Water our Care of God's Gifts

Next week, we start Vacation Bible School. I cannot tell you how excited I am! In my ministry, I have learned that VBS is my favorite church program. It is where we come together and live out the Great Commandment sharing our love of God and our Faith with the children, and each other.
 
I am not going to give away the whole week; you will have to come and experience that! However, the theme is desert living, and the mission focus is water. Water is one of the most basic elements of life; in fact, while a person can live without many things, without water one will die fairly quickly.
 
 Living where we do, we know that water is a serious issue for our community, but many in our community also have a false level of comfort and trust that there will always be enough. Though, when we look at communities around the world, we often see that much of the world is in a serious water situation. When we  have water we, indulge in it, and when we don’t, we often find it hard to sacrifice it.
 
I remember when my grandparents moved to Albuquerque in the early eighties. When they moved into their little house with the manicured green lawn, they were told by the realtor that they were living on a huge aquifer that would last a hundred years, plenty of water, even though it was a desert. Unfortunately, too many believed that, and installed lawns that used that resource so much that by the early nineties that hundred years of water was dangerously close to running out. The community had to make hard decisions, and one of the first things to go was the manicured lawns, among other things.
 
As Americans, even when we are out of water or close to being out of water, somehow we always find a way to survive. Mostly, by cutting back on usage, giving up on some luxuries; but there are many places where even when water is plentiful, it is scarce because it is undrinkable and unsafe.
 
When I was in Ghana, one of the most remarkable things was watching families that would walk a mile or more to get water, usually only a couple of  gallons at a time. To make matters worse, often that water is untreated and can cause serious other problems.
 
In Genesis, when we read the two creation stories, we are reminded of the fact that when God created us, he gave us a responsibility:
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.[1]
 
In the second creation story, the one with Adam and Eve, after creating the Adam, he places him into the garden explaining:
 
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. [2]
 
 Depending on the traditions used later in the Bible, these two verses become foundational to the stewardship responsibility that we have towards this world. We are called to take care of this gift, and help it to be sustainable. We are never going to be able to care for each other or anything else if we do not begin to think of how we care for the precious resource of water.
 
 Yours in Christ,
 
 Bryan