Water is Basic

November 27, 2009

Giving Thanks

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

We had 900 t-shirts left over from this years Basic 5k. Which is a way of saying that we overestimated the number of registrations we’d have. Sure, we could blame the weather leading up to the race or second guess aspects of our overall strategy - but seeing boxes of t-shirts stacked in the back of our race director’s truck was more than a little disheartening for one very simple reason:

Those t-shirts represent a village worth of funds that could have gone to clean water; that’s a tough pill to swallow. But this isn’t a story about the cost of mistakes.

At the beginning of October, about a week before the Basic 5k gun broke the quiet of a cold Dallas morning, tribal conflict over some cattle grazing in a peanut field erupted along the White Nile in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria state. The fighting left more than 40 people dead, 20 villages burned to the ground and 24,000 Mundari without a home.

When we received word from our friends at EPC (Water is Basic’s partner church in Sudan) about the needs of the displaced, the extra t-shirts had renewed purpose. On two consecutive Sundays we sold the left over shirts and sent the $8500 we raised to Sudan.

I arrived at the EPC compound in Yei, Sudan a few weeks later & had the privilege of accompanying a lorry full of aid, purchased with that extra t-shirt money, 150 miles north to Tarekeka; the journey took 8 dusty hours and when we arrived the low sun dappled through the leaves of banyan and mango trees on the bank of the Nile, and if not for the circumstances, the scene would have been idyllic. 

But thousands of internally displaced sat beneath the same trees and seemed to inhabit every nook and cranny in the tiny Nile town, living in schools, government offices and every available public space. And in most cases, their shelter was simply a mosquito net. The scene was beyond comprehension and their presence had disrupted village life, closing schools & causing tension. 

The situation overwhelmed. The crush of children, desperate for something to fill their bellies was unbelievable. The pleas of mothers for a bit of candy for their babies were heart breaking. I had come with a truck full of aid - 5 metric tons of maize, a few hundred bars of soap & some children's clothing - and for the first time, as I stood in the midst of them, the scope of 24,000 displaced people hit me. Five tons of maize couldn't feed them all, not even for a day. The four bore holes Water is Basic is drilling will double the number of operable wells in the region, but a single bore hole can only effectively serve 2,000. 

Our single lorry seemed grossly inadequate.

Shortly after arriving, we were joined by the county commissioner who thanked us, genuinely thanked us, for coming. Apparently, we were the only one’s who’d brought help in the month since the displaced arrived - and this was EPC’s second trip. From my perspective it wasn’t enough, but from his it was infinitely more than anyone else had done for his people. He treated us to a wonderful meal and presented us with a goat to show his appreciation - he literally gave us his thanks.

As we drove home, I couldn’t escape the obvious question - how the heck could he be thankful? We hadn’t done enough - not anywhere near enough.

Lost in thought, the return trip seemed to pass quickly and when we pulled into the EPC compound a strange sight greeted me - people singing, dancing, drumming, waving tree branches and smiling big contagious smiles. As our entire group pulled into the compound and climbed out of the vehicles, Bishop Taban explained that everyone was rejoicing - rejoicing - that we had returned from our mission and it was a success. 

Didn’t they know the t-shirts were a mistake and the aid wasn’t enough?

In my American mind, success is a measurable thing that can be evaluated with spreadsheets and number analysis. And it was my assessment that we had come up short. But as they sang it occurred to me that maybe I had the mission all wrong.

We had gone to give thanks, not bring aid - thanks that some Americans ordered too many t-shirts, thanks that Water is Basic has an able rig & drilling crew, thanks that across large portions of the South, peace is palpable because of clean water.

What I learned by clasping hands with my Sudanese brothers & sisters and kicking up some dust as we rejoiced is that thanks is not something you feel, it’s something you give.

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