Narrative Summary
Interview with Becky Boff by Katy Rogers
Light mist ascends across the bleak, midwinter landscape as I enter the physical therapy
building on Missouri State University’s campus. This is the building where Becky Boff works as
a custodian for the university. She is a tall, serious-looking woman with years of hard work
etched into her features. She has been a devout Christian her whole life, growing up in Brazil
with missionary parents.
Becky was born in America, and at age four was taken, along with her whole family, to
the country of Brazil where her father began his ministry. She recalls her father being very busy
running three churches, which made Sundays very hectic for her family. They would be in
church from dawn well into the night. Moving from church to church was exhausting for them
all, especially her mother who was in charge of getting the four children ready to go.
Her fondest family memories were of camping trips they took in Brazil on land her father
had purchased. She described cooking over an open fire and setting up tents to sleep in, which
was all very exciting to her as a child. Eventually, her father built dormitories for them to stay in,
and they had their own church camp.
The most memorable religious experience she had as a child involved her getting saved.
She was five years of age, and her mother led her up front to one of the people waiting for those
who were seeking salvation. Her mother went along with her into a private room where the
meaning of salvation was explained. Afterwards, Becky accepted Christ into her heart and life
and has been a strong believer in her faith since.
Becky’s family had to return from Brazil to the U.S. every four years to report their
progress to the churches whose money supported their ministry in South America. She was nine
years old the first time they came back to America. She described everything as being so
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completely different because, at the time, the United States was so much more advanced than
Brazil. She recalls having to repeat the third grade because all of her schooling had been in
Brazil where she learned to read in Portuguese not English. “They made me feel like I was being
punished and I hated it!” she said, and so eventually she taught herself to read in English.
One of the other drawbacks she talked about was not seeing her father for five weeks at a
time. He had to travel between churches, sharing the progress of their mission in Brazil, so it
kept him away from the family quite a bit. She said the entire day he was due to come back, all
the children would watch for him. She says it was like receiving a present.
The cultural differences between the two countries were mainly in the behaviors of the
people. In Brazil, people were friendlier and more open with each other. She mentioned being
teased more in the U.S. because, being a missionary’s daughter, her parents did not have the
means to supply her with the latest clothing and things that the other children had in the States.
Just going back and forth between the two countries was difficult because they would spend five
to six years in Brazil and one year stateside. At this point in her life, she considered Brazil her
home.
Despite the troubles she had in America when she visited, there were positive experiences
for her as well—all of which were in the church. All of the ministers, teachers, and girls in her
Sunday school class made her feel welcome. It was at public school that she felt shunned for
being different.
She feels her parents served as excellent guides during her childhood so that she might
assume the role as spiritual leader with her own children. They would have Bible study every
night with her father, and he would read to them over breakfast about a missionary in Africa.
Becky feels these things made her focus more on what should be instead of what was going on
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around her. She believes that it aided her in seeing that her children accepted Christ at an early
age, and it also gave her the knowledge to lead them forward into a Christian life.
She feels raising children within the Christian faith is easier to do in the U.S. In Brazil,
there were many different forms of worship, a lot of which involved what she called spiritism or
demon worship. Children are very impressionable, and adults told them many different things
about one being or another, so it was difficult to tell them about Christianity at times.
One instance in particular that Becky remembered seeing for herself was a paper laid out
in the road with cigars, a dead chicken, and some money on it. No one would touch it not even to
take the money off of it. She later found out that this was a type of offering to a demon god, and
if anyone took one thing from it, they would be cursed by the demon in some way. She was told
that a man had taken some money from one of these offerings and he got very sick. She is not
sure what the person did to the offering to make that happen, but the villagers believed it was the
demon retaliating against the man’s thievery. Her father warned all of the children to stay away
from these things whenever they saw them.
Ironically, the other religious obstacle to overcome was another branch of Christianity.
Catholicism is the largest and most widely accepted practice of Christian faith in South America.
The priests put a lot of pressure on the parishioners and their families to stay away from Becky’s
family and their church. It was a real battle between the faiths in Brazil.
Whenever she is feeling down or not having the best of times in her life, she relies on
prayer and feels the Lord gives her strength through song. “Then Came the Morning” is a tune
that reminds her she is not alone, and though she cannot control what is happening to her at the
time, she can make it through. Some of the most meaningful things about her faith to her are
prayer and openly talking to God. She says that if someone is worried about something in his or
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her life, she believes that prayer can help. It has given her an inner peace and answers to some
very tough questions. The greatest assurance for her within her faith is that when she dies, she
knows she is going to heaven, and because of that, she doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
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