When it rains, it pours, but when the rains stop in the dry season, they STOP. We can go months and months and never see a drop of rain. Once-rushing streams dry up. Green grasses, so lush and full of life turn brown and crispy, inedible to livestock. The earth dries up, it is last shape frozen in a pose left by feet or tire tracks. Wells dry up, and most people do not have water catchment systems, because in the dry season, there is nothing to catch! The tall dry grasses easily catch fire, sending smoke and burning ash up in the air, only to catch in another place.
About thirteen years ago, the first missionaries for AWA, Clifton and Cyndi Brooks had a well dug on the property, knowing that one day a mission house would be built. Three years ago, we stood around the well and prayed over it, asking God to bless the well and that we would have enough water. We were about to have two different building groups coming from Canada. The building of the foundations would start two weeks before the teams arrived. Then each group would be here for two weeks, making a total of six weeks that the cement mixer would churn sand, cement powder, and water, making cement to build the mission house. We had to have a LOT of water to make all of that happen!
We said amen to our prayers over the well, and turned on the new pump we had just installed. The pump jumped into action in the well that had never-before been used. Water started gushing up the pipes into the new silver tank above! We were so excited. After a while, the tank started spilling over. It was full of 300 gallons of water! A few days later, we started mixing cement, and we mixed, and mixed, and mixed. For six weeks, we mixed and the water never ran out! The well where everyone was staying ran dry! At night, a few of us would load five empty 50-gallon drums and drive it to the town where we would buy water for the groups to bath. Our neighbors came, asking for water because their wells had dried up. However, the mission house well never dried up.
Two years later, we had another group, this time building the church. Again, the well where the group stayed, ran dry. This time we did not have to buy water in town, but we pumped water from the mission house well and would then drive the barrels to the house and pump the water up into the gravity-fed tank. We also would fill the barrels and drive them to the church work-site to mix cement there. The water level in the stream kept dropping, turning the water into sludge. Then the sludge even dried and hardened and the water in the stream was just a memory. However, the well kept on pumping.
We conserved water, but we never said “no” when someone would come and ask for water. Many times neighbors came with small or large containers to fill and were grateful for the well that would not run dry!
Many times in the Bible, Jesus is compared to the Water of Life. Water IS life, without it, we die in about three days. Without Jesus, we also die. We are grateful for the well that keeps on giving! We are thankful for your prayers and for all of you that keep on giving to keep us going.
