When It Seems Everything Goes Wrong!

Psalm 23:4

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁴ Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.

It was four o’clock in the morning. I tossed and turned. My mind started toiling through a long list of recent setbacks.

Our faithful, gas-guzzling pickup had just done a seven thousand mile trip. Now suddenly on the last fill-up, its mileage had dropped to a third of what it had been on the trip. We had double checked the calculations. Google told us this happened to other owners, and they had a terrible time finding out the cause. One had even replaced the engine, to no avail.

Our water main had broken and we had been without water for twenty-four hours. Our neighbors let us take showers in their home, bless their caring hearts. I had spent the whole day repairing it, and now the sprinkler system wouldn’t work. The temperatures were in the hundreds, and the trees and plants were starting to seriously wilt from lack of water.

The Internet and phone company had spent four days doing a “simple” upgrade, and still neither the phone nor the Internet worked. Since our home is up a little valley, even our cell phones don’t work unless the Internet works or we go outside and stand in the middle of the street to make a call. So we were thrust back into the nineteenth century reliance solely on the post office for our communications.

Katie, our beloved one-year-old, still-chewing-everything puppy just chewed up Sylvia’s C-PAP breathing apparatus. The insurance company tells us we can’t get a replacement for at least another month. When I walked Katie in the hills in front of our home, a young coyote was walking shoulder against shoulder with her trying to coax her back to the pack and the kill. Katie wasn’t sure whether she should go with her new “friend” or come back to me.

While we were on our trip mentioned above, our son Fred phoned us to tell us he was engaged to Uni, a lovely girl he has been dating on and off for a number of years. Then he phoned us to tell us they are getting married later this month. They plan to meet in Oregon and see the August eclipse and invited Sylvia and me to go with them. I am eager to see the eclipse and even more eager to be with Fred on the trip. But I’m also still recovering from my battle with West Nile Virus. I seemed to lose some ground on our 7,000 mile trip in which we took everything very easy, so I fear a rush trip of 2,000 miles may set me back even more.

A smiling doggy face and furniture-beating tail greets me as I roll out of bed at six o’clock. I happen to read our familiar and much beloved Shepherd Psalm. I reread verse 4, and peace covers over my many concerns. My Lord is still with me.

Thank You, Lord, that I can rely on You to solve my problems as You have so frequently in the past!

Water in a Drought

Jeremiah 32:17

Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁷ ‘Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! There is nothing too difficult or too wonderful for You

[1]

Ikizu Secondary School and Seminary is located in the great steppe country near Lake Victoria in Tanzania. Steppe country is characterized by 4 feet tall grass punctuated by picturesque flat topped acacia trees. It is only slightly better than desert. Being very close to the equator it receives two rainy seasons a year, two weeks in November and December and six weeks in February and March.

The year was about 1969, and I was a math and science teacher in the secondary school. It also became my responsibility to take care of all physical maintenance on campus, including providing the campus with electricity and water. I had some great student helpers that actually made the maintenance possible. One of these was Abraham Sando.

One Friday morning Abraham knocked on my door. “Sir, we are getting no water from the pump.” He broke the news apologetically but with finality.

“Has the pump broken down? Is the engine working okay?” I queried.

“Yes, sir!”

“Did you turn it off last night?”

“Yes, sir! And I started it this morning again.” He and I walked over to the water pipe that came up from the well, which was a mile down in the valley next to a creek that usually had a little water in it. There was definitely no water coming up the pipe. We had received no rain in the short rainy season. It was now the beginning of March, and we had received no rain so far this rainy season. The dam the villagers got their water from had dried up completely. Villagers had dug 6 and 8 feet deep holes in the bottom of the dam where a pitifully meager supply of water would trickle in overnight. The creek was dry, too.

My thoughts ran quickly to the more than 200 students and staff who depended on our well for water. We had a tank, but it would not last more than about three days.

“Please go back down the hill and turn the pump off,” I said resignedly to Abraham. “We’ll leave the pump off until Sunday morning, and I hope water will run into the well in the meantime. Hopefully we can pump on Sunday.” He smiled in agreement. He was also worried about the dire consequences we faced without water.

As soon as George Dunder, our principal, arrived in his office that morning, I went in and alerted him to our predicament. He asked for my suggestions. After a discussion of what we might do, I suggested that we make Sabbath a day of fasting and prayer for rain. We did exactly that. Really the only alternative would be to close the school down and send all of the students and staff away.

On Sabbath I overheard a number of students discussing our water situation. These particular students tended to be very skeptical all the time. They reasoned that the day of fasting and prayer was really worthless. After all it was in the middle of the longer rainy season, so if it started to rain, it would not be God answering our prayer; it would simply be the natural course of events. On the other hand, if it didn’t rain, then God clearly hadn’t answered our request, if He existed at all. I couldn’t help seeing their reasoning and wondering how God would answer our prayers and preserve His integrity. I said nothing to them because all I had was questions, too.

Our water tank was nearly empty by Sunday morning. After Abraham came up from starting the pump, we walked over to check the flow in the pipe. We had a tap located on the main water pipe. We measured how fast the water was coming up by opening the tap and timing how long it took to fill a five gallon can. Water was indeed coming up the hill but only at a quarter of the normal rate. I asked Abraham to check this tap every hour or two during the day to gauge how much water was running or see if the well had again run dry.

He checked in with me that evening and reported that the water was still pumping at the same slow rate. We normally ran the pump about 8 or 10 hours a day 6 days a week, and this kept us in ample supply of water.

“Good! If we are still getting water, let’s run the pump night and day until either the flow of water returns to normal or until the water runs out entirely. When you go down in the evenings, just fill up the diesel tank to run the pump engine and check the oil. Then watch the flow of water up here on the hill several times during the day. Don’t go down there on Sabbath. I will personally do the Sabbath duty.” I didn’t want him to worry about whether he should work on Sabbath.

For the next six weeks we continued on this regimen. There was not even a hint of rain. The tropical sun burned down on us every day from a clear blue sky. But we had just enough water to meet our needs.

One day in the middle of April, well into the dry season, a black storm came up. It rained hard and long. All the creeks started running. Some water ran into the dam, more than filling the holes the desperate villagers had dug. A great relief filled my soul. And the well ran totally dry!

I said to the skeptical students, “What do you think? You suggested that either way our need was met, it couldn’t be the hand of God. Now you are witnesses. You have drunk the water God provided for six whole weeks without rain.”

For once in their smug skepticism they were speechless.

Thank You, God, that Your might power and outstretched arm is still as mighty today as in the time of Jeremiah and that You have ways of meeting our needs that we would never even dream of!

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[1] https://www.hipporoller.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/gokwe-dry-dam-zim.jpg