january 2009 newsletter...
water when the well is dry...
If you were to visit me, you'd drive up a long and winding road marked with green signs kindly posted by the Eco Task Force, whose task it is to plant trees. In distinctly Indian English, the messages read, "We are planting international smile," or, "When you return, tell them we have greened the hills for a better tomorrow." Then there's my personal favorite, which reads, "Tree means water. Water means Bread. Bread means Life." Puzzling over the sequence has occupied me on several drives up the mountain to Mussoorie. I never realized the crucial nature of the ETF's work, though, until this last month, when (thanks to the generosity of my family here) I was able to take a ten-day journey around Rajasthan, India's desert state.
Everywhere we went, we heard stories. I grew increasingly fascinated with how the histories of these desert cities are stories of water. There's the immense and immensely intimidating Mehrangarh Fort, standing several hundred feet above the blue city of Jodhpur that crowds beneath its sandstone ramparts. As we meandered through the audio tour and up those ramparts, we came across a stone embedded at the foot of an enormous wall. While constructing the fort in 1459, Rao Jodhaji chased a local hermit off the mountain. Understandably angry at losing his solitude, the hermit cursed Jodhpur with a scarcity of water. He declared that only a human sacrifice could remove the curse. Apparently one of Rao Jodhaji's generals stepped forward, offering to be buried alive in the foundations of the fort. His sacrifice is honored as heroic, even 550 years later. And Jodhpur still has water.
Then there's the story of Bikaner, a city far out in the Thar Desert, near the border of Pakistan. As we drove across the wilderness, I wondered how and why anyone had ever come here, let alone settled and built a sizable kingdom. It was Rao Jodhaji of Jodhpur's younger son who founded Bikaner. He seized an inheritance for himself, as it wouldn't be granted him by his father. 
Bikaner seems to have struggled along for several hundred years, with its people scratching a living from the sand and scrub, and its rulers making names for themselves through their remarkable courage in battle. Around the turn of the last century, a new king came to power: Ganga Singhji. His first major challenge involved a widespread famine in 1901. After touring his kingdom and witnessing the suffering, he became convinced (quite sensibly, I might add) that Bikaner's major problem was a shortage of water. He devoted a considerable amount of energy and money over the next two decades to building a 90 mile irrigation canal (then the longest in the world) to divert water from the Sutlej River in the Punjab. Today, it's remarkable to see brilliant mustard fields flourishing along this canal that brings such life to such total barrenness.
While in Bikaner, my father got into conversation with a local farmer, who marveled that people travel around the world, "...just to visit a place where the people are starving." Tourism seemed unfathomable to him (as, incidentally, did the idea that Americans actually grow and eat peanuts). He and his family survive because they have a tiny plot of land beside the canal, which allows them to grow enough food for their needs. Probably a little less than their needs, but they survive. As with the cities of Jodhpur and Bikaner, water tells this family's story.
The most poignant moment for me, though, came on an afternoon camel ride outside the city of Jaisalmer. Our camel driver's name was Laal Singhji, and once again, my father got into conversation with him, inquiring about life in the desert. Both of us were deeply moved by Laal Singh's dignity in the face of what seemed to us abject poverty. He spoke, once again, of the scarcity of water as the essential, continual problem. When water is scarce and the monsoon is poor, plants won't grow, and fodder for the camels becomes increasingly difficult to collect. He shook his head, quietly and despairingly stating that, for the second year in a row, his family would have to scrounge up money for food for the camels. As the family's means of survival, the camels' food came first. He asked us for nothing, and I came away wishing, longing, for a way to fix his problems permanently.
I guess water does mean bread, and bread life. I found myself imagining Christ wandering in the wilderness, and I understood the temptation of turning stones into bread in a way I haven't before. Watching women come to the local well in the evening, I thought of Christ telling the Samaritan woman that he could offer her living water; that she would never have to thirst again. All my life, I've pretty much taken water for granted. I've never even considered whether I would have to endure thirst. But that Samaritan woman? She must have instantly marveled at his offer.
I, you, we all enjoy such abundance. I smile when I think of how Georgians consider a drought severe when they are no longer permitted to water their lawns. We don't know thirst. Now I have returned to Mussoorie and am enjoying one more week of quiet before the new semester begins. I've been given the luxury of time to think about this New Year, and what it should or could look like in my life.
After all this talk of water, I find myself simply thirsty. The last few months have made me aware of my own spiritual dehydration. Thinking I was coming home, I have found myself still a foreigner. Thinking I understood life in a small community, I have instead experienced bewilderment at the complications. Thinking I could easily share my faith, I have struggled to establish even the foundation for sharing. I'm thirsty for Living Water to pour life into me and to show me how to meaningfully impact the community in which I find myself. I can see clearly how dependent I must be upon God for everything, just as the desert people cling fiercely to every drop of the precious water that they're unable to produce or manufacture for themselves.
Please pray for new life in me, and that this new life will bring strength to meet the challenges ahead.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Amy