Thirsty?

MARTHA. No!

(He continues to offer it, and she suddenly takes the canteen and drinks gratefully. She returns it to him, and as she speaks, he is occupied with swallowing some water, sighing appreciatively, wiping his mouth and the lip of the canteen, screwing on the lid, etc.)

I know I shouldn't, but I simply must speak. I don't like this place. Look at the landscape; doesn't it bother you at all? All those bare, bleak rocks...the sand.

There's something else, too. Do you realize we've walked all morning and haven't seen a single living thing? No cactus, no birds--not even a lizard.

MINISTER. Martha, I swear I don't know what's got into you. This is no different from Arizona, as far as I can see. Except the roads are worse. Where's the guidebook?

MARTHA (taking a small guidebook from her purse). It doesn't say anything about the location....

MINISTER. Let me look; I'll find it--

MARTHA. There--you've lost the place.

MINISTER. No I haven't (hunting desperately), it's all right...Arabia...Argentina...Arlington...hah-- Armageddon--a pagan village of roughly five thousand inhabitants, by a bastard son of Alexander the Great, parenthesis, 'folk .

Once a thriving center of trade, it was almost completely destroyed by the 'Great Fire' of 'oh-oh-six, an disaster which leveled the nearby townships of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now a cultural and backwater, it is not recommended for tourists."

Just think--all those people, waiting, for close to two thousand years. Like grapes on vine--and now here we are come to weed the vineyard.

MARTHA. Grapes on a vine! Raisins, more likely. I never saw desert like this before, so hot and dry. The sun glaring down so, all this space ...makes me feel naked. We're just a couple of pins on the Bishop's map! You're a black pin; I'm a beige pin. TER. Now, there, there, don't yourself...the ground is I can feel it. (Standing.) me in mind of one of Pappy's "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in and thou shalt smite the rock," (he strikes the stage with his umbrella) "and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink."

He stops, and looks comically at the spot he has hit.)

Dry as a bone. I guess it's true what they say about the age of miracles, eh, Martha?

MARTHA (abruptly). We should have accepted the position in Philadelphia.

. Whoa! I thought that was settled. I'd only stagnate there; know that. So would you. We're well-suited for missionary life, you and I. Settling in a new country, building a church up out of nothing...ahh! There's something about it.

MARTHA (cheering up). Oh, I think it's just a game with you. Sometimes you looking at the heathen to say--

MINISTER. That the Lord created them my particular benefit instead of vice versa? Who knows, maybe he did.

We're a couple of hardened professionals; our results so far have been 'way above average. The Bishop himself says so.