No water in the rain forest?? (Reflections on missions, part 1)

It sounds like the contradictory oxymoron, but it is actually a very true thing that we sometimes face. I'm not about to go claiming I believe in global warming, climate change, etc...but rather would like to start a series of reflections on World Missions with this update from our personal lives, and give you a glimpse of where we are ministering.

For the last few days, it has been a little hard at home...not only are we still sick, but we have been off and on without water for the last few days as well. At first, it went out without warning, and we went all day and evening without water. Then, it started going out regularly in the morning, and coming on in the evening.

Actually, what happened is that we had a big rainfall, which knocked out either some water tubing, or could have compromised the integrity of the water tanks here in Shell. Yes, this small town on the edge of the jungle is finally stepping up in the world, and trying to filter and to some point clean the water they are sending to the houses!! That means we (hopefully) will no longer have to worry about tea colored water coming out of the faucet, or earthworms falling out of the shower head after a heavy rain!!

So, we actually have no water because too much rain came down one evening!! Here in the jungle, on the edge of the rainforest, rain is a big deal. Here in Shell, which is on the edge of the jungle and mountain, it rains almost 175 inches of rain a year, 40 inches more than the city of Puyo, just 15 minutes down the road. It has something to do with the town being on a plateau above the Pastaza river. In Tena, two hours away, which is in a large bowl like valley on the other side of the jungle, before you go up the mountains on that side, the rain drops are literally twice as big as what falls in most areas of the world. I know, everyone I say that to doesn't believe me, until they actually see it! You can hear the rain coming, like an army marching towards you, and when it finally hits you, it drenches you to the bone in an instant.

Obviously, there are other types of rain as well. Sometimes, we get a light rain that falls all day. The heavy rainfalls usually only last a couple of hours, and then the sun comes out again. We like to say we have two seasons here in the jungle; the rainy season, and the rainier season!! The interesting part is, you can travel just 40 miles in any direction, and the weather changes drastically. Generally, the farther into the jungle you go, the more extreme the weather gets.

I have actually been in villages in the rain forest that are hurting for water. In the jungle, villages weren't built close to a water or food source, they are actually built depending on the terrain. Most villages were built near flat stretches of land, if available, to use for building, planting, a soccer field, and if they were very lucky, a short airstrip for the bush planes to land on, and bring in and take out supplies. Most of the rivers big enough for travel can at times be very fast and swift, rising suddenly, and so you usually have to walk a ways, or climb a steep bank, in order to get to the village you are traveling to.

This means that the villages that are not fortunate enough to be close to a small, clean river, or to have a small well and pump, have to depend on the rain. I've been in many villages that have 50 gallon plastic or metal containers to catch the rain water falling off of their roofs, in order to use it for their daily needs. And if it doesn't rain, you don't have water.

A little over a year ago, we were in the village of Chapintza as a family, to do a two day training for new Sunday school teachers. Although there is a rocky road that goes by there, and about three busses a day, they do not have any wells or clean rivers nearby. So while we were there for two days, we didn't have a lot of water for cleaning or washing, because it hadn't rained for a number of days...the first day we were there, it rained really hard for about twenty minutes, and then the sun came out again. Everyone was happy to have a little rain water for washing!! Daniel and Esteban had never been in a situation like that before, and after it rained, they started throwing dirt into the bucket that had collected the rain water off of the church roof, to play with mud! It was funny, but sad at the same time, because that was on of the the only buckets that had been set out to gather the rainwater, and now it was unusable! I had to explain to them that life was very different there, and that we couldn't just play in the water whenever we wanted.

Life and culture is a very big part of being a missionary...around us are so many different cultures, and different ways of doing things, and there is a daily struggle to understand the culture or cultures of the people you are ministering to, and these different ways of life, which vary by location, climate, etc, and can even vary by village. Tomorrow I want to focus a little more on what some of these differences are.

TO BE CONTINUED...