Water Opportunities

August '97 We're always looking for opportunities to have contact with our neighbors to show them Christ's love. We've had great fun with The Ocana family, who have opened their home and lives to us. But the majority of our neighbors, although pleasant, keep their distance. However there is one time when they all come to our house... when they are out of water. The Ocaña Family - 3 generations

The public water usually comes in twice a day: morning and evening. Most houses have a 290 gallon holding tank on the roof so it isn't a problem that it's not on all day, unless for some reason the water doesn't come in for a few days, or weeks. For times like that the owner of our house built a cistern under the garage. The two of us don't go through 290 gallons of water too quickly, so we would find out that the city water had been off for days when the neighbors began coming to the door with buckets.

At first we didn't understand why they came so hesitantly, because we had enough water to keep the whole neighborhood going for a week. But as we grew to understand the culture better we saw that people generally don't help out people who aren't family. Twice in the last year the water was out for three weeks at a time. As we filled buckets from the cistern we prayed that God would use our giving freely of our water to lead them towards His free gift of the water of Life.

Once the water had been out for a week already and the word around the neighborhood was that it would be out for three months. It's hard to sort truth from rumors, but it seems that the water commissioner had cut off the water to force people to make their payments. He was about to leave office and apparently there wasn't enough money in the coffer for him to rob to make his "public service" worthwhile. (Sounds incredible to us but it's standard operating procedure here from the President down.) As the days passed we kept giving water, watching the cistern level get lower and lower, thinking that this time it might get to the point where we ran out. It had been easy to give when we knew we had plenty.

This time it was harder, but we decided to continue sharing till we ran out. We quit using the washing machine and took short showers. We hope the contrast spoke clearly to them: one of their own making them suffer for his personal gain while Christian foreigners gave freely. Thankfully the water came back on before the cistern ran out, making us so glad we hadn't refused anyone. Our new neighborhood doesn't seem to have water problems, which is one less hassle. But looking back we suspect that the opportunity to share was well worth the time it took. Your Friends... Tim & Annette faces