It Rained!!!

I'll get to the rain in a minute, but I first wanted to share quickly about our most recent visitors to the village. At the end of our time here in Klip, it's been nice to have what has felt like a steady flow of visitors coming to see where we live and experience a rural village.

Not that Mma doesn't appreciate seeing Paul and Jess as often as she does, but you can tell she loves seeing new faces. Our family enjoys playing host to our friends, and we are happy to have such a welcoming home.

Let me backtrack a bit to explain our guests. When the Niebauers (Rachel's parents) were here in August, we visited Lambano Sanctuary in Johannesburg. Barb Anderson, a friend of the Niebauers from Superior, Wisconsin, has been volunteering at Lambano as a house mother for three years now. Here is a snippet I took from the Lambano blog:

"Lambano provides care and support for children impacted by HIV. We currently are permanently caring for 25 children infected with the virus. In addition we are actively involved in helping families impacted by HIV in the Katlehong township. Lord willing, in the near future we will be opening a hospice to minister to sick and dying babies."

Our time at Lambano was an experience that touched our lives dearly. The close contact with young children severely impacted by HIV and poverty, longing for personal love and attention, is something that Rachel and I have missed ever since our time at Agape Children's Ministry in Kenya in 2003.

Barb is also connected with another woman, Ruth, from the Superior area who has been in South Africa for over 30 years now. Ruth's parents attend the same church as the Niebauers. With that short explanation in place, it was Barb and Ruth who came to visit us over the weekend.

We didn't have much time in the village, but it was a beautiful day and we had a very enjoyable time together. Since there isn't much to do around our place, the easiest form of entertainment for our guests is to take them on a walk around the village. The local kids provide quite a show when the white population in the village doubles, and we're all seen walking down the street together.

Although Ruth has been in South Africa for over 30 years, this was her first time to a rural village:



Standing outside of Salim's shop, Barb and I watched as some youngsters struggled to push a donkey cart full of empty drums to go collect water from a tap across the village:



As it was a Saturday, the kids were out in great numbers (with no parental supervision of course):



Outside of Mr. Matshaba's house:



Barb was taking lots of photos to show her kids back at Lambano:



As Barb and Ruth left our village on Saturday afternoon, we had them drop us at Paul and Jess's house in Seleka. The water situation in our village was still extreme, and we didn't want to deplete our family's water supply by doing laundry. Seleka wasn't experiencing the same water problems, so we decided to do our laundry over there.

As we returned from Seleka on Sunday afternoon, it was a hot day and we had just seen that the rain had disappeared from the extended 15-day forecast. Depressing. As we were sitting in a taxi on our way home, I got a call from my mom. She wanted to see if I could get on Skype because she was down in Orlando with my nephew Keller. I told her to give me a half hour because I was on a "taxi" (which I later found out she interpreted to Justin as "track meet" because of the noisy ride ... the whole reason why I didn't want to continue the conversation until I got home).

I jumped on our laptop as soon as I walked in the door, connected my phone to the internet, and signed onto Skype. I had just recently figured out that I was able to receive a video feed through Skype despite our slow connection. Now I could get regular video updates from Keller himself.

After a few failed attempts at getting the video to come through, we finally got it working. Rachel and I just sat for several minutes as my mother tried to get Keller to laugh (in a very grandmotherly sort of way ... no offense mom). It worked, because the kid was quickly showing off his ability to giggle, smile and squirm for us. I know I'm related and all, but I have to admit that Keller is one of the cutest little boys I've ever seen.

Toward the middle of our conversation (after Keller was put down for a nap), I began to give my family an update on our water situation in the village. I also reiterated the fact that I had just seen on the forecast that no rain was scheduled to come our way any time soon.

Literally just after I said that, Rachel poked her head in the door from outside with an excited expression on her face. "It's raining!" I didn't believe her. The real sign of rain is the sound it makes when it hits the zinc roof. But sure enough, seconds later, the pitter-patter began and progressively got louder ... so much so that I could no longer hear myself speak as I continued to try and talk on Skype. I actually had to jump up at one point and help Rachel get the windows closed because it was coming down so hard.



My family couldn't believe it and neither could I. We had been waiting for this day for so long, and I know that so many people (especially our family) have been praying for our village to get rain. The timing was almost emotional. I sat and tried to contain my enthusiasm while continuing the conversation. Rachel was like a little kid outside, occasionally peaking in the door with another excited "it's still coming" or "look at the sky". She was wet like she had just bathed with her clothes on, but completely carefree about it.

The rain continued through the night for many hours. It wasn't one of the hardest rains we've had, but it was steady and long enough to saturate the ground. It's always a good sign when the ground is still soaked the next morning:



But it didn't just stop there. We got more rain the next evening and into the following morning. Two days in a row with rain!! We got a kick out of watching Matome and Lerato walk by our windows with their ponchos or umbrellas:



As I walked home from school at the end of the day on Tuesday, I couldn't help but pull out the camera to capture these guys playing in the puddle in the street. You see, it wasn't just me and Rachel that wanted this rain so bad:



The rain has helped immensely with the dust. The water situation seems to be somewhat relieved, at least for the time being. The water pressure isn't great or constant, but it's more than it was. The next few days are supposed to be cooler and cloudy as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got a few more showers.

Thank you to everyone who has been thinking about us and praying for the water situation in our area. But although rain has come, we ask that you continue to do so. With thousands of people in the surrounding villages, two days of moderate showers will only go so far.