An unfortunate lesson on clean water's value

I was watching when the pretty waitress carried my glass over to the faucet to fill it with water. She did it so natural and easy that I thought, “Hmmmm, maybe they always use tap water for the juice drinks they serve here.”

I had been eating my lunches at that little “comedor” for weeks now and trusted it. I was still thirsty from lunch and asked for a refill. They didn’t have any more “horchata,” (sweet rice water) so she was making me some more.

A couple weeks ago, when I had asked the owner whether they use bottled water for the drinks, she had assured me that they did. So this week, I thought, “Hmmmm. Maybe she was just telling me what I wanted to hear.”

Walking back to work, however, I thought, “Gee my stomach sure feels funny. Naw, couldn’t be. It must be mental.”

It took a while for the tap-water horchata to work its wonders, but by yesterday morning things were different. By the afternoon, I was beginning to contemplate fetching some drugs. I called a friend, and she suggested a pharmacy. (You can buy drugs directly here without a doctor’s prescription.)

As I stepped out the door, there was an old man, lying on the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell whether he was drunk or sick, but he had some vomit on his shirt. The street corner seems to be a favorite place for drunks to drop and rest up from their drinking bouts.

When I approached him, the old man raised his hand for help. “Good grief, man, I’m sick,” I thought. “I can’t help you.” But I grabbed his hand, which had a remarkably strong grip, and managed to get him mostly upright, leaning against the wall. We hobbled along to the street corner where he found a seat on a kind of a bench. I was glad he didn’t expect me to take him far.

Helping the old man actually made me realize I would have the strength to make it up the hill to the pharmacy. The young clerk there kind of had a grin on his face when I requested the pills. He probably sees lots of gringos asking for Pepto-Bismol. I’m probably demented, but I like the taste of the tablets. I also bought some antibiotics, which were more expensive than I figured, but fortunately I had just enough.

At home, I tried the Pepto, holding off on the antibiotics. This morning, I woke up feeling better and with a new perspective on the value of clean water.

Speaking metaphorically, Solomon advises his son, “Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well,” Proverbs 5:15.

God tells Jeremiah, “My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water,” Jeremiah 2:13.

Jesus brings the metaphor home: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life,” John 4:14.

Next time I get a drink of clean water, I think I'll say a prayer of gratitude for Jesus' gift of himself — living water — and for fresh water. Perhaps we could say a prayer for those who don’t have cheap, clean water. If you’d like to help those without it, check out World Vision’s website, which has a brief video, “Water is life,” on the subject and an invitation to give. There's also a good video, Demekech's story, on how clean water helped an Ethiopian woman and her four daughters.