Agua

Collecting rain water!  Glorious rain water!  :)

Our family has been praying fervently that God would give us the grace to become great saints, and He is so lovingly shaping us, granting us the grace to be drawn closer into His heart. He has been sending us many small sufferings and trials to train us to love as He loves. There is so much that I could share and want to share (maybe more posts on this to come..), but for the sake of brevity I'll keep it to one topic: water. 



I've never thought about water as much as I have since moving to Peru. I never thought that much about it because it was always there - and always clean & drinkable! But not so here - or in most of the world, for that matter (check out this infographic which shows which countries have potable tap water)! Even in Lima, which is a first-world city, the clear water that comes out of the faucet isn't drinkable. Purified drinking water has to be purchased in large plastic containers. 

The large jugs of drinking water that you buy anywhere in Peru. 
No other water is considered drinkable, although many people
who live here do drink non-potable water. 



Trucks go around and sell these jugs of water.  You can also buy them at bodegas.

 



Our water tank up on the pedestal.

I have yet to figure out how our water works at
our house. We have a water tank but we don't know exactly how it gets filled up. We do know that it's purified water (non-potable) from the nearby river but it doesn't look clean; that is to say it's not crystal clear. But sometimes what comes out of the faucet isn't purified and it's just plain muddy, presumably straight from the river.

 

We haven't figured out yet why sometimes we have purified water and sometimes we have muddy river water. What we have noticed, though, is that after a heavy rain the water coming out of the faucet is muddy. So, we've bought large bins to collect rain water so that we have cleaner water to wash dishes with and even use to cook with (once the water is boiled for 10 minutes, it's safe to consume). We're currently in the dry season (winter) and have gone through periods of several weeks in a row without enough rain to collect in the bins. During those times, we've been washing dishes in whatever water comes out of the faucet, always ending with a water/bleach rinse and drying the dishes thoroughly. I'm now using only drinking water to cook with.



A cup of water from our sink vs. drinking water.
It's not usually this muddy; this is as bad as it gets.



Bathing is another challenge when the water is just plain brown. We get the salt off of our bodies but never feel very clean, especially our hair.

Our friends ten minutes down the road from us live in a pueblo where they have crystal clear water (still non-potable) that comes out of their faucets and shower. But...instead of experiencing the challenge of dirty water, they experience periods of not having water at all, sometimes for several days at a time.

After living in mission for this short amount of time and seeing how others live here, it already seems unbelievable when I think about how all the water I had access to back in America was drinkable – from the kitchen sink, to the bathroom sink, to the utility sink, to the outdoor spigot! I wonder how it can be that we used to water our lawn and wash our clothes with drinkable water.

Annabelle waiting to give our empty water jug to the guys delivering water in our neighborhood.

Water that people brought from their homes for Padre to bless after Mass.

I started writing this post a couple of months ago and haven't made the time to finish it until today. Just this week we were without water for several days. Praise God we had rain water still in our bins from the occasional downpours that we get. We used up all of that water by the end of the first day, and just when I thought we were going to have to either bring our bins to the river and fill them up or buy jug after jug of drinking water to use, God woke us up the next morning with a gift (something He does often): another downpour, providing us with gallons and gallons of more water! Thankfully we were able to get the water working later that day (we found out one of the water lines had broken).

Swimming in the river where our water comes from (downstream).

I encourage you today to be grateful and appreciate the clean, potable water that you have at your disposal to wash your dishes and clothes with, to cook with, brush your teeth, take a shower, and flush your toilet with. As you use water throughout the day, be mindful of the millions of people who live day after day without access to clean water, and pray for them. Maybe even try to limit the amount of water that you use for a few days as a sacrifice to offer up for those who have so little clean water, and as a way to grow ever closer to the beautiful and pierced Heart of Jesus, who told us “Blessed are you poor,” (Luke 6:20) and who lived his life as a poor man - “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9).