No Mud In The House Please

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No Mud In The House Please!

My wife and I have been privileged to be on several mission trips to three different continents.

In the Amazon Basin of Peru, there are no rocks. The water table comes to within a foot of ground level. To get water, just dig a hole and watch it fill up. (Do not drink it).

With no rocks or gravel anywhere, you get this and worse most of the year.

In order to mix concrete for the floor of the church we were constructing, we needed gravel. The local missionary was savvy enough to realize the potential of a busted-up old sidewalk from a city project. He had the chunks trucked to within 1/2 mile of the job site. From there the locals carried each chunk to where they eventually became gravel, later to be mixed into concrete for the floor. 

The men first busted the chunks into fist-size pieces. The next man broke those pieces up to gravel size.

On the other side of the world a similar story. In Uganda there are plenty of rocks, but no gravel. At least not for the poor to have delivered and spread on the mud trails that lead to and from the mud huts.

I took this picture of the local gravel pit. All it is is an exposed rock bank along the road. If you look close, you can see several piles of gravel. Those piles are the result of a person chipping, with chisel and hammer, from the solid granite bank. Each pile is owned by the person doing the work. I dare say not one pebble is stolen from the neighbor’s pile.

It makes my heart ache to think about such a life. On the other hand, maybe we are the ones  to be pitied. 

We run, run, run. We worry about germs and calories. We insure everything we got; our house, our jewelry, our cars, our boat, our cows, our health, our life. Sad, sad. What for? Isn’t the Lord in charge? While living in this country is a great blessing, it could also be our undoing. 

“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust does not corrupt.”

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