Recently one of the women from my church went down to Central America on a mission trip, and when she came back she showed us pictures of the church they are building for this community of refugees from a neighboring country.
Now the church isn't fancy, it's more or less what we would call a pole barn here. They have the roof and the outer walls up and are working on the interior. But as she was telling us about the community and showing us her pictures, she mentioned that there were 30 other churches in this community.
Thirty? Did I hear right? Thirty? That's right, "but most of them are very small."
Thirty churches. And how many doctors are in this community? How many dentists? How many bricklayers, plumbers, well-diggers? No, I didn't ask that, I didn't think of it at the time.
These people live in houses that could politely be called shacks. They look like something a kid would throw together as a play fort. In fact, you have to look very closely to see that they are indeed structures and not heaps of scrap metal.
Did you stay in one of those houses? somebody (not me) asked. Oh, no, she said.
The church is getting running water and flush toilets. On her last visit a year ago, the bathrooms consisted of a hole in the ground. I dare say that is probably more than the people in the shacks have. I don't know what they use or where they go.
So--no running water and no plumbing, except in the church. Am I the only one here who sees something wrong with this picture? Thirty churches, but no safe water supply, no sanitation, no sewers.
Ah--but they have Jesus, the Living Water. Who told the Samaritan woman at the well that no one would ever go thirsty from the water He gave. And when she, quite sensibly, said, "Give me some of this water," He started playing word games with her. Of course, this being the Bible, she goes along with it, instead of saying, Look, I don't have time for this sort of nonsense, I have all kinds of work to do.
Living in the Great Lakes region, it's quite easy to take water for granted. Until I flew down to New Mexico, to a desert the Spanish called the Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death, because there was no water along this stretch of El Camino Real (the road from Mexico City to Albuquerque) for almost a hundred miles. And when I mean no water I mean NO water. None. I was in an air-conditioned car and I could feel the desert sun pulling the water right out of me. I do not know how the Spanish managed in their ox-carts. Well, I do know. A lot of them didn't, that's why that section of desert got its name. I came back never taking water for granted again. So I understand now why the Biblical writers were so preoccupied with it.
But to get back to this village. How hard would it be to drill a community well or two? To put in a block of restrooms and showers? I read somewhere that most people in the world lack safe and adequate supplies of water and that this situation is likely to worsen. That many of the deaths in less developed countries are directly due to diseases caused by contaminated water, and could be entirely preventable? If they can have thirty churches, they can have safe water. And--how many of these churches are indigenous? How many the product of outside (First World) missions? Are they really serving this community's needs--or their own and their relatively well off First World congregations, who come slumming to see the results of their good deeds and money?
What would the Samaritan woman at the well think?
Now the church isn't fancy, it's more or less what we would call a pole barn here. They have the roof and the outer walls up and are working on the interior. But as she was telling us about the community and showing us her pictures, she mentioned that there were 30 other churches in this community.
Thirty? Did I hear right? Thirty? That's right, "but most of them are very small."
Thirty churches. And how many doctors are in this community? How many dentists? How many bricklayers, plumbers, well-diggers? No, I didn't ask that, I didn't think of it at the time.
These people live in houses that could politely be called shacks. They look like something a kid would throw together as a play fort. In fact, you have to look very closely to see that they are indeed structures and not heaps of scrap metal.
Did you stay in one of those houses? somebody (not me) asked. Oh, no, she said.
The church is getting running water and flush toilets. On her last visit a year ago, the bathrooms consisted of a hole in the ground. I dare say that is probably more than the people in the shacks have. I don't know what they use or where they go.
So--no running water and no plumbing, except in the church. Am I the only one here who sees something wrong with this picture? Thirty churches, but no safe water supply, no sanitation, no sewers.
Ah--but they have Jesus, the Living Water. Who told the Samaritan woman at the well that no one would ever go thirsty from the water He gave. And when she, quite sensibly, said, "Give me some of this water," He started playing word games with her. Of course, this being the Bible, she goes along with it, instead of saying, Look, I don't have time for this sort of nonsense, I have all kinds of work to do.
Living in the Great Lakes region, it's quite easy to take water for granted. Until I flew down to New Mexico, to a desert the Spanish called the Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death, because there was no water along this stretch of El Camino Real (the road from Mexico City to Albuquerque) for almost a hundred miles. And when I mean no water I mean NO water. None. I was in an air-conditioned car and I could feel the desert sun pulling the water right out of me. I do not know how the Spanish managed in their ox-carts. Well, I do know. A lot of them didn't, that's why that section of desert got its name. I came back never taking water for granted again. So I understand now why the Biblical writers were so preoccupied with it.
But to get back to this village. How hard would it be to drill a community well or two? To put in a block of restrooms and showers? I read somewhere that most people in the world lack safe and adequate supplies of water and that this situation is likely to worsen. That many of the deaths in less developed countries are directly due to diseases caused by contaminated water, and could be entirely preventable? If they can have thirty churches, they can have safe water. And--how many of these churches are indigenous? How many the product of outside (First World) missions? Are they really serving this community's needs--or their own and their relatively well off First World congregations, who come slumming to see the results of their good deeds and money?
What would the Samaritan woman at the well think?
