Necessary to rewash the feet

The roads in Africa are dirty. (Figure that!) It's been raining quite a bit in the past few days, since we apparently have a month or so of rainy season right now, so the paths behind the house that we use daily, and the roads that we walk to get to school each morning, are squishy with mud. We spent many an hour this past weekend sitting on the green, plastic chairs in the front hallway of our house, peering through the mosquito netting at the pouring rain as our front yard transformed into a river-fed lake. The first day that it began to rain, we ran outside into the falling water and danced around in it, followed by sticking our heads under the water that was pouring from the eaves trough in an attempt to wash our hair (for the record - didn't make it look any better). Being clean here in Ghana is becoming a relative term for me, and I'm realizing that clean drinking water is a precious commodity.

My co-teacher, Margaret, is teaching our KG2 class the four basic needs in life, one of which is clean water. They had to draw the three main sources of water, which were rain water, water from a pipe and water from a well. She showed how they make sure that the drinking water is clean at the school: they drain it through a sponge (which looks stained and appears completely unable of cleaning anything, much less water). The Canadian obrunis, however, are not allowed to swallow even one mouthful of this water. The only water that we can drink is from factory sealed water bottles. Some people drink water out of a little bag, but apparently even that isn't guaranteed to be clean and when I mentioned to Belinda and May (two of our friends here) that I want to try drinking from a bag sometime (seems like an experience to not pass up while in Ghana), my statement was met by an emphatic, "No!" So we get to buy these boxes of 24 bottles of water for 14 cedis (7 dollars) and, in the interest of health, we get to be the rich obrunis who have no immune system. Though, to be honest, the water that came from the pipe in the bathroom the other day (when it detached from the sink and spewed Niagara Falls all over the floor and splashed down into the hallway, causing almost an ankle deep puddle on the entire bathroom floor, as well as the members of the household to thrust bucket after bucket under the open pipe and take turns pouring it outside/in the shower/in the toilet until we could get the pipe reattached) had a yellow hue to it, which didn't make it look overly refreshing.

At this point in my journey, I surprisingly don't miss a whole lot from Canada, besides people. (Though an Oreo cookie might be nice.) However, one thing that I am definitely looking forward to having again upon our return to Canada is a nice, hot shower. Makes me smile just to think about it. Our shower is capable of only two temperatures: cold or frost bite. Some days are so hot that the shower is a welcome relief, and I'm amazed at the body's ability to adapt to temperatures if they are exposed to it long enough;  sometimes I forget that it's frigid water dripping onto my skin. Because the roads are so dusty and we walk everywhere, our feet acquire an outer layer of dirt. Every time that I scrub a bar of soap over my blackened feet, I think of the verse in the Bible where Jesus tells Peter that after bathing it is only necessary to rewash the feet (John 13:10). I had never really understood what Jesus was trying to say in that verse, so I asked a friend to consult a commentary for me. Jesus has already washed away all of our sins through His death on the cross, but our daily walk with Him must constantly be rewashed and cleansed. We do not need to continue to come before Him for the kind of cleansing that comes at salvation, for that is a one time type of bath, but our day to day activities, thoughts, words and motives are always in dire need being touched by the blood of Christ yet once again. My feet take me on many adventures, but at the end of the day, they need to stop moving and be scrubbed under cleansing water. The same is true of our lives.