A Tale of Two WheelbarrowsThe painting of a wheelbarrow was the culmination of a November field test in Reynosa for the new Vacation Bible School curriculum developed for Living Waters for the World. The wheelbarrow was already a bright orange and the children gathered around it excitedly in the narrow courtyard of the Presbyterian Church at Los Cumbres. They were eager to take their turns at decorating the wheelbarrow with hearts and flowers, and when they were finished it was a sight to behold. Everyone in the neighborhood would recognize it instantly as the wheelbarrow to be used for transporting the big, heavy garafons of clean water from the Living Waters for the World installation at the church to the surrounding homes. This was the second unit to be installed, in April of 1997, and today the health benefits derived from it have been documented. Beth Peak, the Volunteer in Mission who works in Reynosa with Puentes de Cristo, a Presbyterian border ministry and LWFW partner, worked with Lynn Jostes, Pat Welsh and Martha Haynes to develop and field test the new VBS curriculum. It is designed to teach children the value of clean water through a variety of stories and activities. Both Spanish and English versions will be available for use this summer. As Beth admired the new orange wheelbarrow, she recalled another wheelbarrow and tells this story about it: It’s not that I’ve ever been ungrateful for clean water, it’s just that I did not know how grateful I needed to be for having it available to me in abundance anytime I wanted it or needed it. A woman and her 3-year-old grandson were leaving the Puentes de Cristo mission site located in the Lucio Blanco neighborhood of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. They had filled their two five-gallon garafons with purified water from the water purification system located there. So, with her two big garafons of water and her little grandson all loaded in her wheelbarrow, they began to make their way home. Since there had been several days of heavy rain falling in Lucio Blanco, the dirt roads were very nearly impassable in a vehicle. After the woman made a few steps into the mud at the gates of the mission site, she slipped and fell. Her wheelbarrow tipped over, and ejected her little grandson and both garafons of water into the mud (which, by the way, had the distinct smell of a sewer). The top came off one of the garafons and clean water began to spill out. The little grandson was crying, unhurt, but no doubt scared because of having been thrown out of the wheelbarrow and becoming coated in stinky mud. The woman immediately retrieved the little boy from the mud, and used an outdoor spigot to wash the mud off both of them. Those of us who were trying to help got the wheelbarrow picked up and washed out, refilled the garafon that had come open, and washed off the other one. She then decided to carry her little grandson and the water home in two trips, so as to have a lighter and more manageable load. While the little grandson waited with friends, his grandmother began again her journey home, wearing no shoes, pushing her wheelbarrow containing one garafon through mud that covered her ankles, that was almost to her knees, and was getting the hem of her dress dirty. I remember thinking that I had never gone to that much trouble to have clean water to drink and with which to cook. Consuming water that has been cleansed of parasites, dirt, bugs, and chemicals can certainly make the difference in feeling good or bad, being sick or well, and living or dying. Thanks be to God for the generous Presbyterians in the Synod of Living Waters for providing clean water in the name of Jesus Christ to many brothers and sisters around the world.
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