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This journey we’re on is just crazy. Crazy!
Blaise and I live in our fifth wheel, we’re currently parked at my aunt and uncle’s property in the country, and we don’t have full hook-ups like we would if we were at a campground (but we do have awesome fellowship with my family). We have an electricity hook-up, but we don’t have a consistent hook-up to fresh water, wifi, or a sewage dumping station. This means that once a week, we have to dump our black water tank (poo) into our portable tank, haul it to a local truck stop, and dump it there. Fun stuff. (If you’re struggling with pride issues, just do this a couple of times and I guarantee it will really help knock you down a peg or two!) To get fresh water, we just have to hook the hose up and turn the water on.
Well, until Saturday.
We are currently facing a drought here in the Midwest, coupled with record-breaking temperatures. Not fun. We have been crazy conservative with our water usage, and we are currently using between 15-20 gallons of water each day–including showers, washing dishes, cooking, etc. On Saturday, my aunt called and said that the water pump failed to produce water. Uh oh. My uncle came out to check the well and found out that we are, indeed, at a critically low water level. Blaise and I were up half the night Saturday trying to figure out what to do about this. We have a campground option nearby, but it’s not logistically feasible until our renters move in (just a couple of weeks). We could take showers and stuff at our house until the well replenishes, but then we are driving 14 miles out of the way (roundtrip) just to shower, and then we still wouldn’t have water here for cooking, etc. So we settled on borrowing a big water tank from my dad, filling it up at the house, and hauling water out to our camper. This is not ideal, but it will work for the next couple of weeks until our renters are in the house and we can move to the campground with full hook-ups.
The whole dilemma was solved, and by Sunday evening, our camper’s fresh water tank was once again full.
Since then, however, I have been burdened for the men and women in South Sudan who do not have such a simple solution to a critical problem: access to fresh water. Our sending agency, Every Village, along with many others are drilling deep-water wells (boreholes) across South Sudan, but there is so much land to be covered and without passable roads, some areas are impossible to get to for more than half of the year. And even where there are wells, it isn’t like the people can just turn on their tap and get clean water. The women and girls still have to take jerry cans, walk either several hundred yards or a few miles to reach the borehole, and then carry the water back to their homes. It’s no small task. Where there aren’t boreholes…well, let’s just say that every puddle, every stream, and every open well is utilized and one can only imagine how much the water that should be saving their lives is actually making them sick.
Every Village and other organizations that drill water wells in South Sudan are literally saving the lives of the people in those communities. I want to really emphasize that impact…it’s HUGE. But I laid in bed the last couple of nights and really thought about our small crisis, easily solvable in the land where everything is in abundance, including clean water. My heart hurt for the children who go to bed with parched throats, the mothers who walk miles in the scorching sun for a pail of dirty water, and the mothers who have to watch as their children suffer the effects of dehydration.
I’ve been to South Sudan three times. I have witnessed with my own eyes the lack of water and the effects it has on communities. I have experienced the heat and the sweat and the need to drink plenty of water. It’s no joke. And yet, as an American, I still cannot imagine what it is like to suffer in that way. I cannot imagine the actual anguish that the women feel for their children; the actual struggle to walk so far in such conditions for something so vital.
Our dilemma was never anywhere near critical, just inconvenient. But for so many in South Sudan, it is a critical need. It’s really difficult, as an American, to imagine what it would be like to lack the most basic necessities of life, and yet, it is a reality for so many in South Sudan.
Here, a women in Tonj, S. Sudan shows our team the water that she collects each day from a nearby open well…
Lord, I life up to you my South Sudanese brothers and sisters. Please provide clean water for every village in South Sudan, and with that access to clean water, please provide a way for them to hear about your Son, the Living Water, so that they may experience the ‘spring of water welling up to eternal life’. Lord, I also beg of you that I would never again take for granted what you have given me. Lord, don’t allow me to waste the gifts and resources I have been given, but lead me to use them for your glory and the advance of your Kingdom.
