Day Eight:  Blessed

Blood:Water Missions has put together a journal for those who have chosen to take this 40 day water challenge. The journal is an assortment of verses, success stories, plain o'll facts and words of encouragements. I wanted to share today's journal entry with you.

       Slowly, the days when the sun would shine became fewer and fewer.  Everyone knew what it meant: life and death were coming.

       Sure, the water brings life, if, and only if, someone was lucky enough to catch it in a clean container.  It would water the plants. The gardens. The animals. For a short time, anyway.

       After a few days, the rain would continue and the roads would become nearly impassable.  As everyone went about their business, they would notice how deep the water would get.  Anything with value was placed as high as it could go: sometimes on the corrugated metal roofs.  Before long, in the deepest places, children were not allowed and adults trudged through the mud and streams as they went about their daily activities.

      Flooding was inconvenient and stripped away so much of what this village had.  But it wasn't the flood that did the most damage. It was cholera.
cholera spreads through water.  If one person in the village has it, everyone who touches the water is at risk.  And every year, thousands of people would die during the rainy season because of the cholera outbreak.  The overabundance of rain was their only supply for drinking water.  And it wasn't clean.  They were cursed and they were named for it.  The name of the village, Chapulu Kusu, means cursed in Bemba, the language of this area in Zambia.

      They may have been cursed, but they were not forgotten.  Seeds of Hope International, one of the partners of Blood:Water Mission in Zambia, took notice.  They built wells.  They provided bio sand filters.  They educated people on hygiene and sanitation.
Everything changed.

      The next rainy season came, and not a single person died of cholera.  It happened again.  Nobody died.  And again.  And again.  No deaths because of cholera.

      Realizing the life clean water brought, the people of Chapulu Kusu petitioned the Zambian government to have their name changed.  No longer would they be know as cursed.  A new name was on their lips:

Mapalo,  which means blessed.

      The government agreed with the petition and the village mane was changed.  Now when the rainy season comes, the only thing that washes away is the fear, and the life and the blessing of clean water stays.


                     

Reflection#8: What's in a name?  Dignity.....  Reflect on the freedom that is lifted when life replaces death.


"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."  Matthew 25:40