Saturday

Right after breakfast (yea! Oatmeal) we posed for a picture in our Living Water for the World tee shirts, all 70+ of us. 

We had our last “teaching group” meeting with answering questions that had come up during our time here and some “magic tricks” which include water.

Let’s talk about some of the people—one of my roommates is legally blind.  She gets around pretty well in the daytime, but at night she has to get a ride back to our room.  She has a phone app that asks her what she wants, cuz she can’t read the screen.  Each morning she asks it to give her the temperature and it tells her the temp in the room—it will if asked give her the outside temp.  It tells her the time, and reads her e-mails to her, etc.  A really great assistance for her.  We have a non-English speaker in one of the classes who has a translator speaking to him constantly, which is rather confusing and disconcerting until you get used to the additional “noise” while people are talking.  We have students from Chicago, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri and all the southern states especially Florida.   Seven Texans are here, our five and 2 more from Houston.  We have folks with a wealth of Living Water experience and others with experience with other projects.  We really can learn a lot from the “war stories” of others.

We are being encouraged by several staff folks to choose “their” special pet project country for our mission.  As yet, we are undecided—we have 8-10 hours on the drive back to hash this out. 

This afternoon the water guys gave us their report of what they learned and then my group presented a “water celebration” which is something that will be done when the system is producing purified water.

Supper was catfish and cole slaw, hush  puppies and baked potato.  I ate most of it. 

We discussed the attitudes that need to be changed when going in country and why we Americans seem to behave like elephants (taking over and asserting our way) 

We received our graduation certificates this evening and were commissioned to go on a mission trip. 

We’re packing up early in the morning, having breakfast at 8, Q and A at 9 and worship at 10 and hit the road at 11.  Our drive home will be 8-10 hours depending on traffic and our stops. 

Friday at Clean Water U

We learned lots about how and where to get our supplies for teaching the modules and how to pack them to go “in country”  We prepared for our presentation to the rest of the group concerning the actual things we would teach and how we would go about it (methodology).  We also discussed how to keep the education going after we go back home.  We are charged to take enough teaching supplies to leave with the community for the training of 200 more people after we are gone.  A trainer of trainers model of education.

A word or two about the food.  It has been rather high quality camp food.  What does that mean.  Well, we’ve had pizza, spaghetti, sandwiches, hamburger covered with gravy, etc.  The selections are “camp” but the quality has been good. The salad bar has been available at each meal.  Breakfasts have included eggs at every meal along with biscuits and gravy (that folks rave about) waffles, sausage and other regular breakfast things.  I’ve been going to the fruit area with yogurt, peanut butter (and apples) etc.  I’ve missed being in charge of what is served for breakfast because 5 weeks ago I re-joined Weight Watchers and lost 5 pounds so far.  I am determined not to gain—I may not lose, but that’s okay—altho with all the walking up hill and down, who knows.  I’ll weigh in on Monday when I get back to see how I did.  Those who know anything about W W know that food intake is tracked (this time on my phone) and plans are made with breakfast to stay within the allotted # of points for your current weight.  Yesterday for example, not knowing what would be for lunch or supper, I keep my # of points used down as much as possible.  Lunch was pizza- rather high in points, supper was an object lesson meal—just beans and cornbread—to simulate what might be eaten at a meal “in country”.  I thought okay this will keep me within my points.  2 ladles of beans is, depending on how they are cooked, 8-15 points.  It’s difficult not being in charge of what’s to eat.  Another object lesson.

             The facilities are comfortable, but not swanky.  I am appreciative of the WiFi when it is available.   And I’m so glad I brought an extra blanket—I would have been more comfortable with a sleeping bag, but I’ve been okay.The early morning tea on the porch is really calm and lovely.   

Harry has been going over forms needed for assessment and learning how to elicit information from the community to assure all will be well when we go to their country.  And the water guys (Dane, Walter and Gary) will report to us on Saturday what they’ve been doing and we will drink the water they produced.

Friday we had the opportunity to meet with folks who know all about a specific country—Guatamala, Mexico, Yucatan, Peru,  Honduras and others.  These are the countries in which a network exists (there are 11 networked countries).  A network means that Clean Water for the World organization has people in the country, sometimes more than one, who help with assessment, who know good translators and drivers-- who just assist.  We have been encouraged to choose one of the networked countries for our first mission. 

The Friday reports of the 101 (Administrative) group were eye-opening and entertaining.  We gave our report in song and story.

Thursday

Today is intense for all of us.  The technical guys spent the day at the Water building learning how to actually build the filtration system.  They should be back for supper, so I’ll get some info about how their day went.  Harry and his group worked on budgeting and specific planning for installing the system- going through the necessary forms and discussing the importance of each.  My day was filled with “why’s” about clean water and then doing activities that we will do with the students “in country”  In many of the places we might go (no decisions yet), the general population’s literacy level is low as is their Biblical knowledge, so we must teach about germs and taking care of “pure” water as if we were teaching American 3^rd or 4^th graders who’d not heard much about contamination.  The activities are fun ( bingo games, put the matching picture parts together, making "play doh" germs, and acting out water related Bible stories)  

All of these activities are then related to the need for using “pure” water and caring for the bottles that hold the water.  As of now (4pm)  we’ve gone through 2 complete days of curriculum and will do the third day after supper tonite.  

After talking to Harry, he says his day has been all about assessment of various types.  All his work will help us decide where to go for our site installation.  A great deal of assessment must be done before we can actually go on a trip to install a system. 

My head is reeling with all the information we are called on to share with the folks “in country” along with lots of activities to reinforce the needed information. 

Dane, Walter and Gary returned from the water building feeling pretty confident of their ability to construct the device.  They had a meeting tonite to reinforce their lessons from earlier today.

We have a short devotional each morning and each evening.  Some of the songs we sing are to familiar tunes, but with different words.  The first song the first evening was especially appropriate because it was written for Living Water for the World.  I’ll share it later if anyone is interested. 

Internet is down today, so you’ll receive this when it is up and running again. -------

 (Friday) Hooray!  It's up and running for awhile, at least.   

Arrival at Camp

This morning we leisurely had breakfast at the Comfort Inn in Memphis.  Altho’ we had planned to leave for the camp about 10, we were all ready to go  earlier.  After a short  hour and a half or so drive, we found Oxford, Mississippi, home of “Ole Miss”.  We browsed the lovely town square for about an hour, then looked for a place for lunch.  We had the choice narrowed down to one of 3 places on the square until we saw a group of people standing in a group waiting to get into the Ajax when it opened at 11:30.  That convinced us that this was the place for us.  The menu featured po’boy sandwiches, deep south entrees and tons of vegetables.  

The favorites at our table were chicken and dumplings with  turnip greens,  fried okra and sweet potato casserole.  We shared a blackberry cobbler serving and a piece of chocolate pie. The ceiling was covered with tooth picks that had been "blown" into it. 

 Fortified with a great lunch and fearing that we’d have to endure “camp” food the rest of the week, we made our way to the camp, not far outside Oxford.  On the way we drove through the campus resplendent with all sorts of blooming plants.

At the camp we met very friendly people and registered.  We received our room assignments and had some time to  make our beds and get settled in.   All the group had a 2 hour meeting concerning what the Living Water for the World organization is all about.  Many statistics were shared among them-the fact that-- millions of children die yearly from illnesses caused by not having clean water, 

LWW (Living Water for the World) has successfully installed 710 active systems in 25 countries.  They have created 11 networks (countries which have onsite co-ordinators)  30 of these sites are in Cuba, (a surprising fact to me) where the first one began in a Seminary.

We were all given overviews of our specific job areas.   Walter, Gary, and Dane are the ones who will be creating the actual filtration system.  Harry is the “boss” who arranges and co-ordinates EVERYTHING.  My job is to teach hygiene, when and how to use the clean water and also Bible stories to a few folks in the community in the mornings who in turn teach others that they invite that afternoon.   It is a trainer of trainers model.  Tomorrow we are going over the entire 3 day curriculum in morning, afternoon and night classes. 

WiFi is good in our cabin!  The bed is calling me.  Later!

Long Drive

We met at the church this morning at 8, loaded up luggage and people in the med sized SUV and headed east.   There was conversation, there was napping, reading and just some quiet time and voila we were in Little Rock.  Lunch was at Cracker Barrel, quite adequate and reasonable and we loaded up and headed east some more.   We rode and rode, and two of the guys drove and drove (sometimes thru rain showers) til we arrived at our night-time destination, Memphis.  After getting our rooms and chilling awhile, we met in the lobby to find a good Memphis barbecue place.  Armed with a map and instructions provided by the lady at the hotel counter we drove through a part of Memphis til we came to AR's Barbecue.                              

The guys had ribs which they declared wonderful,

I had chopped pork wrapped in a tortilla with cole slaw.  It was very tasty, but the cole slaw was not what I'm used to.   It had been chopped to death- it was almost a paste and way too wet.  But the taste was good if the texture wasn't.
Our plan is to enjoy breakfast on our own in the lobby and then to meet at mid morning to repack the car-- luggage and us- and head to Oxford, Mississippi for registration at 1:30.   Hopefully I'll be able to get adequate WiFi at the camp in Oxford to continue posting this saga.