Water on the Heart

Heaven's leaning over the rails wondering if we'll be as courageous as God thinks we are.

-- Bob Goff

Ever heard of MrBeast? Yeah, me neither until the other day when an article about him popped up in my news feed. I asked my third-grade students if they’d heard of him. Every hand enthusiastically shot up as if I’d asked them who wants homework canceled for the rest of the year.

 

Mr. Beast is a Youtube influencer with 167 million subscribers. In his videos, he does attention-grabbing stunts that cost $1 million each. And he gives away mountains of money around the world. He recently paid for 100 water wells across five African countries.

 

I need to become a Youtube influencer.

 

That’s because I think about water wells all the time. You could say that I have water on the brain. Medically speaking that’s not a good thing. Maybe it’s more accurate to say I have water on my heart. Or water in my dreams. 

 

I thought about water during a trip to Las Vegas to see U2. There are 152,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas. They all have free-flowing faucets. It’s not like you have to request a water-plentiful room like you can choose a smoke-free hotel. How is that possible that a desert city has so much water?

 

It’s early morning. I’m the only one awake and I’m alone with my coffee. My thoughts turn to water as I sit and stare out the window at the raindrops sprinkling the surface of my pool. We have a large pool containing probably 20,000 gallons of water. That’s the same amount of water that an American family of four uses in 50 days. I make up one-fourth of an American family of four. How is it possible that I have so much water? 

 

I thought about water last summer when we had a busted pipe under the house and all of a sudden water wasn’t all that accessible. For two days we couldn’t use the sinks in the kitchen and its nearest bathroom. Mind you, we still had one working bathroom and I could wash dishes outside with a bucket and hose. 

 

Talk about first-world problems. 

 

People in Mozambique would laugh at such a dilemma. If water were money, I’d be Jeff Bezos. We’d all be. Meanwhile much of the world is struggling to get by on the salary of an Uber driver with an expired license. 

 

Yes, the world is filled with heartbreaking issues. There’s the unspeakable evil inflicted by man in the form of war, terrorism, and child-slavery. And billions of people struggle under the weight of poverty, the lack of food, and the absence of clean water. I can’t stop the wars currently raging. But I’d like to do something about the clean water crisis.

Water on the brain. Water on the heart.

 

It would take another blog of this length to adequately describe the world’s water crisis and how a lack of clean water negatively impacts lives. For starters, 703 million people need access to clean water. Some die or get seriously ill because they don’t have clean water. Kids miss school and women spend billions of hours each day just getting water. 

 

I have water on the heart because I saw a picture of a muddy hole in the ground that the people in Marorea, Mozambique use to draw their drinking water. Marorea is a rural village community. But even in the cities, unlike Las Vegas, faucets can run dry for days. In my three trips to Mozambique, I’ve seen people pumping water from wells and women carrying plastic cans of water on their heads. But nothing pierced my heart like that photo.

 

The muddy water of Marorea

Muddy water on the heart. 

 

The people of Marorea received a water well in 2022. The muddy hole of Marorea is no longer mandatory. I’d like Marorea to be the beginning. 

 

This is my dream, to see 500 wells installed in Mozambique (via my church’s ministry Life for Mozambique). It’s petrifying to even type those words. Back to U2. The band’s latest song Atomic City features the line, … “if your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough.” Research traced the line back to a commencement address by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough,” she said. Sirleaf, I bet, knew something about dreaming. Because she, as the president of Liberia, was the first women elected as head of state of an African country.

 

I understand that alone I don’t have the capacity to achieve this dream. That many wells would require $5 million, give, or take. And in Mozambique things don’t exactly happen with the speed and efficiency of a Chick-fil-A drive thru. But dreams don’t always run on logic. Sometimes there’s a whole lot of faith involved. And I’ve got a God who can move mountains. I’ve seen him plant 535 churches in Mozambique. If you told me that’d be the case 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I bet he has the capacity to make 500 water wells happen by 2034.

 

The well in Marorea was our fourth in Mozambique. Four down, 496 to go. Fund-raising efforts for well No. 5 are ramping up. We need an additional $3,000. From there it will be one well at time, in places like Nhangulo, Missica, Maxara, and Manga Ubozi.

 

Water on the brain. Water on the heart. Whatever number of wells we can drill … 5 or 10 or 496, it will be well with my soul.

 

But for starters, does anyone have MrBeast’s contact info?

 

(If you’d like to contribute toward the completion of well No. 5 … or host your own fundraiser for a separate well, please message me).