The Very Worst Missionary: A Memoir or Whatever

Wildly popular blogger Jamie the Very Worst Missionary delivers a searing, offbeat, often hilarious memoir of spiritual disintegration and re-formation.

After finding Jesus at a suburban megachurch, young Jamie Wright trades in the easy life on the cul-de-sac for the green fields of Costa Rica. There, along with her husband, kids, and the family cat, she intends to serve God and make converts. But faced with the yawning culture gap and persistent shortcomings of coworkers, she soon loses faith in the Christian enterprise and falls into a funk of cynicism and despair. Fortunately, Knives the cat is there, looking on with just enough disinterest to make her laugh…and dare her to try another way.

That other way turns out to be telling the truth. She launches a renegade blog, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, which against all odds soon wins a large and passionate following around the world–especially among the folks back home sending money. But the very act of baring all forces Jamie to wrestle with her own slacker self. Slowly, she begins to see that being a bad missionary–awkward, doubtful, sceptical–can mean you’re just the kind of person someone else might be willing to hear, and that, whether overseas or right next door, loving others is as much about changing you as it is about converting them.

The Very Worst Missionary is a disarming, ultimately inspiring spiritual memoir for well-intentioned underachievers everywhere. It will appeal to readers of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Jen Hatmaker, Ann Lamott, Jana Reiss, Mallory Ortberg, and Rachel Held Evans.