Walk for Water

Around 30 friends joined together today for the Walk for Water. It was a beautiful day outside, and before we began the 2 mile walk to get water, we briefly focused on the purpose of doing it.

Reason #1: Gratitude. We often lose sight of the blessings that are abundantly ours and sometimes need a little "disrupt" to remind us of our blessings, to be grateful, and to live out of that gratitude.

Reason #2: Awareness. Becoming aware of the world's realities helps us to grow the holy dissatisfaction with what is so that we might awaken to the desire of what could be. The reality is that 1.1 billion people have no access to clean water and there are many deaths daily due to this.

Reason #3 Hope. We walk because Christ is the hope of the world, and His Church is his body here on earth. Together, his followers can bring hope to a world in need. Hope inspires creative solutions and imaginations that can bring about change!

The walk:

It was a pleasant walk to the creek that runs under South Main near Paw Park. People had a good time visiting with one another, and there was plenty of energy for the task. Under the bridge, we began to scoop water in our buckets. Water is heavy!! Eight pounds a gallon, to be precise. There was no way I could carry my five gallon bucket full due to the weight and the sloshing, so I think I may have had about 2 1/2 to 3 gallons. Sara, our ten year old, had a few gallons in her bucket, and so the group began their walk back to church. First one arm, then the other, then Sara and I tried the buckets on our heads. Then the left shoulder. Then the right shoulder. Slosh, slosh. Increasingly difficult.

Everyone made it back with some water in their buckets, but when we debriefed, we realized that for as many of us that went, we really didn't get all that much water. In fact, a few folks estimated that we had about 30 people, got about 30 gallons of water, and it took 90 minutes to get it. And here was the stunning fact: Our whole group would have had to go back and forth two more times to get a total of 90 gallons in 6 hours' time...in order to provide the equivalent amount of water that ONE person in America uses on the average day. Oh my.

It was a very thought-provoking exercise. It was harder than I expected it to be. And to think that for many women and children, finding and transporting water consumes much of their days. We prayed for those in the struggle, we prayed that God might use His Church to be instruments of healing and help, and I pray that we walked away with just a little bit more gratitude, awareness, and hope.