What if...?

 Oh the things we take for granted...water.  In North America, when we are thirsty, we turn on the tap and put our glass underneath and drink.  When we are dirty, we go to the shower, turn on the tap and shower ourselves clean.  When we brush our teeth, we turn on the tap to let the clean water flow and brush our teeth, without giving it a second thought.  When our clothes are dirty, we put them in the washer and turn on the tap and a machine washes our clothes for us. 
What if....we had to collect rain water from our roofs and that was our only source of water.  What if we had to walk an hour to a lagoon to wash our clothes and then carry them back, wet.  What if we had to walk deep within a slippery, muddy cave to get water for our family.  These are the realities of the people we are serving. 

Last week we went to Sequachil, where we are working on a water reservoir to collect rain water for the school.  As part of our experience, we walked up to and into the cave, the only water source for this community of 60 families during the dry season.  The longer the dry season, the further back into the cave they have to go to find water.  We watched as men, women, children and the elderly walked with candles 15 minutes into the cave to reach a pool of dirty water. 

The path was not easy to traverse, as the rocks underfoot were covered with mud and stalactites hung from the roof of the cave.  We watched as they carefully filled their water containers, trying hard not to overly disturb the water and make it muddier than it already was, all the while holding their candle or flashlight so they could see.  It was a steady stream of people in and out. 

For the people of Seguachil, this is a part of their daily living.  They need water to survive, yet because it is so difficult and time consuming to get, they live on the edge of dehydration.

What if...we could help?   What if...we could make a difference? 

We are in the process of partnering with this community to learn from them the best way to help them have access to fresh, clean water.  At the end of May two engineers from EMI are coming out to help us do a study of both Sequachil and Sepalau, two of the communities we are working in, so that they can have access to water. 
What better way to demonstrate the love of Christ to these wonderful people than by helping them with a very real, practical need...that of water.  We are so blessed that God has opened up an opportunity to connect North American donors with the communities of Seguachil and Sepalau.

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.  John 4: 13

Men At Work

 Rocky spends a great deal of his time drawing plans for projects.  He sits at the table and draws out what a project will look like and then makes a list of supplies so the work can begin and move ahead in a timely fashion.  One project he and Manny have been working on is the plan for a pool at the mission site.  The average temperature here is somewhere between 28 and 35 degrees Celsius plus humidity!  And that is in the shade.  So a pool for teams to cool off in would be a huge blessing. 
As Rocky and Manny discussed the plan, they talked about needing to bring in a back hoe or some other equipment to do the digging as the soil here is like clay and full of rocks.  Well, yesterday the machine  arrived in the form of 35 men from Sepalau!  Mission2Guatemala is currently working on a water system for this community where during the dry season they have to walk between 1 and 1.5 hours to find decent water.  Manny was talking with one of the men from the community about the pool project and he said he wanted to help.  These men volunteered to come out in the heat and move earth! 

 They accomplished in one day what it would have taken us, with a machine a few days to do.   Incredible!  And, they were happy to do it!   

By the end of the day you could "see" the pool taking shape.  It is still a long way from being finished, but thanks to this group of men, we are that much closer to the goal - to have a place for teams to cool off and a place to teach local kids how to swim. 
It really is amazing what can be accomplished when God's people get together and help one another.  Watching them work yesterday was a picture of what being in community is all about.  When one person has a need, the rest come and help to meet that need.  We are helping them accomplish something out of their grasp and in turn, they helped us with something out of reach for us.