Our plan was to write a post this morning asking those of you who read this to pray for rain.\u00a0 BUT plans change!!\u00a0 It started raining in the middle of the night and it\u2019s still raining \u2013 more than 3 inches so far!\u00a0 So we\u2019ll share a little different version of what we were going to write.<\/p>\n
We have noticed that in America (in the area we\u2019re from anyway), rain is often viewed as a nuisance.\u00a0 While of course it is necessary for things to grow, it often messes up plans that we had and a rainy day is frequently referred to as a bad day.\u00a0 We view rain a little differently here in Amdu.<\/p>\n
All the water that we use for drinking, laundry, dishes and bathing is rainwater that runs off our roof and is stored in a flexible tank under our house.\u00a0 In the past there have been stretches of 8, 10 and even 12 days with no rain.\u00a0 We had to be very careful of our water usage but we never ran out.\u00a0 Until last week!<\/p>\n
For the past several weeks we have not had more than a sprinkle of rain. \u00a0The norm here is that it rains just about every night.\u00a0 If not every night, then at least every few days.\u00a0 \u00a0Well, after more than two weeks of no rain, our tank was empty.\u00a0 For the past week we have been hauling water to use in our house and, as much as possible, we have been going to our former teammates\u2019 empty house to use the water there.<\/p>\n
Even though it took a lot of extra time and was inconvenient, we were very thankful that we still had access to water.<\/p>\n
But more critical than the inconvenience for us, the lack of rain was affecting our Amdu friends in serious ways. \u00a0Food in their gardens was dying and they have not been able to plant new gardens because everything they planted would just die without rain.<\/p>\n
The nights have been almost 10 degrees colder than normal and without some cloud cover, the days have been hotter and the sun stronger.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have the option of just going to a store to buy other food!\u00a0 We don\u2019t know yet what long term affect this time of drought will have.\u00a0 Thankfully, the Lord sent rain so people\u2019s gardens should perk up again.<\/p>\n
Another benefit of this dry time is that we have been able to experience another part of Amdu life with our friends here.\u00a0 We have learned some things that we wouldn\u2019t have learned otherwise.\u00a0 Even when we can\u2019t see the whole picture, we know the Lord is working out all things and we trust that this experience is another thing that the Lord will use to further the true Gospel coming to Amdu.<\/p>\n
Please continue to pray for us as we learn more about this culture, as we understand more and more of what is being said around us, as we are able to say more things at a story level (longer than just sentences at a time) and as we develop closer relationships with our Amdu friends.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your part in the Amdu work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It started raining in the middle of the night and it\u2019s still raining \u2013 more than 3 inches so far! We don\u2019t know yet what long term affect this time of drought will have on the Amdu people. They have experienced several weeks of drought and their gardens have been affected significantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,158],"tags":[48793,448,637],"class_list":["post-2833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-family","category-ministry","category-praises","tag-amdu","tag-ethnos360","tag-new-tribes-mission","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}