Monday, March 30, 2009

Water

Shampoo in the rainSurrounded by ants in the bath-basin ... a fight to the death! They are not getting any of my water except what I flush them down the drain with! The spout off the porch roof would make a wonderful shower ... think I'll ask the Lord to heat it a bit! Of course that may not be a good "missionary" connection with the neighbors! David is out washing his hair [photo at right. Click the photo to see it and the other rain-related ones] while collecting water in buckets at the roof spout. I think we should just soap him down and then he could have a bath and we could wash his clothes at the same time! Just think of the millions of people who have no close water supply or it is a dirty shallow well. They walk miles carrying buckets, basins, or any containers that will work ... tied to their bicycles, their backs, on their heads ... with always a line to wait through! We are so Fortunate! that we have the good well and the rain here at Mulungwishi! Pray for others and the many leaders of nations who do not see these issues as important and may it also challenge us to use water wisely. Pray for more rain!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Prayers needed: Typhoid fever and armed bandits

We apologize for not being in contact with you. This is due to a lot of factors. The first being the lack of electricity, which also limits our Internet time. We have also had to hit the ground running in order to catch up on our classes, and different projects that we have. We continue without electricity. This has developed other problems that we can add to what we have already written. There has been an outbreak of typhoid fever in the area due to bad water. We are going into the dry season and we need to pump water so as to provide clean water. We have started to pump twice a week using diesel fuel at $5 a gallon. When we have electricity, it is free and we have it 24x7. The other problem of lack of electricity is the living in the dark. Already twice this month, armed bandits have come on to the station and have robbed, beaten and tortured a number of our teachers. In fact as we write, we are up because four men in black clothes were spotted coming on the the station and looking for our driver. The students are mobilized and are circulating around the campus. However they do not have guns. Since we will be up most of the night, we figured we would try to catch up on some of the e-mails. This is where we are and we need your prayers.