I have had this blog post rolling around in my head for the last few days and when I found out that today was World Water Day I thought it was the perfect time to type it out.
For those of you who know me well or have been long time readers of our blog, you know that back in October of 2009 while at the World Vision Annual Day of Prayer I became burdened with the desire to sponsor a water well. Throughout that day of prayer the same thought kept coming back to me: “Women in other countries love their children just as much as I do, but they don’t have the ACCESS to the things I do. Clean water, medicines and nutritious food.” I told Mike about it immediately and that I wanted to find a way to dig a water well – whether it meant our family saved up or doing a fundraiser, I was determined. The next week was my birthday and that caused me to realized that the next year my birthday would be 10.10.10. And then it hit me! Have a Water Well fundraiser birthday party. If you haven’t read the post about it, go here. We raised $5200 – enough for 2 wells!!
I was so excited I couldn’t stand it and cried tears of joy on and off for days. I was overwhelmed at the thought that life-giving water was going to be provided from my original prayer. I was also grateful to God that I got to raise awareness about the plight of people facing dirty water around the world.
Fast forward to our return home from China. Amelie was going to the bathroom A LOT. And it was toxic smelling. And she had this voracious appetite. Our pediatrician wanted us to collect stool samples like she does for all new adoptees and we collected it and dropped it off. Last week we got the call on Wednesday morning that Amelie had not 1 but 2 parasites. Bleh! The doctor quickly called in the prescription to a pharmacy that could compound it for us and we picked it up and started treating Amelie. Mike and I were really hoping that we had not caught it, but none of us were showing the signs and we always wash our hands after diaper changes.
That night I felt so bad for Amelie since she hasn’t known a day with us that she wasn’t on some kind of medicine. THEN I was so grateful every time I thought about our wonderful access to doctors and medicine of every type here in America. I was so happy that she would be able to get these things out of her system and we could move on. I was texting all of this with my friend Laura and she sent me the sweetest response that made me cry. She said that God often shows us the needs of the poor and needy through our own grief and illness. She said that at every turn Mike and I work to aid people. She said that now we know on a most personal level what we do for them. She asked me, “How many people have you saved with clean water?”
The more I thought about it, the more I cried. I brought this beautiful child home from halfway across the world. She has been drinking dirty water her entire life and most likely all the kids in her orphanage have parasites. She has been voraciously hungry and crying when the food is gone and she is taken out of her highchair, even when she has eaten twice as much as me in a meal. How long have these parasites affected her? Have they been causing her pain? But now she is on medication that we have easy access to and will always have clean water. Now she has access to clean water just because she now lives in America.
Thank you, God, for this visible object lesson that you have shown me.
