fervently that I wouldn't have to spend too much time in there. I noted with relief that each family's house had its own outhouse nearby, which meant that ours would be for our family's private use. The liklik house was leaning slightly, but at least it had a black plastic curtain that would give us a degree of privacy. Pieces of plastic were nailed to different parts of the woven walls to cover some of the larger holes. The people proudly showed us how they had sawed an old oil can in half and then cut a hole in the top so that we would have a toilet seat. I began to shoot up prayers right and left: Lord, give me strength, perseverance, and the grace to maintain a sense of humor in all of this. We found out later that the people had burned the oil can (our toilet seat) to sanitize it. For quite a while, the soot from the can left a bull's eye on our backsides."