In my preparatory reading and study for returning to Kenya next week, I came across quite an amazing illustration and statement.
When we meet a community’s need for clean water, and basic hygiene, and sanitation, it is like toppling the first domino in a whole series of serious issues.
Deal with these first and it becomes easier to confront the lack of education, the risk of rape, and violence, poor health and limited employment. If we deal with these areas of water and sanitation then people in the poorest areas of the world are more able to handle other matters to improve their quality of life.
When women no longer have to find a quiet spot to use as a latrine, the danger of being on the receiving end of violence and rape diminishes. That is so true. How would you like to venture out late on a dark night where there is no lighting to do the toilet?
At this harvest season one of the major aid agencies is emphasizing issues of water and sanitation. Is it not terribly sad that we have still to major on that as we near the end of 2009?
Village life has been totally transformed in parts of Uganda and Kenya when running water became a reality. Diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera suddenly declined! Healing can arrive so simply where there is clean fresh drinkable water and where human refuse can be washed away.
Life is exceedingly hard in these African villages where I have had the joy and privilege of speaking and teaching at Seminars. Pastors and leaders will travel miles for the two or three days and take notes to share with their precious people.
Jesus spoke about water and the Holy Spirit. The Feast of Tabernacles has just drawn to a close for another year as I write this piece, and when Jesus attended the Feast in Jerusalem He cried out in a loud voice for the people to come to Him and drink. Of course, He was referring to the Holy Spirit, but the picture He presented was that of water, and as the Holy Spirit is pure so we must seek to offer people water as clean and clear and pure as we can.
As we are changed and transformed we have a responsibility to do what we can to improve the environment of those who face hardship after hardship.
Many simple acts of self-sacrifice, and love and grace, flowing in servant-hearted compassion could make a massive difference to whole communities.
It is possible for individuals to do more than they might believe to be achievable by giving time and gifts to those agencies that can be trusted to deliver the improvements in the front line where the needs are massive.
That reading and study has encouraged my heart, as I prepare to return to Kisumu and Nairobi. It is not easy but nevertheless we must work at combining the physical and practical alongside the spiritual. After all, God the Father sent Jesus as a real man! He was human and divine! He was physical and spiritual! the Bible makes that exceedingly clear.
Sandy Shaw.
Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.