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 September 8, 2010 |
Update for April 24, 2005"Nothing is Impossible with God" That was the title of the pastor's message this morning at Fountain of Praise Assembly. During the message he asked us to write down an impossible situation that we were facing and said that at the end of the service we would pray for those impossible situations. Usually when given those interactive assignments, I have nothing to say. Not so today. I had no problem in having something to write down. It was, "Water in Avondale." After being in my newly rented house for only 5 days, yesterday morning we had no power (a problem which comes and goes) and no water (a problem which doesn't go so easily). Having lived in this part of town before, I was aware of the water problem. However, this house has an underground tank and a water tower so I was sure that I was safe. Not so, five days in the house and NO WATER. After calling many numbers, I finally raised someone at Lusaka Water and Sewerage. I was told someone would come to take a look at it. "Now," I wondered "what good is it going to do for someone to come take a look, when we all know there simply isn't enough water supply to this area of the city?" Knowing others in the area get water delivered by truck to underground tanks, I went to the Lusaka Water and Sewerage office, to see if I could pay for and receive a truckload of water. Amazingly enough, I met the same man I talked to on the telephone and he just laughed at me, telling me someone would come and then they would send in their report. If it was a problem they could not fix, then I could come the next day to pay for a truck of water and the following day a truck would be delivered. He then proceeded to show me the pile of papers representing people waiting for water to be delivered by their one truck. That was scary...how many more would be added to the pile before mine? I'm thinking, "This is Saturday, no one works on Sunday, it will be Monday before I am told to go pay for the truckload of water and then Tuesday before water could be delivered." Four days with no water. That doesn't make Cheryl Ann a very happy camper! Finally I convinced them to allow me to pay for the truckload of water and get my piece of paper in the pile. I know, I probably am only fooling myself to think that is going to make things happen any faster. In the evening, carrying any empty containers I could find, going to my friend's place to collect water, I found myself singing, "Bring your empty earthen vessels..." No long shower this morning, so getting ready time was greatly reduced...you may be happy to know though, that last night my friend also allowed me the luxury of a shower! Did I pray and ask God to do the impossible and bring water to Avondale? I sure did! Did He answer? He sure did! He even answered in the affirmative. When I got home, the water was running into the underground tank. What a wonderful sound! Still not enough to run the pump but it was looking hopeful. After my Sunday afternoon nap the water had stopped running but it looked as if there was enough water to run the pump and get some water up to the tower. I stayed outside for awhile, enjoying the sound of the water going into that tower, agreeing that, "Indeed, Nothing is Impossible with God." Only to find in a short while that it is man we have the problem with, not God. When I went into my house, I found that the tap in the tub had been left on, so all that water just went down the drain...literally! After about 20 minutes I started thinking, "Mutemwa and his wife are out, what if the same thing happened in their house?" So out I went to take a listen around their house and sure enough...water running. Horrors! Fortunately I had found the valve to turn the water off from the tower. So for the rest of the afternoon until the evening when they came home, it was back to the cupful of water from the bucket. Who knows how much of that precious gift we lost? The pressure is looking pretty low now. Do I dare hope for enough water for a bath in the morning? Please remind me again..."Nothing is Impossible with God." Right! During this week while there were bunches of workmen in the house and yard working on various things (plumbing, electrical, carpentry), I met with George Phiri, the Director of the 14 Alpha Community Schools in Eastern Province where we have the Feeding Program and Project Seedbag in progress. Since it is school break and since there was still all this work going on in my house, we agreed that it would be best for George to come here this trip rather than for me to go to Lumezi. We managed to finalize George's bookkeeping for the Feeding Program for the time I was in Canada. He has done an amazing job to keep things going well. We worked out a new budget for 2005's project. Then we were also able to put some things together for the new Seeds and Tools Project which we hope to implement this year. In this ERDO project, we will give seeds and tools to families, to help them to become self-sufficient. The hope is that they will grow enough maize to feed their family for the year and have enough seed for the next year. Soy beans will also be grown, in order to give cash crop for the families to be able to buy necessary fertilizer for next year's crop. The plan is to rotate the maize and soy bean crops, giving the soy beans chance to put nutrients back into the soil that the maize takes out. A little over a week ago I met with Kelvin Honsinger, Director of ERDO, while he was in Lusaka briefly. He gave me hope that we would be able to start a new feeding program. Realizing there may be many challenges, it still seems the next place for a feeding program should be among the 8 Chisamba Christian Community Schools. This is the area in which the three churches have been planted. I would love to be able to encourage those churches by helping the children in their communities with a feeding program. First step is to take a trip out to Musaka to do an unofficial assessment of need. Hopefully that will happen this next week. Maize production in the area is going to be greatly reduced this year because of lack of rain. On my last trip to Kitwe, I just wanted to cry as I saw field after field of brown maize that is going to bring no food. Truly there is going to be a lot of hunger in Zambia this year. I know we can't feed everyone but it would be great to be able to feed another 1,000 kids, allowing them to become healthy and more interested in school and learning.
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