As I stood there in the rain, washing Grace’s mosquito net, all I could think was, “People back home would have no way of relating to this moment. Where would I even start…
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| Celebrating Megan's birthday |
Well...we live in a dark house. A dark house is a cool house, and in the island heat, this is good. But now the clouds have descended, the rains have come. Downpours can come at any moment. The clouds form a solid wall. Whole days will go by and you won’t see the sun. Without the sun, the time of day gets lost. And without electricity (long daily power cuts are the norm), our house often is hooded in semi-darkness.
So when I looked down at my watch, I was surprised to see how late in the afternoon it was. “I better wake up Grace-- she doesn’t usually nap and if she sleeps too late, she won’t sleep tonight.”
I gave her a gentle push and called her name. She started stretching herself awake as I left the room. A minute later I heard Tom call, “Grace is throwing up!!” I came to see Grace still lying down and vomiting all over her bed. We hurried to get her a bucket, but by then her stomach had been emptied all over her bed and mosquito net. We turned on a lantern in the bathroom so Grace could get cleaned up. Tom started to take down the mosquito net from the fishing lines strung in the kids rooms, when suddenly the wind picked up violently. Doors slammed, thunder rumbled and a stormy downpour of water rushed down from the heavens.
At the same moment, I heard a male voice calling from our front door. We had a visitor who had only barely made it to our house before the downpour. Tom went to greet him, leaving me with the vomit-filled bed and the kids rushing around in excitement.
A second later I’m calling Tom back, the violent wind was pushing the downpour straight into our house. The kids were pulling on me. “Yes, you can play in the rain,” I concede. I looked at Grace, still pale but insistent that she felt fine and wanted to go play too. I quickly stripped the kids down, grabbed swimsuits, and released the kids to play on the tiled porch which had quickly become a slip n’ slide/ kiddie pool. Tom and his visitor were sweeping the flood of water back out onto the porch and creating a barricade of towels to keep it outside.
Tom returned to his guest and I returned to Grace’s bed. I grabbed a headlamp to see the bed properly. Then I slowly started removing things and cleaning them. I got a bucket of water and cloth, cleaned the pillow and mattress and set them aside to dry. Finally all that was left was the sheet and the mosquito net.
But here’s the problem-- no water. When water falls from the sky, it isn’t falling from our faucets. Cleaning vomit off anything isn’t fun, but cleaning it out of a mosquito net is the worst. Think of all those layer of porous material with chunks of goodness knows what mixed between the layers. It is a gross job that is a hundred times more daunting without running water.
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| Birthday swim on local river hike |
As I looked down at the mess in the basin, I heard the kids playing on the porch, barely audible over the roar of the rain still pouring down. The solution was obvious-- I have to clean these in the rain! Here children play in the rain, young men shower in the rain, a few women wash clothes and dishes in the rain, but I knew the sight of a white woman washing in the rain would be a spectacle. I also knew I’d get soaked. So I put on my swim stuff (a swimshirt and capris are my normal swim attire), grabbed the basin and headed outside to where the water poured off our roof in a steady stream.
So there I was... thankful for the powerful water easily cleaning the sheet and mosquito net. I gave an occasional smile to onlookers and reflected…no electricity, no running water, mosquito nets, tropical downpours, washing sheets by hand in the rain while all your neighbors watch and laugh...no, I don’t think many friends back home can relate. But I should tell them about it anyway.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our team has grown again! Our teammates welcomed a little boy, born on Thursday! We can’t wait to meet him and properly welcome him to the team. Thankfully, everyone (including Grace) is feeling much better now, but we all got hit with the stomach bug. Tom’s first meetings with the men who wanted to study went relatively well. Nothing went quite as planned (but as you can see from above, “not quite what is planned” is normal). Hopefully the meetings will keep happening. We are thankful that after some stressful logistics our visitors’ travel plans have come together.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have a visitor coming this week to run a special seminar on using music. He will be teaching our team and also helping locals to write songs in their own language and in their own heart music. Pray that the right group of locals would come to the seminar meetings (the rains often stop islanders from keeping appointments, so we hope rain won’t deter people from coming). Pray that it would be a good time of learning together!
