In a third world country like Rwanda, a lot of things aren’t guaranteed. A/C is unheard of. Power will go out for hours at a time, if not days. When you go to wash your hands, there’s about a 40% chance that water will actually come out of the faucet.
For the past four days, we have had no water. The government will randomly decide to cut off water to certain neighborhoods if there is a shortage, and it was our neighborhood’s turn. I live with a family, some of their extended family, church friends who are down on their luck, and a team of six other American girls. With our back-up buckets, were were dead out of water after about a day and a half.
Here’s the thing about Africa—everything is already dirty! All day, dirty children put their dirty hands in my hair. The wipe their sweaty hands on their snotty noses and then hold my hand. I walk in Chacos along roads where goats poop and little boys pee. I walk to the squatty and put my dirty feet next to the small hole, knowing aim is not everyone’s strong suit. Then I walk inside and lay on my bed, feet and all.
To me, water isn’t just a luxury. I would call it a necessity. But that doesn’t change the fact that my feet have trudged through dirt roads and squatty runs for four days without being washed.
At lunch today, we joked about our misfortune. We made plans to go to a hotel tomorrow where we knew we could shower. We were covered in the red African dirt and had been pawed by African kids all morning, and knew we couldn’t go much longer without water.
Then, it started raining. Hard.
We went to the porch and we stuck our feet out under the heavy stream falling from the roof. Then we got soap and rinsed them again. The rain fell harder. Could we shower in the rain? I was afraid that if I put shampoo in my hair, then the rain would stop and I wouldn’t be able to rinse it.
One by one, my teammates stepped off the covered porch. The rain fell in sheets. For a while, I watched, not wanting to be stuck with soapy hair. I finally decided to risk it, and by the end of it all, we had shampooed and conditioned our hair, washed our bodies, and danced around. As I type this, we are all laying in our beds with wet hair and clean feet.
Since being in Africa, the passage about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet has made much more sense to me. Walking on dusty roads in sandals all day is gross, and if your don’t wash your feet you track dirt and mud everywhere. Jesus wasn’t serving his friends in some strange act of service, he was doing something for them that they needed every day.
Today, I needed a shower. God knew that, but I almost didn’t take advantage of what I needed because I was too afraid. I stuck my toes under the stream of the water, but for a while I doubted whether or not what God was providing was going to be enough.
Here’s the thing though, it’s always going to be enough.
How often do we live a life less loved because of the fear of scarcity? Every day we are presented with opportunities to love, experience, and live life to the fullest. More often than not, those opportunities require sacrifice, and our human calculations say that sacrifice is too risky, and that we’ll end up lacking. But our human calculations cannot fathom the love of our attentive and generous Father.
In my two months on the Race, I have experience more “need” than I ever thought possible. But because I stepped off the porch, because I trusted God with my life, he has poured buckets of provision over my life. I have needed, but I have never starved, never thirsted, and never gone without.
The best part is that God’s provision is way cooler than my own. In America, I would’ve hopped in the shower. In Africa, I get to dance in the rain with my best friends.
“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” Psalm? ?84:11?
