A Selfish Prayer for Rain
We are currently in the rainy season here in Mozambique, or at least we should be. The rains have come some, as evidenced by washed out roads and the green weeds in our yard, however it hasn’t rained quite as much as it should. We therefore have been praying regularly for rain – the Mozambicans need it desperately so that their crops can grow. (Last year’s harvest wasn’t very plentiful due to the lack of rain and another year of poor harvest would cause great hardship). Anyway this past Sunday I found myself praying for rain yet again – this time perhaps with a bit of selfish motivation as well.
Before writing further however, let me back up and explain.
Last Tuesday afternoon the city water turned off. Now to a degree, this is a normal occurrence and not something to be concerned about; usually the water will turn back on in a matter of a few hours or at least the next day. (By my memory, the longest we’ve gone without city water was 36 hours and that was after a large storm destroyed one of the pumps.) When we first moved into our house we installed a water storage tank for times such as this - so that when the city water went out we would still have quite a bit in wait. It’s also at these times that we move into conserve mode – to make sure we aren’t wasting any water.
Unfortunately our yard-worker had just transplanted several bushes and clumps of grass and needed to water them a bit. Okay, we let him use some tank water and that night we took bucket baths in accordance with the situation.
On Wednesday I reminded Rabia, our house-help, not to mop the floors as the water still had not come back on and we wanted to remain in conserve mode. Despite our conservation, the reserve tank of water ran dry so Rabia grabbed a couple large buckets and went to draw water from a nearby well. (Actually we have a well also, but it ran dry last July and the rains haven’t been sufficient to fill it). That evening about 5 pm the water came on. Yeah – I quickly did 3 small loads of laundry (washers here are at least ½ the size of what is common in the States) before we took the kids over to a friend’s house so we could have a date night. For our date we came home to take nice showers before sitting down to eat and watch a video. I wasn’t too worried about doing more laundry – the water was back on and who wants to ruin a rare datenight by doing household chores?
Thursday morning I got up all prepared to do laundry only to discover the water was off again! Ugh. At least our tank had been able to fill some so we had water for bucket baths and doing the dishes. Rabia came into work and immediately went to draw a couple buckets of water as well.
We managed to make it through that day as well as Friday. By Friday evening the water still had not come back on so we switched to ultra-conserve mode, thinking that if it wasn’t on by that night we’d be out the entire weekend! Washrag baths replaced bucket baths, at least for a few of us!
On Saturday morning I did manage to run to a friend’s house and do a couple loads of laundry (they live in another area of town and their water wasn’t off). Late that afternoon we had a team meeting and hurried to get into the car as it had just begun to rain. As we pulled up at our teammates’ house we had to laugh, for there was Shawn running around the yard with buckets in hand and Jacob and Jaynie had lined an entire row of buckets and containers under the edge of their roof to catch the falling water. What a great idea! (I decided one could tell we haven’t been on field very long since the idea never occurred to us on our own). Dan quickly drove back home to put our own buckets out under the gutters. How excited we were to come back from our meeting that evening to discover that we’d amassed 2 huge buckets full (probably 20+ gallons each) and one smaller bucket. We now had water to bucket bathe again!!! Our guards were happy as we didn’t have to send them to the well the next morning.
Now fast forward to Sunday afternoon. We still had one large bucket full of water but that was all. The clouds were gathering however and the air had cooled. It was in this circumstance that I found myself praying for more rain. Yes, the rain was needed for the ground, but probably my greatest motivation was that I wanted to fill up the buckets again! How excited I was when it did start to rain (despite the selfishness in my prayer). I managed to get all the buckets set in place and then called Karunia outside. Why? To wash her hair of course!! She wasn’t so excited when she felt how cold the rain was, but we managed none to the less to wash each of our hair! I tried to get the boys outside as well, but they weren’t sure about things and then Esperansa woke up so I didn’t push the matter (washing their hair doesn’t take near as much water). By the rain’s end I’d filled the same 2 large buckets plus another very large tub, a 10 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket! Yeah – plenty of water!
To end this tale – the water turned on Monday mid-morning with more pressure than we’ve had in a long time. Perhaps they’ve fixed whatever problem there was. We each managed to take real baths and I managed to run about 7 loads of laundry (had to stop at that point as there was no more room left on the lines outside or inside).
It’s now Tuesday. The water is thankfully still running, however the electricity just went out! :-)
Before writing further however, let me back up and explain.
Last Tuesday afternoon the city water turned off. Now to a degree, this is a normal occurrence and not something to be concerned about; usually the water will turn back on in a matter of a few hours or at least the next day. (By my memory, the longest we’ve gone without city water was 36 hours and that was after a large storm destroyed one of the pumps.) When we first moved into our house we installed a water storage tank for times such as this - so that when the city water went out we would still have quite a bit in wait. It’s also at these times that we move into conserve mode – to make sure we aren’t wasting any water.
Unfortunately our yard-worker had just transplanted several bushes and clumps of grass and needed to water them a bit. Okay, we let him use some tank water and that night we took bucket baths in accordance with the situation.
On Wednesday I reminded Rabia, our house-help, not to mop the floors as the water still had not come back on and we wanted to remain in conserve mode. Despite our conservation, the reserve tank of water ran dry so Rabia grabbed a couple large buckets and went to draw water from a nearby well. (Actually we have a well also, but it ran dry last July and the rains haven’t been sufficient to fill it). That evening about 5 pm the water came on. Yeah – I quickly did 3 small loads of laundry (washers here are at least ½ the size of what is common in the States) before we took the kids over to a friend’s house so we could have a date night. For our date we came home to take nice showers before sitting down to eat and watch a video. I wasn’t too worried about doing more laundry – the water was back on and who wants to ruin a rare datenight by doing household chores?
Thursday morning I got up all prepared to do laundry only to discover the water was off again! Ugh. At least our tank had been able to fill some so we had water for bucket baths and doing the dishes. Rabia came into work and immediately went to draw a couple buckets of water as well.
We managed to make it through that day as well as Friday. By Friday evening the water still had not come back on so we switched to ultra-conserve mode, thinking that if it wasn’t on by that night we’d be out the entire weekend! Washrag baths replaced bucket baths, at least for a few of us!
On Saturday morning I did manage to run to a friend’s house and do a couple loads of laundry (they live in another area of town and their water wasn’t off). Late that afternoon we had a team meeting and hurried to get into the car as it had just begun to rain. As we pulled up at our teammates’ house we had to laugh, for there was Shawn running around the yard with buckets in hand and Jacob and Jaynie had lined an entire row of buckets and containers under the edge of their roof to catch the falling water. What a great idea! (I decided one could tell we haven’t been on field very long since the idea never occurred to us on our own). Dan quickly drove back home to put our own buckets out under the gutters. How excited we were to come back from our meeting that evening to discover that we’d amassed 2 huge buckets full (probably 20+ gallons each) and one smaller bucket. We now had water to bucket bathe again!!! Our guards were happy as we didn’t have to send them to the well the next morning.
Now fast forward to Sunday afternoon. We still had one large bucket full of water but that was all. The clouds were gathering however and the air had cooled. It was in this circumstance that I found myself praying for more rain. Yes, the rain was needed for the ground, but probably my greatest motivation was that I wanted to fill up the buckets again! How excited I was when it did start to rain (despite the selfishness in my prayer). I managed to get all the buckets set in place and then called Karunia outside. Why? To wash her hair of course!! She wasn’t so excited when she felt how cold the rain was, but we managed none to the less to wash each of our hair! I tried to get the boys outside as well, but they weren’t sure about things and then Esperansa woke up so I didn’t push the matter (washing their hair doesn’t take near as much water). By the rain’s end I’d filled the same 2 large buckets plus another very large tub, a 10 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket! Yeah – plenty of water!
To end this tale – the water turned on Monday mid-morning with more pressure than we’ve had in a long time. Perhaps they’ve fixed whatever problem there was. We each managed to take real baths and I managed to run about 7 loads of laundry (had to stop at that point as there was no more room left on the lines outside or inside).
It’s now Tuesday. The water is thankfully still running, however the electricity just went out! :-)
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