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| Graduation Day |
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| Carmen's Birthday |
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| New Website |
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| More Birthday Girls |
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| Quincenera Girls |
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| Barbie CAKE |
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Saying Good-bye to the Old Man  This is Alexa and she looks like we all felt. |
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| Maria, one of three born on Christmas Day |
New Year's Eve we ate sausage dogs cooked over the fire and marshmallows and cinnamon rolls. A gastric nightmare for sure, but it seemed right at the time. We had a team of 15 from Statesboro and we had the best time. We were celebrating the New Year even though we didn't have water to wash, or electricity, and then it started raining. WE celebrated anyway. We are so looking forward to the future of this upcoming year of 2014.
However, we did have to solve a problem. No water in the houses for 4 days. I was with the team in town on Monday, when the call came through from Rosa to announce the bad news. I figured I would get the house and reboot the electric pump like I have done so many times again. This time I was mistaken and I had 31 girls, and 15 team members with no water to bath, drink, to cook with, or to flush toilets. I prayed about it that night and I went back out to the pump super early in the morning. I kept doing combinations of things, and finally discovered that I could cut the pump on and open the small faucet located by the larger valve next to it. It would run water and we filled up containers and carried them to the houses, all day long. We use lots of water around here apparently. The second day we were taking bucket showers, trying to cook for 60 people and therefore we were moving lots of water. I called electricians and plumbers, but it was the holidays and everyone had gone home to be with their families and couldn't help us at all. Our team were great sports about the whole thing. The girls and I have been without water before, but I don't think we ever had a team that has gone without water for that long.
I had folks come by to give me advice and tell me my well was dry, and that I would have to dig a new well. I had them share other thoughts about how long we would be without water, and shake their heads in pity at our dry situation. I kept saying to my well meaning advisors, that if water was coming out of the spigot, it would indicate to me that we had water coming from somewhere. They just walked away. shaking their head at my uninformed state of mind. The plumber that came finally said it was an electrical problem, but he would be back later that day, but we didn't see him for 2 days, after the team had left this morning.
Thursday afternoon came along and with it our electrician guy and his faithful assistant. While they walked to the well to ascertain what was happening, Cindy, one of team members asked if I had laid hands on the well and prayed over it. I was so frustrated at no water, it hadn't crossed my mind. I walked to the pump house and did the obvious thing I should have done in the beginning. I prayed for the electricians to have wisdom and understanding about what the problem was and that they would fix it. These guys have been before. The head guy has a super high squeaky voice, weighs about 90 lbs and his whispers a lot, and has a nervous cough, but he is a genius at figuring things out!
Because in the past, the problems with the pump were always electrical I assumed it would be this time especially when the plumber said that it was electrical. The Electrician just kept running scenarios back and forth try to decide why the pump would keep shutting off. They looked like they were struggling to figure it out. He really has a teacher's heart. He wanted me to understand why it was not the electricity, or maybe he wanted me to be quiet. I was trying to be helpful. I kept running after items that he needed from the barn. He had tried so many things trying to track down the problem. He kept working and we got just a little dribble coming into the tanks. I was satisfied, but he was not. Finally, he said, "It can only be the problem with the plumbing." I was disheartened because he was an electrician and not a plumber. The plumber had said it was electrical. He then said "Bring me the biggest wrench you have." I was thinking to myself, a little water is better than no water. The girls and needed to take a bucket bath in a few minutes. The team would be leaving the next day and I wanted them to have a little water to be able to clean up with too. Clearly, this guy was not a plumber. But then I remembered what I had prayed that God would give them wisdom and understanding on how to fix the problem. So I went and got what he had asked for. I have a wrench here that is bright yellow, and is as long as my arm and about as wide. I don't know who donated it and I don't think I have ever used it, but I passed it to him like a nurse would pass the scalpel to a doctor, only with a little bit more muscle because that wrench was heavy!
The guys leaned over the valve and adjusted the mondo wrench around the metal value. They both pulled on the valve with all their might. It finally open and gieser water went everywhere, and I was seeing my hopes drenched. But the little Electrician, was excited as he played with the valve he had removed like it was a Christmas toy. Then he wanted me to understand what was happening. I didn't want to understand. I wanted water in my pipes in the houses for us to take a real shower and wash our hair and flush our toilets. So I tried to be interested in his explanation, but I wasn't seeing the water flowing through the pvc. I was watching it slowly diminish from geiser status, to a small bubbling mound of water.
He asked me if I understood. I must have had that "foggy - boggy" kind of look on my face, but I made the mistake of trying to recap what he told me. Because I was thinking my own thoughts, I got part of it wrong. So he patiently described the process again. using the door jam of the pump house as his visual aid. He said there are three capacitors in the well. He moved his arm up to the top of the door jam and then to the bottom of the door. When the well is full the electricity to the pump shuts off because it is full, but as we use the water it passes back down the other two sensors and when it passes the last sensor it turns the pump back on signaling to draw more water to the top. The valve he removed had been blocking the water on one side and the air pressure was blocking the valve from the other side, from entering the well and that is why the well was shutting off and on because the sensors were saying there was no water and it would cut the pump on, but to no avail because the air was locking up the other side of the valve. The pump was working but the valve was not. The valve was frozen, stuck, immovable, locked up, nothing was flowing. He took the faulty valve and removed the center where the water could flow all the time. He put the metal disk about the size of a 50 cent coin out of the valve in his pocket and said "You need a new valve, but for now the water will not be hindered."
As I was finally listening to what he was saying, I thought about how this pump was like my spiritual life lately. I would get full, and then get busy and get dry and run to my Word and get full only to get absolutely dry and busy and from frustration, I cry out for the water that I have to have to live. I was content to haul the water to the destination, but it surely takes a toll on your flesh, or someone else's flesh, hauling your water in 5 gallon buckets, when life could be much easier having the water flow right to where you need it.
I have been doing this a lot. I read my Once a Day Devotional Bible, thinking that would be enough but I really wasn't seeking His face. So because of my on/off, flip floppy ways, my valve has been stuck as of late. The water pressure was there, but my air pressure was fighting it on the other side. It could be that I was having too much going on, or not using my time wisely, or pure out disobedience to get in my Word like I know I need to do. God is always ready to fill us up and keep us filled. He has installed sensors in all of us to the point that we know where to go when we are low. I am up and down. He patiently will tell us what our spiritual problem is if we really want to know, but sometimes, we just "yeah, yeah, yeah" God's counsel, not really paying attention, we just go through the motions of listening, so that we can get on with what we want. I don't want to be clicking on and off all my life. It is a very aggravating condition that gets on your nerves after a while. I am glad He is the Well that never runs dry and that He is ready, whenever I am. I pray I take out the errant valve that shuts off what I desperately need from Him. I pray God installs a new valve, but until then I pray He puts that broken piece in His pocket and that this year, I will have an "open flow policy" with Him.
I want to thank all of you who sent gifts to the girls for Christmas. I want to give thanks to the team that brought gifts to our community and carried our girls on a shopping spree to buy things for themselves and for others here in our community. Thanks for all your prayers in 2013. Thanks for all your encouraging words. You guys have been a blessing to so many.
Have a blessed NEW YEAR and Blessings from the Washed, Cleaned, Filled and Flowing Honduran MOM
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