Travis and I are having so much fun with this challenge. Each day, we eagerly anticipate the mailman and the end of the day when we tally our PayPal donations. It can be a rush to be a part of something bigger than yourself and get swept up in it for a week or two. We want to build a well, but that is only a chapter in the story we are writing with our lives. A special person reminded us this week that “the issues surrounding poverty are… SO BIG… and I am glad that you are becoming part of it. But here’s your warning: the more you know, and the more you learn– the less you can back away. And now that you’ve committed your hearts to this project, I anticipate that you can expect to hear God’s calling even more.“
The money you donate is important in order to build this clean water well, but Travis and I hope you will be a part of a bigger story than this one. This is not a contest or simply seeing if we can reach a seemingly unattainable goal. This story is about real people with real families dealing with real poverty. A few years ago, while on a medical mission trip in Honduras, I remember watching some women scrub their laundry in what appeared to be a dirty stream of water. Some children were playing and bathing in the water as they did. As our van traveled up the rocky road, we saw animals standing and drinking just upstream of women in the same water. Later that day, we treated some of those very women and children for parasites, infections, and skin diseases that were caused by their drinking and use of that dirty water. I remember thinking to myself as we handed out the medication, what water will they use to take this medicine or clean the skin infections?
I love a long, hot shower. I drink water from the filter on my fridge. I do at least one load of laundry and run the dishwasher daily. I make sure our DOGS have fresh clean drinking water several times a day. I have a toilet that flushes- in fact I have two. I wash my hands after I’ve been in the bathroom and before I eat. I go to a swimming pool in the summer. I happen to have access to clean water and it rarely crosses my mind as I am using it.
More often than not, I am unsure of where or how to respond to the BIG needs of the world in the midst of my own hectic life, so sometimes I just don’t. What I am learning in this journey is that it doesn’t matter. Just try. Just start. Just hope. We hope you will hear God’s calling in your own lives. As that special friend told us, “Thanks for listening to <God’s calling>. Thanks for answering. Thanks for doing more than writing a check (although writing checks truly does help!).
And I hope you realize that, to use a water analogy, your drop in the bucket, ripples outward and outward and outward.“
Amen.
