Standing there staring at two inches of boiling hot water, I weighed all of my options. I looked over at the giant vat of ice cold and dusty water imagining my body in it as the wind blew at record speeds. It was already doing tricks with the “curtain” and I was preparing for the world’s most embarrassing moment when Pastor Alejandro must’ve already sensed my dilemma, coming prepared with hammer in hand to nail the curtain down so it would be a safe shower for me.
Swishing my fingers around in the two inches, I was pleasantly surprised that I could add at least an inch more of that ice cold water to the boiling water to create the perfect temperature. Weighing my options again, I discovered the best solution to getting the most clean with my three inches.
The shower curtain continued to flap as I just gave the fear of any Mayan happening upon my bucket shower to Jesus. With any frustration, from my hair not being rinsed enough to the water getting chillier with each body part washed, to my clean clothes flying off somewhere in the paths of the chickens to cutting my finger on the sheet metal that created the shower room, I just kept thinking about that whole dying to self thing.
How this is a month for me and life for mi familia here in the Asacualpa Mountains.
That my perfect porcelain shower at home with all the amenities doesn’t even require any real thinking.
But also how this bucket shower requires no real thinking for them. They just hop on in and don’t think a thing. And that’s where the beauty prevails.
You see, it isn’t that the people live in poverty and that it is just oh so hard for them to shower, it’s just that we’ve been given completely different ways of doing it. One body, many parts. And just the simple knowing that they do it one way and I do it another way, shows the beauty of how God made us all so differently to create the most beautiful Kingdom.
All of that from three inches of like warm water in a bucket.
