The Year Begins With Water

John 4:14 “…the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water...”

We love our location. After all, it’s the place God has chosen for us. But that’s not to say that life here is not without its inconveniences. For instance, one would think that living smack dab in the middle of the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water is a pretty good guarantee that the household faucet will never run dry. Not so. Indeed, that is the paradox we lived last month between Christmas and New Year’s: no household water. At times like those, it’s interesting how passages like John 4:14 (above) suddenly become vividly meaningful.

 It turns out that at the heart of the water problem was a disgruntled water pump repair man who refused to fix the pump “one more time” until the city agreed to pay him the $1500 that it already owed. Normally we wouldn’t have been so annoyed at the lack of H₂O; we could buy mineral water for drinking and wash clothes at a friend’s house in a different neighborhood. But this particular water shortage was much longer than the others we have experienced and happened to coincide with the first rains of winter, which interprets into lots of mud. Believe us, keeping mud out of the house and off the kids amongst holiday visitors without water is no easy task. Water, [much like Starbuck’s] you see, is another one of those things that we tended to take for granted until it was gone. To our relief, before the newly elected mayor had finished his inaugural address on January 1^st water service had been restored to our neighborhood. Apparently Mr. Fix-it had been paid.

 One thing is for sure, we’ve never seen our family so cheerful about house cleaning as we saw on January 1^st. What a relief it was to put the buckets aside and take a normal shower again, and everyone was excited at the opportunity to flush the toilet!

Our waterless bout was inconvenient, but at least it made us do some thinking about life in the Spirit and keeping our own spiritual “pumps” in good working order. It’s a good feeling when one is cruising in the middle of the current of worship, but it’s all too easy to let the distractions and annoyances of life on this planet rob one’s devotion to the simple call to love on Him. When that happens, the flow is inadvertently turned down. Sometimes it’s not noticed it until a hand is put to the faucet and nothing comes out—mental, emotional, and sometimes physical reserves are exhausted. It’s time to give some attention to the pump: worship, pure and simple.

 May your flow continue abundantly throughout this journey called 2005.

Update

We are currently meeting with about 7 families each week. Besides these families, our services always attract visitors from other church backgrounds and curious unchurched people. We have a relatively good building to meet in and regular service times as well as mid-week home groups. On Christmas we had the church out to a pot-luck barbeque on the property we bought for our future home, and New Year’s was spent with the church family playing “secret pals” with gift-giving. We are in the process of selling our house in Porto de Moz (please pray that this deal goes through!) and buying a small used vehicle for family use.

 Thank you for your prayers and support.

Railson & Heidi

Letters & Packages: Railson & Heidi Gil, R. Ver. José Santana da Fonseca 1620, Palhal, Almeirim, PA 68.230-000 Brazil
Financial Support: The Xingu Mission, PO Box 340785, Columbus, OH 43234-0785
(checks made payable to the Xingu Mission with a note for Gil-Brazil)
Phone: 55-93-3737-1888
Email: railson.gil@canal13.com.br

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