CALCUTTA - Becky Boggs is not a world traveler. She never had much of a desire to go to far-off places.
It was during a slide show presentation at her church that she suddenly felt energized to visit a South African country of lush green fields and dirt paths. The country is Malawi, and she will be going there in September.
"Dr. Sue Makin had slides from where she worked in Mulanje and right then, for some strange reason, I started getting excited about it," she said. "I had never traveled that much and I never thought to go anywhere."
Makin lives in Malawi and works at the Mulanje Mission Hospital.
Church leader Rev. Dr. Steve Cramer visited the country in May 2008 and knew immediately Boggs was an ideal candidate for the mission trip.
"Becky is somebody who is very interested in the mission of the church. As a teacher, she would bring certain skills from that. She is a bright and generous person, so she would be a good representative," he said.
Boggs previously taught sixth grade language arts and seventh grade math in the Beaver Local School District. After 20 years of teaching, she retired in 2007 to run an antique shop on a farm she and her husband own.
She hopes to visit schools in Malawi to see how they operate.
The purpose of the mission trip is to look into establishing a partnership between the Upper Ohio Valley Presbytery (UOVP) and the Domasi, Malawi Presbytery, she explained.
Members of the Pittsburgh Presbytery have already established a partnership in the country and have been educating Boggs and five other individuals about what to expect on the September mission trip.
The group meets once a month and has gotten to know one another "pretty good," she said. "We met for dinner and shared our faith stories and worshipped together."
Boggs said she has already started establishing relationships with Domasi church members through conversations on the Internet.
But sometimes Internet connection isn't always possible in the country that has poor telephone service and electricity.
She pointed out Malawi is the third poorest country in the world and that nearly every resident of it is affected in some way by AIDS.
"I am really anxious to see how people who have such miserable living conditions have a church that is so alive," she said. "Maybe that's the only thing they have, maybe that's why."
Cramer said the churches in and around Domasi have a spirit of worship that is "contagious."
"We, in comparison, have so much and think we have so little," he said. "They have so little and are just grateful for what they have. We think if you have basic cable you're poor. They think if you have electricity you are rich. It's very different expectations out of life.
"We are always the ones who benefit from the partnership because we have financial resources to share with them and they have spiritual resources to share with us," he said.
Boggs hopes the partnership works both ways as well.
"I hope it makes both churches stronger. It's exciting to me to share faith with people that far away," she said.
Boggs gets a little nervous about the prospect of speaking to a congregation of more than 1,000 people, but in general she's not nervous about the trip, she said.
She explained that churches not far from Domasi average thousands of people. In fact, a church isn't even considered a church unless it has more than 200 people attending. Fewer than 200 members constitutes a "prayer house."
If she doesn't get the chance to speak overseas, she will certainly be speaking when she comes home.
Cramer said she will be giving a testimony about the trip at the local church.
"It's exciting for our church to send her and we look forward to hearing her stories when she comes back," he said.
Boggs is scheduled to leave the U.S. Sept. 20 and return Sept. 29.
"It's funny because I don't feel nervous or afraid about it, I just feel like this is what I should be doing," she said.
