It's early in the morning, around six o'clock. After a night of tossing and turning on the dusty floor, I finally rise to the sound of roosters crowing and rays of sunlight bursting through the cracks in the walls. The hour has come to begin a new day. First thing is first, I take a collection of buckets and carry them down the narrow path until I reach the source of survival: the well. I make conversation as I stand in line while the earlier risers take their share of the water. I waste no time in beginning to pump as my neighbors finish up. I have built up quite an endurance to the struggles of pumping the water since this has become second nature for me; when I first started I could barely pump half of a bucket. Nevertheless, I am always drained of energy once my buckets are filled to the top. I cannot lose all energy though, since my task is only half complete. The long walk back still awaits. The weight of the water seems heavier than I remembered it being yesterday as I pick up a bucket in each blistered hand. I push on and try to concentrate on not losing any of the water instead of the tearing of my muscles I feel in my arms. Hiking up the hill, almost half way to my home, I trip on a rock and spill out some of the water, causing my lower half to become drenched. All I can think is how my family could have used that precious water I so clumsily let slip out. But I continue on, thanking God for the opportunity to have a well so close in comparison to other villages. With this water, we will cook, drink, wash clothes and ourselves. This water is a privilege which we never forget. I arrive at my home, put the buckets down, and cautiously go about using the water so that I may only have to go twice more today.
This is the reality of the people living here in Nicaragua. As I have experienced what it is like to have to pump from the well and carry it back to a home where we were doing construction on, I have no idea what it must be like to have to make those trips multiple times a day. In my weakness of pumping the well, it was impossible not to think of how I have taken something so common as water for granted everyday. Sometimes I even complain about having to wait 40 seconds for water to get warm. Then I began thinking what else I take for granted, which is far more to talk about than this blog will allow room for. I asked the Lord right there to forgive me of my ignorance.
That experince taught me another lesson besides taking things for granted. When I first arrived in Nicaragua, I had all these expectations of what this trip would look like. They were expectations that I had made though, and not God. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was beginning to think negatively. Aside from still missing home and just now grasping how long this trip was actually going to be, I found other small things to criticize. I began believing the lie that the enemy was telling me: that I was wasting time and not needed here. Back to the well story, I did spill a significant amount of water as I carried the bucket that was the same size as I am back to the jobsite, and I came back completely soaked! But instead of feeling like I failed, I looked down into the bucket and realized that I managed to keep half of the water in. I believe that was the Lord teaching me a hidden lesson to see things positively; view the bucket as half full so to speak. So I began thanking God. I thanked Him for everything and I continued my day praising Him. How selfish was I to complain when this is the actual life of these people. Since my pledge to stay positive, God has revealed so much to me and has given me so much joy that it overflows just like the water in the bucket.
In this small lesson that I learned, I still do not know what to think of things. Should I feel sorry for these people that have to do so much for one small thing? Should I feel sorry for the people living in comfortable lives that do not have the joy that some of these Nicaraguans have in spite of it all? What should I feel when I see little kids whose feet are caked in mud because they do not own a pair of shoes and I have enough to give to the whole village? All I know is that God is birthing a sense of compassion in me that I never had before. I pray that He continues teaching me all the things He wants to teach me and that I am open to recieve all of His hidden lessons so that I can be molded into the person He wants me to be. This is not my trip, but the Lord's. He can do with it what He wants.
