Blog

I’m really blessed. I’ve always lived in places with safe housing and running water. Though I did have a brief period without running water in my house this week.

I went to the bathroom late on Wednesday night and when I flushed the toilet, it just kept running. Like, not a leak, but full on running. My mother taught me how to trouble shoot an American style toilet that isn’t flushing properly. This skill does not translate to the New Zealand style toilets built into the wall. I took a few breaths and prayed and then saw a message from Charlie on my phone, so I called him and made him leave the BFA all staff meeting he was in to help me problem solve. Charlie hates plumbing, but he’s my friend, so he walked me through some possible places to find the water shut off. Since there was no valve anywhere in my bathroom, I videoed him around my garage until I found a tiny panel labeled “water valve.”

With my whole house water shut off, I was a bit worried about what would happen the next day, but I woke up and texted the property manager and got a ride to the Headspace house where I was running a low key transition training for their small team headed to Cambodia in a couple of weeks. What a joy. To have time to talk about RAFTs and culture and have access to a functioning toilet for a couple of hours. Plus, Jon who runs the program and has lived in American and Nepal, offered to look at my toilet to see if Kiwi eyes might notice something I’d missed the night before. He turned the water back on in my house, and we waited a minute as the pipes filled up before flushing my bathroom toilet.

You guys, it worked better than it ever had.

He guessed it might have been the reset the float needed, and left me with functioning water until the plumber could arrive the next morning (as arranged with the property manager). Turns out the plumber did find something that needed to be replaced in the wall, so I’m glad I still had them come out.

I’m also glad I had Charlie awake in Germany who could help me out in the middle of the night in New Zealand and Jon here in New Zealand who could be present and help shuffle the stack of cardboard in my garage to give me better access to the water valve for next time. I’m safe and I’m cared for in this place. It takes a team of international workers to keep me functioning, but I’m grateful for all those pieces.

Because I have people who are willing to help me out, I can be ready to give youth group talks on Friday afternoons before leading my team on a Friday night. I can team up with JC for our Grassroots leadership development program that seems to sneak up on me each term, but because we’re a pretty solid team and have a great curriculum, it’s never a stress.

I’m covered and safe here, and it allows me to be a part of some incredible ministry that happens every day around the world. I’m able to be a part of the safety team for a young person who is going through a tough time; she can call me when it’s late at night in America and she needs a voice to remind her she’s loved and to pray with her while her family and local friends are asleep.

We need some basics like water and shelter, but it’s more than just the actual water and shelter that we need, isn’t it? It’s the people that make the water and shelter worth having. It’s the whole life that’s worth living in community.