Three Miles for Water

Imagine walking three miles each day to collect water and the only water available is in filthy ponds or lakes.  This water is contaminated with waterborne illnesses but these women have no choice.  They don’t have indoor plumbing.  They don’t have the privilege of filling pots with water from the kitchen sink and using that water to cook.  They don’t have a washer and a dryer to do their laundry.  They don’t have bottled or filtered water for drinking.  They have dirty water at their disposal.  They need this water to cook, wash clothes and drink.  This water which is a necessity for them can bring death and sickness to their families.

Look at the ground they have to travel over in order to get this water that is not fit for anything.  It looks dry because of the scorching heat.  Imagine walking in that heat for three miles and then retracing your steps, carrying heavy buckets and jugs of water seven days a week.

Look at this water.  It’s brown.  This woman would gladly draw clean water from a well if there was one but she has to settle for this muddy water.

Fetching water is not only exhausting for women and girls but it takes a toll in other areas.  Water for the Ages gave these 10 facts on women and water:

• Women and children fetch the majority of water for household uses in rural areas. Often this keeps them from attending school or working at a job.
• The average distance that women and children walk for water in Africa and Asia is six kilometers (3.7 miles).
• Women carry heavy loads of water (about 20 liters) on their heads in some locations in the world. This causes severe damage to the neck and spine over time.
• Women make most household water and sanitation decisions, but they are rarely invited to be involved in planning or management of water and sanitation systems.
• Water projects that involve women in planning and management are proven more likely to succeed.
• In many places in the world, women’s land rights are not recognized, and they are unable to access water for agricultural uses.
• On average, women work twice as long as men for unpaid work (housework, cleaning, cooking, washing, etc.) than men.
• Women are primary caretakers of the millions of children that fall ill each year from water-related illnesses. This reduces time spent working or on education.
• For mothers and pregnant women, an improved water supply and proper water storage is essential to protect lives and ensure good health.
• Women are under-represented in water and sanitation sector jobs with men having most jobs in this field.

Imagine being pregnant and having to travel a long distance to fetch water.   Here’s a video of a woman who suffered miscarriages as a result of fetching drinking water for her family.

This seems so wrong.  When I was a child and we had a water shortage, we had to draw water from the pipe in the yard.  It was heavy carrying this bucket up the stairs and to the bathroom.  I can’t imagine walking for miles with a heavy bucket of water.  This is not something that women or girls should be doing.  Yet the men are not doing it and some of them are marrying extra women to fetch them water.  These women are called, “water wives”.

Reuter’s reporter Danish Siddiqui reports that these “water wives” are often widows or single mothers wishing to “regain respect” in their communities. He notes that they usually do not share the marital bed and often live in separate apartments. But even though many are wives in name only, their labor is essential to their husbands: they must walk through hot temperatures and sticky humidity to communal wells, where they then wait hours for their turn before loading up metal containers and makeshift pitchers with water and lugging them back.   Their husband and the village depend on them to take on this time consuming and inconvenient task.  However, these women are happy with the arrangement.  It’s better than being a widow or abandoned.

Unlike the “water wives” many women in South Asia don’t have access to communal wells.  They have to travel far to fetch unclean water.  Thankfully, their situation is not hopeless.  Through Gospel for Asia, women can get clean water for their families from Jesus’ Wells.

Find out more about how the Lord is using clean water to demonstrate His love for these thirsty people by checking out this link.  You can help to improve the health of families by helping Gospel for Asia to provide clean, pure water from a Jesus’ Well.

Sources:  Gospel for Asia; Water for Ages; Smithsonian ;Yahoo News

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Before Tying the Knot…

If you are dating and you’re thinking, “He could be the one”, there are a few things you ought to seriously consider before you think about tying the knot.

Are you compatible? If he is a hardworking man and you are lazy, it won’t work.  Right now you are living apart but when you get married and he ends up doing all of the cleaning up and you are not carrying your weight, your marital bliss will soon fizzle.

Can you cook?  If he is a man who loves good food you have to know how to cook.  A pastor I know married a woman who couldn’t cook.  He taught her how to and she does all the cooking now.  She must have had other qualities that he couldn’t live without.

Are you frugal?  If he is a man who likes to save money, a wife who is a spendthrift will not work for him.  When things get tight, he would like to know that you can also be frugal and understanding.

Are you hiding anything?  Is there something about you or your family that he needs to know about?  Do not enter into marriage without being totally honest.

Marriage is a very big step.  Make sure you are ready to take it.

Essential Skills

Are mothers teaching their daughters how to keep a home?  It is important for girls to start learning how to cook and clean at a young age.  Maria, now the mother of two grown sons, learned how to run a home since she was nine years old.  I watched an episode of the show Master Junior Chef and there were girls as young as eight who knew how to cook.  They were cooking for their families.  They could prepare dishes that you would find in an up-scale restaurant.

One of my biggest regrets is not learning how to cook when I was young.  My mother didn’t teach me and I never expressed an interest in learning.  If I had wanted to learn how to be a wife then I could have asked our maid to teach me.  Instead I was content to read romance novels, draw and hang out with my friends.

Today, I am still learning how to cook and keep a home.  It’s not easy.  The older we get the harder it is to change our ways and mindset.  Thankfully my husband cooks but it would be nice if he didn’t have to.

I sometimes wish that I were Caroline Ingalls who was a good wife to Charles and mother to her children.  She was always working hard to keep their little house in Walnut Grove clean and she cooked and baked.  She taught her girls how to cook as well.

Mothers, take the time to show your daughters how to take care of themselves and the families they are going to have one day.  Men want women who can cook and take care of the home.  When my husband mentioned to Dr. Long, his dentist that he was cooking, Dr. Brown asked if his wife doesn’t cook, he was shocked and he asked him, “So why did you marry her?”

In Dr. Long’s house, the wife does all of the cooking.  It is clear that this was one of the reasons why he married her.  When a man works hard to take care of his family, he wants to know that when he goes home, his wife has prepared a nice, hot meal for him to enjoy.  And if the woman is working, she would prepare an easy meal or prepare meals that would last for a couple of nights so that she doesn’t have to cook every night.

It’s not easy to juggle work, family and a home but it is not impossible either.  Women can accomplish a lot once they put their minds to it and when they have been taught from an early age how to fulfill their roles as wives and mothers, they will have no problems keeping a happy home.

Marriage is a partnership.  The husband is there to make sure the household runs smoothly and effectively and the wife is there to help him.  She is his right hand person.  Together they make sure that life at home is beneficial for everyone.

Life for Women in India

Beneath the veil of society are the tears of India’s most oppressed members of society–women.  The movie, The Veil of Tears tells the untold story of millions of women who are victims of abuse, abandonment, adversity and gender segregation.  This movie dares us to go beyond awareness and to take action.  I encourage you to watch the trailer.

India has the reputation of being one of the worst places in the world to be a woman. They are married early, having no say in the matter.  Arranged marriages are still the norm.  They need to get permission to visit the doctor.  According to a survey, 54 per cent said they expected to be beaten by their husbands if they left the house without his permission.  Women are also beaten if they cook a dish badly or if their dowry is inadequate or if they neglect their household duties.

Life in India is a constant struggle for women.  Veil of Tears draws us into their dark reality but also allows us to share in their triumphs.  And in spite of all the suffering, there is hope.  Through the work and ministry of Gospel for Asia, these women can be rescued from persecution and rejection and given the hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.

For more information about the movie and how you can help to make a difference visit this link:  http://veiloftearsmovie.com/

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD – Psalm 31:24

Sources:  The Globe And Mail; Gospel for Asia

Sin or Die

I lost my husband but God is here to take care of me.

Geeta was married to an abusive man who was also a drunkard.  He earned 200 rupies per day from a manual labor job but gave her only 20 rupies per day to buy and cook food.  He spent most of his earnings on his drinking. The money he gave her from his earnings was not enough for her to cook the kinds of meals he expected.  He beat her horribly every night with a cricket bat and Geeta asked herself why she was married to this man.  One day he disappeared and never came back.  She was left to raise two children.  She got a job but most of the money went towards paying for the rent so that most times she and her children went with hungry.  She managed to get a new job in a hotel which paid better but she still had to struggle.

As I listened to her story, I couldn’t believe the horrors this poor mother had to go through.  She lived in the slums, on a hill near the forest and the hut was made of sticks and plastic tarps.  She was terrified because tigers came out of the jungle at night and there was nothing to keep them from attacking her and her children.

One of her friends gave her a Gospel tract and told her about Jesus, the Saviour who could protect her from danger.  Geeta didn’t waste any time reaching out to Him.  She prayed and asked Him to protect her and her children from the roaming tigers and He did.  After this Geeta went to her friend’s church and soon gave her life to Jesus.  He began to work in her, transforming her and people noticed.

Geeta’s story shows us that becoming a Christian doesn’t mean that our problems will go away.  In fact, Geeta reached a point where she had to make a terrible decision. Her boss owned the room she and her children were staying in.  He wanted sexual favours from her.  How could she do what he wanted?  She was once married. She was a mother.  She was a Christian.  If she didn’t do what he wanted, she and her children would be thrown out of the room.  With nowhere to go, she and her children would be out on the streets begging in order to survive.

During one of her darkest moments, Geeta thought it would be better to face death than face these horrible choices, but when she learned of a neighbour whose suicide left his wife and children begging in the streets, she realized that she could not do that to her children.  And the prospect of her precious daughter becoming a sexual prey to evil men when she grew up filled her with horror.  She had to protect her daughter.

When faced with these choices–become a prostitute, live on the streets or die, Geeta chose to pray.  She trusted Jesus to rescue her from this hopeless situation and He did.  The day before she was supposed to move out of the room, Gospel for Asia came to her rescue and helped her to stay another month while providing food for her and her children.

Thanks to God, Geeta and her children don’t have to beg in the streets in order to survive.   She could stay in the room for a while longer until she could find something better.  What a happy ending to this story.  Geeta did the right thing.  She obeyed God’s Word by choosing not to sin and God came through for her.  She reached out to Him in prayer, trusting Him to deliver her and He did. Now she doesn’t have to choose between sin and death.

If you want to learn more about what Gospel for Asia is doing for women like Geeta who face extremely difficult situations, visit their website.  Find out how you can help to improved the conditions for women who are shunned by their families and abandoned children who are forced to beg in the streets.

Geeta mentioned Bridge of Hope where her children received an education.  Find out more about this program and what you can do to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy.  You can make a difference in the lives of women like Geeta and provide a future for abandoned children.

Water

World Water Day is Saturday, March 22, 2014.  It is held annually on March 22nd to raise awareness of the importance of freshwater and the sustainable management of freshwater resources.  Water is essential.  People, animals, plants need it.

I live in a country where I have access to clean water.  I can drink filtered water, bottled water or boiled water.  When my five year old son is thirsty, I can give him filtered water from our fridge.  I grew up in Guyana, South America and there were times when we had to draw water from the tap in the yard in order to bath but it had fluoride or chlorine to kill impurities.   “The amount of chlorine is carefully measured to be the lowest possible amount needed to keep the water free of germs. In some places fluoride is also added. It has been found to help prevent tooth decay. Some natural water sources already contain fluoride so this step is not always included”  (Water Purification, Guyana Water Incorporated).

Imagine living in a community where there is no clean water for you to drink, cook, wash or bath with.  Your only two options are to die of thirst or to get sick or die from dirty water.  These are the grim choices that men, women and children are forced to make in Asia.  They don’t have the privilege we do of having clean tap water.  As a result illnesses caused by dirty water kill more people each year than war and violence.  One of nine people worldwide don’t have access to clean water and many of them live in South Asia.

Gospel for Asia has combated this problem of clean water by digging Jesus Wells and providing BioSand Water filters to people across South Asia who have no access to clean, fresh water.  This simple act of providing wells for people who are starving for clean water that there is a Savior who loves them and wants them to be healthy and safe.  Many are putting their trust and faith in Him.

It was this faith in Christ that brought upon Chandrabhan and his family intense persecution from their community.  They were blocked from drawing water at the public well.  This all began when Chandrabhan’s daughter decided that like her parents, she wanted to follow Christ much to her husband’s chagrin.  Furious Nadir recruited religious fanatics to storm into his in-laws’ house to remove his infant son from his mother’s care.  He had decided that he didn’t want his wife to return home with him after all.  He just wanted their son.

The group of men who accompanied Nadir beat the family and demanded that they renounce Jesus Christ.  Chandrabhan sustained a serious blow to the head as his son-in-law forcibly removed his son from the house.  Nadir’s wife Laghuvi watched as the ambulance took her family away while the welfare of her son weighed heavily on her mind.

Chandrabhan came home with 12 stitches but his troubles were just beginning.  When word spread in the village of what had happened, the victims became the villains.  The villagers accused him and his wife of placing their religion above the well being of their daughter, Laghuvi who had filed for a divorce.  Some wondered, “What is there in Jesus more than an son-in-law?  Don’t they care about their daughter’s life?”

In spite of the persecution and their neighbors’ opinion that their actions were foolish and even cruel, Chandrabhan and his family continued to trust God.  This led to friends cutting their ties, declaring, “If they don’t want to compromise with their daughter’s life, we will not have fellowship with them.”  Through it all, the Friend who sticks closer than a brother was there for the family.

Not satisfied with isolating them, the community took their vendetta a step further by blocking them from the pubic well.  If any family member approached, they were met with scolds.  The closet place they could go to for water was at a school over half a mile away and they couldn’t draw enough for themselves and their livestock.  This was their punishment for receiving the Living Water.

“And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him” (Psalm 37:40).  In the midst of this turmoil, the Holy Spirit impressed upon Chandrabhan’s heart to ask his pastor about getting a well that would be open to everyone.  After the pastor talked this over with his leaders, a year later, a well was drilled behind Chandrabhan’s house.

The Jesus Well turned things around for this family who had suffered for their faith.  They were no longer condemned by their community but appreciated and respected.  The family welcome their neighbors to the well and more than 30 families use it regularly.  And at the Jesus Well, over buckets of water, some people have come to know about Christ and His unfailing love just by talking to the man they once saw as a villain.

In the wake of persecution, isolation, condemnation, Chandrabhan and his family reflected the love of Christ which dwelt in their hearts by wanting to share their well with others.  They shared their faith with those who had not yet received the Living Water.  The Jesus Well not only restored the family’s reputation but it changed lives forever.

Sadly, Laghuvi still hasn’t seen her son or her ex-husband but the Lord has come through for her by blessing her with a new husband who shares her faith.  With Jesus at the center of her life, she will experience indescribable joy.

Do you want to see God transform lives in hostile villages as He did in Chandrabhan’s village?  You can by providing a Jesus Well to an entire community for $1,000.  You can donate to Jesus Wells.  People are thirsty.  In the village of Chaitaly, a woman whose illness of 12 years baffled doctors, the local well was running low and the people were dying from dehydration and waterborne illnesses.  They were desperately searching for a fresh source of water and rationing the little they could find.  Read how the Lord brought healing to Chaitaly and miraculously provided clean water for these villagers.  You can demonstrate the love of Christ through the Jesus Well so that not only will people draw water from the well but they will draw near to the One who provides it.

A Jesus Well provides pure water for an entire village full of thirsty people for only $1000.  With clean water, the health of the people improves significantly.  Through the provision of clean water, villagers are open to hearing about the God who loves them and provides for their needs.

Join Gospel for Asia in this wise investment of drilling a well for only $1000.  Help the people of Asia who are living without clean water and dying from water related diseases.  Help save children under five in the world from deaths caused by diarrhea.  Save the women around the globe who spend millions of hours a day collecting water.  You can make a difference.  With your help, Gospel for Asia can continue to deliver clean, disease free water to families across South Asia. Help open people’s eyes to a God who has not forsaken them but is revealing His love, power and provision through Jesus Wells.

   

Sources:  www.gfa.org/water; http://www.gfa.org/news/articles/her-husband-kidnapped-their-son; http://www.gfa.org/news/articles/a-village-starving-for-water; http://www.gwiguyana.com/?q=node/31

Community Worker

At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did.  But it happened in those days that she became sick and died (Acts 9:36, 37).  We don’t know much about this woman except that she was from a place called Joppa, she was a disciple and she made the tunics and garments for the widows in her community and she died from an illness. 

The widows mourned her death because of her kindness and generosity toward them.  They showed Peter the tunics and garments she had made for them.  No doubt they rejoiced when Peter brought her back to life.

Dorcas is a great example of someone who used her talent to bless others.  She was good at making garments and she dedicated her time doing just that.  In a sense she was serving her community by providing these things for the widows.

What are your talents?  Are you a great cook?  Do you love writing?  What about singing?  One of my co-workers likes to knit.  She has knitted beautiful baby blankets for other co-workers and me.  She makes dresses.  She also loves to cook.  These are gifts that she has used to bless others.  If English is your favorite topic, you should consider tutoring someone who is not good at it.  If reading is your thing, think about visiting a nursing home and reading to the patients.  If you are a person who loves to cook, think about having a bake sale and donating the money to a charity. 

If you like helping people, there are many charities looking for volunteers.  You can enter a mentorship program.  If you like planting, you can help out at a shelter.  If you are great at baby-sitting, why not volunteer to look after the kids at a women’s shelter? You can be a part of the shelter’s Homework Club.  The possibilities are endless.

Think of how you can use your talent or hobby to help others.  Let Dorcus be your inspiration!