Five Minute Friday: HEAVY

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday series. Five minutes of free-flow writing shared with whoever wants to read it. This week’s prompt is: HEAVY.

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Since I was behind and just wrote last weeks about 5 minutes ago, I'm going to continue my train of thought.  To catch up, read my FMF CARRY.  

It was Haiti in July, in the direct sunlight, in what felt like a million degrees.  It was a difficult hike, loaded down with supplies. We had to hike down to get to the house.  Then we had until about 2 hours before sundown to build said house in the blazing sun.  When we were as exhausted as could be, and racing against dusk, we had to hike back up the mountain to get to our van.

With that one blue jug of water for all 12 of us, the internal struggle raged. All day, it was a constant: Am I really thirsty?  Can I wait another 10 minutes?  Am I drinking too much?  Are they drinking enough?  They look really overheated, should we use some of the water to pour over their head? We needed to make sure we had enough to the very end of the day.  We had to have a good chunk of the water for the way back up the mountain.

I'm here to testify that we completed the mission.  Everyone had just what they needed.  In fact, we were all able to completely fill up our Nalgene bottles for the van ride back to the missions center, but not a drop more.

I'll never forget how the men on our team shared the burden of everyone's water. Carrying a blue 5 gallon Culligan that is rope tied onto a backpack is no small feat when you're walking down the road, let alone down, and back up, a mountain.  I fell multiple times and I was just carrying a bag of tools.  I prayed so hard that they wouldn't fall and crack open the bottle.

If nothing else, it was a lesson for us all to carry each other's burdens.  So I am grateful, for the few who stepped up to carry us along.  Thank you for being a model of what Christ does for us each and ever day. 

Stop.