Taking Water For Granted

There was a small notice hanging on our door this morning that the city will be shutting off our water from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today for repairs. My first reaction was a bit of outrage and then I realized that I have been Taking Water For Granted! We live in such a great country here in the U.S. where most people never even think about the basic utilities because they are so reliable! In Venezuela, the water, electricity, phone service, etc. would just randomly come and go with no warning...it's just a way of life. We always kept a barrel of water and candles on hand for those times since unlike today, there is usually no warning that the services will not be available. In fact, many houses in Venezuela are built with reservoirs and tanks to store water. One house we lived in didn't even receive water from the city any more, I think the pipes were damaged beyond repair. We had water trucked in every week to fill our reservoir. One time Miguel forgot to call the truck and then he couldn't get the truck to come at all for a few days! He even went out looking for any water truck he could find, but no luck. We were down to the last tiny bit of water when we were finally able to fill our reservoir, but by then we were getting rather rank from not being able to bathe!

Anyway, so after my initial reaction this morning, I looked around to see what I could do to keep a good water supply for today...there are no reservoirs in this house! I got creative...I filled both tubs about half-way with water for toilet flushing and filled every empty pitcher, jar, and container in the kitchen with water for drinking water or whatever. I think I'm getting spoiled with all of this luxury here and I need to start shifting back into "missionary mode" as we look forward to going back to the field later this year!