Breaktime, Sunday afternoon, 6pm. All the teens are just chilling out in the tent city (there weren't enough beds, so all the boys and some girls volunteered to sleep in tents in the nearby huge abandoned building so we wouldn't have to, wasn't it sweet of them!) and Kaitlyn and I were lying on the mattresses in the shade under the overhang. Ivan, who has just fixed the toilet upstairs so that it flushes, sits down for a break with a coke and piece of bread.
Being an environmental science student, I was curious as to where the water came from for the camp and asked Ivan about it. We have water and electricity whenever the huge generator out back is running (it broke down a few times the first few days we were here). The water gushes out from the taps whenever it is running, and I was curious as to why they left it so, when water was so precious in the area.
So Ivan began to tell the amazing story of how the camp got water…But first he went and picked up a large sparkler (the kind you play fireworks with) from the pile of tools against the wall.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked. Yes, we nodded.
He bent the sparkler so that it was gun-shaped in his hand.
"For non-believers, when they want to find water, they ask the spirits and use some divination method. But I believe in the One and Only true God, so I don't use the non-believer's way. I prayed and asked Him to give us water. I told Him we needed it near the kitchen and showers.
"I called all the believers here and they all prayed. How did David in the Bible inquire of the LORD? He inquired of the priest, who had special stones on his robes called Urim and Thummim to indicated "Yes" or "No" from the LORD. So, I took two sparklers, bent them, and swung them around in my hands. They ended up pointing to a certain rock. I moved somewhere else; they still pointed to the same rock. So I told the driller to drill at that spot.
"The driller protested. 'No', he said, 'there won't be much water here. We should drill over there', he indicated a spot far away, but I told him no, to drill here. So he drilled. At about 30m down, he hit a rock. He fought with the rock for 5 days, then broke through. After that, he found water. Let's stop the pipe here, he said. But no, I had bought 48m of pipe [on faith that it would be the right length], and I told him we would use it all. So he kept drilling, and at 43m down, we found an underground river! So, praise God…in this dry land, we now have plenty of water for our camp.
To be continued…
The teens crowding around the large square sink where the groundwater is piped…used for drinking water, washing food, washing clothes, brushing teeth, etc.
