It's just not fair!


WOW, water is so essential- in so many ways.  This week I have been impacted thinking of clean water and the life it brings. This past week I had early morning classes. I would go to pr* group at 6:00 and then walk to meet my Hindi tutor from 7:30-9:30am and then onto class.  Walking early in the morning to meet my tutor meant seeing the village come to the pump for water.  They bring their buckets and jugs and collect water for the day. This is their drinking water, bathing water, cooking and cleaning water. Whatever they collect is for the day. The water only comes on and last from about 7:15-7:40.  The whole village is there.  You can image the line, the jugs, the NEED for water.  You can image the urgency to be first in line and to hope the water supply lasts until YOUR jug is filled.

My tutor was one of the ones that must collect her supply.  One day I waited with her in line as she awaited her turn. One women kept budging the line and filled her “flower pot” jug. Others were impatient and upset as she collected water for her flowers, while others would go without necessary drinking water.  My tutor kept saying, “it’s just not right”. As my tutor got her turn at the pump, she filled two buckets and the supply ran out. I looked at the others in the line who would now go home with empty buckets.  I looked at my tutor who without words collected her buckets, 2 full, and many empty and walked back home. No one spoke a word, no one complained, no one asked another for some of their water. My heart broke. What about the others? What will they do today? What will they drink?

Another day this week, I walked past the Nepali ladies I have been reaching out to.  During the day, I see them working hard doing road construction. They carry big boulders and cement on their heads and help to make the new road I walk on.  They work morning to night 7 days a week.  As I pass them, their children play barefoot in the mud and cement piles smiling and saying the traditional “Namaste” as they bow to me. One night, as I walked home in the moon-light, I noticed that the water tank used for making cement had noise coming from it. As I held up my flashlight, I noticed the ladies from the road were on top, washing their clothes and bathing in the half clean water. “Oh Father, my heart!” The “clean water” mixed with cement and fragments of the day now became their only resource for bathing and washing themselves and their clothes.  The next day as I walked to pr* early in the morning, I noticed them again, gathering buckets to bring to their house. Perhaps this same tank they just bathed in the night before was now also their drinking water for the day!  “Oh Father, protect them.”

At times, I can live in my own little world, so unaware of the world around me. Even here, I can live blinded at times.  When my water supply runs out, (which does happen many times a week), I still have reserve buckets and bottled drinking water.  I can live daily never drinking the tainted water these families must use for drinking as well as for bathing. I can live and not know the needs of this world, or the grieved heart of the Father.  But I think Dad desires to open our eyes.  He desires to give us experiences like passing the water pump, and seeing the needs of the Nepali ladies.  He gives us experiences so we can move outside our world and into His. We can see and be moved.  We can see the desperate need for water, living water, and we can be pressed into the Heart of the Father to not be content until EVERY person at the pump goes home with water- and not just any water, but CLEAN, PURE, LIVING water from the King. Like, my tutor, we say cry out, “It’s just not fair!”  Some are getting water and some will leave this world with none. May our hearts plea be for all to receive the living water that the Father gives generously and without hesitation.


I ask Dad today to open my eyes to see the things around me that would tune my heart closer to his. To teach me to feel the heart of the Father, to feel the urgency of NOW, and the need for the cup of Living water I can offer those around me who are so desperate.  I ask you to ask him as well, that he would show you his heart for his people.  What can you do, even today? Who is he opening your eyes to see?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Bhindi or “Tikka” Mark on the Head- What is it?

Image
(Pooja tikka mark) Many westerners have asked me what the Bhindi or red “tikka” mark means or why I am willing to wear it as a Chri$tian. Many people associate this mark with H!nduism. In my contextualization classes we were taught about finding the difference between culture and religion. The scripture is clear that we don’t want to do anything to compromise our Chri$tian faith and values. At the same time the go$pel is full of the liberties that Chri$t brought to us through the cross. We are no longer obligated to religious practices and rituals. Chri$t fulfilled the law. As we work with non-believers we don’t want to make Chri$tianity another religion. We don’t want to make following Chri$t more difficult than it has to be. Following Je$us doesn’t have to mean abandoning culture, it just has to mean abandoning any other faith or practices of that faith. As teachers, we have to help our disciples find this difference as they come to follow the Father more and more. We don...
Read more

What’s It Like Here with Lockdown?

Image
(This woman sold her husband's phone for 2500rps ($33) to buy food.) I don’t think any country or family has it “easy” during these Covid-19 times, but I do think Third World Countries like ours have it a little harder.  Many of the people who are day laborers or migrants are really struggling. These are the people who work every day to get income to supply that same day’s food supply. Without it, they have no food to eat. With lockdown, most of this population is without income and therefore without food. Today, news came that one lady died from hunger in Nep@l.  Each day the news is filled with stories and pictures of desperate slum dwellers lined up at NGO doors for food donations or migrant day laborers walking thousands of miles to try to go back to their cities or countries to find food. The stories are gut retching.  In our personal city, we haven’t seen these stories first hand. Throughout the country, there are government programs ...
Read more

But God...

Every Knee Will Bow And Every Tongue Will Confess Truly everywhere we look is need- physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual. I see the man with elephantitis lift his giant leg to shift his position as he sits on a mat begging for money on the side of the road. I see a woman sitting on a patch of grass on the edge of a busy highway practicing her meditation attempting to find her inner peace. I see a young girl on her way to school stop to touch the street cow and then touch her own forehead in hopes that her Hindu practices will reap the blessing from her god (cow). Simultaneously, I see a shop keeper allow the giant cow to mosey along his street front restaurant; he even offers the cow freshly made roti (bread) as to not offend his “god” passing by. I see another person practicing yoga with all the pristine positions and poses. Her breaths are well practiced, yet her face is stricken with the look of anxiety and distress.  I see a young man who ...
Read more