Hi friends! Me asking for prayer for water has raised many water questions. Do you have water where you live? Did you have water in your last village? How do people get water if you don't have it? These are some of the questions that have been asked about water. So I thought it would be a good time to explain the water situation to you all. First let me say that when ever I ask for prayers for things like water or electricity or saftey, I am not only asking it for our family; I am asking it for everyone around me, the people I love. They have very tough lives and if we can make their lives any easier, we will. Our purpose is not to make their lives easier but to share the Good News with them, but many times, those go hand in hand.
Now about the questions.... The village we lived in for four years before we lived here, has no water. There are no rivers, lakes, streams or anything like that anywhere near them. The government has not piped in water from the nearest large city which is about a 40 minute drive from the village. Now they have found a little bit of water where they have attached one tube and it is located at the very edge of town. This could be a mile to two mile walk from many of the homes in our old village. That is where they go to do their laundry and fill up their water jugs. They usually line up at 4 in the morning to get water. Then they have to haul the jugs of water home for the day so they can have water to live off of for that day. Now.... is that what I had to do for 4 years? NO. If you have money you can hire someone to drive a water truck (looks like a gas truck)into town and fill it up and bring you water to your home and fill up your home's tank. (if your home has a 'tank' if not some would just purchase water to fill up big barrels) There were times when we went without water then b/c we couldn't find a water truck or the roads were blocked and the water trucks couldn't get to us. So for those reasons, we went without water there. It was just all together different in our old village! I will explain more through these pictures. Click on the pictures and it will make them larger.
This is how they haul their jugs to their homes, they are extremely HEAVY too!
This is where the women have come to wash their clothes. It is tough because they all have to share the little bit of water that is there and then they have to take all of their WET, HEAVY clothes home to dry!
When it rains, this can fill up with rain water and their is a lot more water for all to enjoy. However, that is only 5 months out of the year.
Here they are waiting to get their jugs filled up.
That little hose is the ONLY water source in the entire village for 5000 people. That tiny little drip.
They fill up those trash cans each day and then everyone has to share that water to wash their clothes; while the other women fill up their jugs with the water hose. It is really amazing there are not a lot of fights during this time!!
Waiting to wash clothes.
Now this is how we collected our water. When it rained we (as well as most everyone in the village) had our home set up to catch every drop of rain. No one in the villages we live near now have their homes set up like this because there is an abundance of water here. Let me explain. ;o)
Tube we had coming from our roof to gather water.
How we wash our hands in our old village.
This is what runs through every village near us. Rivers, natural springs, you name it there is water. Most of the people here live close enough to a water source that having water has never been an issue. Many homes have it piped into their homes and as Americans are; well... they are spoiled by having water. They have never needed to gather water like the people in our old village. They have never needed to collect rain water off of their roof because again, it has NEVER been an issue. So, when the pipe recently broke and there was no water. Everyone here pretty much went a little crazy wondering what they would do without water. They didn't have the ability to collect water and there are no water trucks because there has never been a necessity for that either. So, there you have it, now you know the difference in this village and our old one. These two villages are only an hour apart but the difference in water is HUGE! So, you can also pray for water for our old village because, they have never had water. Love you all! Missy
