It was 11pm and already way past my bedtime, but Kari made the announcement that the water wasn't working. Oh, strange. Well, we can fix it in the morning, maybe. And then the next announcement was that the cleaning lady had dumped out the bucket of water under the sink. Well now we truly have no water! That means we can't even flush the toilet tonight. And there are no promises that we will get it turned on in the morning.
Two days later we were still out of water. We had traveled over the large bridge to the other side of town with our big containers to see if we could get some water out of the sinks at KFC. And we did indeed. But that night I felt over it. The dishes were piled up. The toilet was gross and full and none of us had showered in at least 2 days in our stifling rooms in Malaysia.
I decided to take a shower that night. I challenged myself to use the smallest amount of water. I was able to wash my hair with both shampoo and conditioner with 5 small cups of water. The trick is to pour VERY slow. It's the only way.
But in all honesty, I was still over it. So I wrote out my annoyances, grievances and irritations to God because maybe He cares.
I wrote out all the things I was over.
Sleeping on a mat on cement floor and waking up in pain.
Being hot every single night for the past 3 months.
Being the only morning person in a community for 4 months and being the only person who is not a night person.
Not being able to find anything when I wanted it because living out of a backpack is like that.
Not having wifi so I can talk to someone back home. And watching my latest 20 minute episode of The Middle take a whole month to load.
Having a Christmas stick and not a Christmas tree.
Having only a microwave for cooking.
Not having good coffee for 4 months but having aisles and aisles of instant coffee at my fingertips.
Power that constantly goes out.
Living in a warehouse that feels so shut up.
Not being able to talk about Jesus and having to refer to Him as a polar bear. (that's our code name for Him)
Having little class time because school just got out for 4 weeks for the holidays.
And then there's that no water thing.
I wrote them down, and I asked God to forgive my ungrateful heart.
And then something happened. I looked outside of our only window at the front door and I said, "Is that rain?" It wasn't a big deal, but it hadn't rained in maybe 8 or 9 days.
Adam exclaimed, "Yes!" And he shot out the back door. I didn't understand the excitement so I followed him. There he was, already with the buckets in hand going to each drain pipe as I watched all of the buckets filling up with dirty water. I was so thrilled with his brilliance that I began to help. We filled all of the water containers, the big red bucket, cleaned out the toilet, rinsed out the dishes. And then the rain stopped.
The next night, we still had no water. And then it rained during our first dinner together that month. We all sat there and stared and thought, "Do we go at it again?" One by one, we left our warm food and ran outside. But this time, it was pouring much harder than yesterday. We filled up our buckets that were empty from the day. It was raining so hard that we ran in and got our shampoo and soap and took the funniest shower under the rooftops in our clothes I've ever taken. We laughed in the pouring rain.
Never in all my life have I been so grateful for the rain.
We sing songs about rain in church often and it never means a lot to me. We ask God to rain down on us. It's a nice symbolic idea of God being like rain on a dry land and how He fills us up and cleanses us and renews us.
But the rain that God poured down upon us was dirty and falling off the roofs of the warehouses cleaning off all the bird poop onto our soiled and sweaty bodies and filling our buckets with the dirtiest water I've ever seen. And it felt like the greatest gift.
This morning, day 4, I took my 3rd strangest shower of my life. I woke up early again, checked the faucet to find that some water was coming through the shower pipes! How exciting! I decided I could work out again and take a shower. Much to my delight, even though the shower didn't have any water pressure, in fact it was more like a leaky faucet, I took a shower under the glorious dribbles of water that fell on my face in that stinky bathroom.
God impressed something on my heart these past 4 days. His rain. It supplied our needs. It kept me thirsty for more and taught me what it feels like to be thankful for the Rain.
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction."
Exodus 16:4 NASB
