daily water

It only took a day of not having water, less than a day in fact, to make me so much more sympathetic for the neighbourhood folk who come to the mission base each day to collect water for themselves. More sympathetic towards all the people around the world who daily gather at communal wells and taps to collect water. Jesus was in the same category, but he didn't even have a bottle or a jug!! 

 One of the wooden wood bits that hold up one of the water tanks by our house had snapped, so the water tank was emptied, pulled down so that the wooden wood bits could be replaced with new, unrotten wooden wood bits. So we had no water. At first it was fun - I had my shower,  Solomon style, in a lava lava outside with good pressure from the tank as it was being emptied. But as the day wore on, I began to appreciate so much more the convenience of having water coming out of a tap inside the house. 

For a day, I joined the queue of people lining up to fill their water bottles.

It made me realise how we've built our lifestyle around the convenience of instant water from taps inside the house. I wash my hands 28 times a day, at least. Filing up the bottle is effortless when the water's on tap. Rinsing veggies is easy when the water flows. Got a dirty nappy to clean before you soak? No worries when there's water in the tank. But when there's no water, you're carrying buckets of water to flush the toilet, you're carrying baskets with bottles to store in your fridge to drink. And you're carrying dirty laundry to the communal tap to clean. 

There's lots of people there - kids carrying 10 litre jerry cans one their small boney backs, mums carrying bags filled with 1 litre Szetu bottles with rain water from the humble tank at SWIM. Usually people seem to come in lots of 2 or 3 and they take turns to fill a bottle.

In a sense, it's kind of social. But in another sense, I'm glad that usually, I can just be "social" in my own house.

With my own tap.

Grounded.

Well, it's been way too long since I've blogged. We went to NZ on holiday/sort out things with our house etc. It was way too cold, but lovely doing life with friends and family - even if it was only for a few days at a time. And then we came back and hit the ground running. With the director of SWIM and his wife leaving in less than six weeks, our workload is increasing to compensate for the loss. We're hoping and praying that God will provide a replacement soon (maybe you...?) - there's only so long that we'll be able to do our load and theirs! But as I'm reminded daily, God gives us strength for the things He calls us to do. I'm reminded of Martin Luther, who said when he had a busier day, would spend more time in prayer. If he lived now, I hesitate to guess he'd spend more time praying and less time blogging - hence no blogs of late from me.

Anyway, I wanted to write about feeling grounded. You see as lovely as it was to be in NZ and buy chocolate and eat grapes and have all the ingredients you needed when cooking, no pot holes in the road and all those things I generally complain about here, the novelty wore off pretty quickly. It was so special to be able to meet up with people we love who live in NZ. But you're always living out of a suitcase. Always unsettled. Always thinking about the next journey to the next destination. Always remembering that this is only temporary. Always thinking that though you've had a great dinner with your sister tonight or a great day with your friend, it'll be the last one for more than a year. I think more than any other time, we both really experienced reverse culture shock. Culture shock is when you go into a culture other than your own and everything about that culture and their way of life is so different that you experience intense emotional exhuastion and anxiety etc. Reverse culture shock is the same thing, but happens when you go back to your own culture. As an example, I'd go into a supermarket that was ten times the size of the kinds of store we have in the Solomon Islands and I'd be so totally stunned and confused and immobilised by the overwhelming choice. It was too much. Or Jair gave the example of going out to Subway in Brisbane airport. All he wanted was a Foot sub and he gets bombarded with questions (and all of them said at a pace of 198 words per minute)

"What type of bread do you want? Italian, Cheese and Herbs, Oats and Honey?"
"You've got choices? I just want bread."
"What sort of cheese? Cheddar, Swiss, Edam? Do you want your meat grilled?"
"Um, cheese. Wow, you've got cheese?"
"Lettuce? Tomatoes? Cucumber? Capsicum? Red onion? Olives? Pickles? Jalapeños?"
"Oh boy. Let's just go for the works."
"What sauce would you like? Mustard, honey mustard, bbq sauce, redwine vingarette, mayo, southwest, ranch?"
"Uhhh..... (a very long pause) what would you recommend?"
"Sure. Do you want to make that a meal?"

When Jair related the story to me I thought, it can't be that bad. Then when I ordered one day while we were en route to Northland I struck the same problem. Too many choices. I just didn't know what to do with them all. And there's no time to think. So yeah, we were culture shocked.

Then we got back to the sauna that we call home, stepped inside our house and breathed in a deep breath of musty air and I thought: "ahhhhh. The welcome smell of home." I still felt a bit unsettled and it didn't take long for my thoughts to slide back to NZ and whatever our future is there, but I, we all, actually, felt like we were back home. And thankful too!

But it got me thinking, that God might/will up-route us again some time. We're not going to stay here forever (well, at least I don't think we are...). In the course of our lives God could take us anywhere - and one day, He'll take us to our real home. The home where we'll always feel settled and where we won't have any culture shock. Neither will it smell musty.

I realised so powerfully that wherever we go, we've got to be grounded in God. Being with Him is being at home. Abiding in Him, my soul is settled. With Him there is peace amidst the chaos of life. If I'm grounded in Him, I won't feel uprooted, no matter where I am living. Well, that's the theory - now I'll have to try it out in real life. But it's a daily task, to live each day, grounded. in. God.