Questions

A lot of the time, I am a skeptical person.  It's hard for me to trust.  In a former life, at least it feels like a former life after being home with kids for a couple of years, I was a civil engineer.  I spent many days analyzing plans and checking calculations, looking for errors and broken rules.  I'm pretty sure other engineers didn't appreciate my letters, which arrived with lists of my findings; I was the bad guy....or girl.  It was my job to be questioning and even suspicious.

I have to admit that I still have some questions about that water projects that World Vision and other non-profits complete in other countries.  Do they work over the long-haul?  Does the village/neighborhood take ownership of the infrastructure and maintain it?  How does the presence of a new water source change the culture of the community?   Are there any unintended negative impacts?  Sometimes, I feel like I may need to go and live near one of these projects to satisfy my curiosity!

Thankfully, some women from Kenya were able to answer one of my questions.  A couple of weeks ago, while visiting the World Vision Magazine Blog, I read an entry titled Assignment Kenya, which included an invitation for readers to write in with questions about the water crisis.  I commented with a question and received a response.  I'll include the edited version below.  Please visit the actual blog entry for the full version.

My question -

One thing that I have wondered is if there is anything valuable that would be lost in providing clean and reliable water sources for these people? Is there anything redemptive about the process of getting water (i.e. is this a community-building time for the women and children?).

Response from Kari Costanza, Contributing Editor for World Vision Magazine-

World Vision’s first rule is to do no harm. We ensure that our projects will benefit, not damage, communities. But I thought your question was so intriguing I asked several women about it. They told me that getting water at a closer locations will have no negative effect on their sense of community. The women are together constantly. They go to the market together, to church together, they plant crops together, and gather firewood together. When one of the women is sick, the others organize to help her. One woman will bring her water, another firewood, another food, and another will care for her children. It couldn’t be more different from our culture, where our garage doors close us off from our neighbors’ needs. Getting water is just one of the things that bonds these women. They’ll still meet at the nearby water kiosks to talk, laugh, and share. But now they don’t have to walk miles and miles back home.


I have more questions, but I've found that when I wait for all of the answers, it leads to inaction.  To really live, I need to move without seeing the whole picture and rely on grace for my missteps.

A Night At The Chameleon Club

Friday night, I found myself at the Chameleon Club (my first time in the 10 years that I've been here...can I say that I'm TRULY from Lancaster now?) for an Ed Kowalczyk concert.  It was rockin!  Ed is the former frontman of the band Live.  According to his website, Ed got involved with World Vision due in part to a realization during his daughters' bedtime routine.  He was giving them their nightly cups of water when it hit him that it is a privilege to be able to provide clean water for his children; some fathers don't have a clean cup of water to give to their children every night.

I felt really grateful to have the opportunity to volunteer at the World Vision table and help generous concert-goers sign up to sponsor a child.  It was particularly meaningful to me because all of the children sponsored Friday night are from Zambia, the same country where our sponsored child is from.  When the night was over, 13 people signed up to sponsor children.  But the night wasn't all cheery; I was left with some unsettling feelings.  One of the men that signed up to sponsor a child appeared to be drunk.  This type of situation was not discussed during our volunteers' training.  When he woke up Saturday morning, did he remember that he committed to providing monthly support to a poverty-stricken child?  Another woman told me that she has cancer and may be able to support her child for only a few months.  These new child sponsors felt compelled to give financially; I am hoping that, somehow, their act of providing financial support to a needy child serves to meet some of their own unspoken needs. 

We are all needy.  Some of us are more aware of our neediness than others.  Some of us have more socially acceptable kinds of neediness than others.  Some of us need money.  Some need friends or family.  Some need physical or emotional healing.  Some need a deeper relationship with God.

It feels uncomfortable to be needy.  We try to cover it by buying the right clothes or cars or houses, or appearing to be happy or spiritual all of the time or working hard to keep the right job or having good social connections.  It requires courage to admit our neediness and to ask for help.

In the nightly bedtime routine at the Kowalczyk house, I am in charge of getting two glasses of water for my daughters' night stands. One evening last year, as I handed my 8-year-old her glass, it hit me like a freight train; this clean water is a blessing that thousands of fathers, just like me in this world, do not have. I don't have to worry that the water might make my children, the loves of my life, sick with a possibly fatal illness. I simply take it for granted. I decided then and there to make a difference. It is with great pleasure and profound gratitude that I announce my partnership with World Vision. Let's all work together to give parents in need that simple joy of putting a glass of safe and clean water on the nightstands of their little ones."