World Water Day

Women carry water in Bangladesh


And in Ethiopia


Today, March 22, is World Water Day.

I vividly remember a hotel in Los Angeles near the airport where our family checked in after a long flight from Guangzhou, China. We dumped our suitcases on the bed and I immediately walked into the bathroom, turned on the faucet and started drinking water straight from the tap...just because I could. We had been in China two weeks drinking bottled water, boiling our drinking water, and being careful to use purified water to brush our teeth. Even in the shower, we closed our mouths.

In our country, turning on the tap and placing a cup beneath means almost nothing to us. It's just the way it is. In most countries, drinking water means everything because it's a matter of life and death. Here's an amazing fact: Count to 15. Now count to 15 again. Two children just died from a water-related disease. For children under the age of five, water-related diseases are the leading cause of death and a child under age five dies every 15 seconds from one. At any given time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease. Less than one percent of the world's fresh water (about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. A person needs 4-5 gallons of water per day to survive. The average American uses 100-176 gallons of water at home each day. These facts amaze me, and now when I brush my teeth I turn off the water instead of letting it run down the sink. That simple amount of water could mean life or death for a child. Could it save a child's life in another part of the world by turning off the teeth-brushing water? I don't know. But at the very least it is a reminder that this resource that I take for granted and rarely give thought to is something that women in countries like Ethiopia will walk three hours to get, and more often than not the water they bring back is from a polluted source.

When I began hearing about our church's work digging water wells in Tanzania, I had no idea of the world water crisis, and so I was largely ignorant of the fact that what we are doing saves lives. I just thought we were making things more convenient for them. I've seen photos of the water that these Tanzanians drink - brown, sludgy and certainly filled with all kinds of microscopic bugs that I wouldn't want planted in my intestines - and the water that now comes from the new water wells - clear, clean and life-saving.

For more information about World Water Day and the world's water crisis, you can click the title of this post and it will direct you to a great website with information. Here is how I see it: if almost two in three people in the world lack access to clean water, then those of us who call ourselves Believers should at the very least be aware of the facts. I'm not trying to be preachy, but if we claim that "God so loved the world" - then we must believe that this breaks His heart, and it should break ours as well. I know for myself that just turning off the water while I am brushing my teeth isn't enough, so I will be researching other ways to be a good steward of the water that is at my fingertips. We, who have so much must share the resources. This means that we don't treat what we have as if it our right to waste it or use it up. There are those of you that are reading this and lifting an eyebrow because you have been to my house, and you know what sits right outside the back door. Yes, I have a large swimming pool in my backyard...so I'm even more culpable for waste and more responsible for water use. So perhaps it is time for me to pretend that I am back in the Phoenix desert and 'learn how to preserve'. Happy World Water Day.