Water seems to always be the topic of conversation!

WATER.

I write so often about water! My grandfather who was born in 1896... Picture above, standing proudly in the Army during WWI, worked as a water driver. He drove water to the front lines during the war. Grandpa Smith knew how important water was. After the war, he homesteaded property in the Midwest. I was just a child and remember him telling about "witching water". He believed he was a dowser and many of the people within 3 counties called upon his services to locate water on their property. On his little 20 acres he drilled a well, the deepest well in the county. He would say "this water comes from Mississippi bedrock". Now I don't know if it did or didn't but I still drink from that very same well drilled many years ago. It's good water!

Grandpa was an old man and I found him quite silly many times in my life, particularly when he said, "Mark my words someday you'll be paying to drink water."

Yes indeed grandpa I now pay for my water.

I've written about the lack of water, dirty water, flooding waters and now I write about a lake full of water.

This lake is rising. Rising at an alarming pace. It's not just the most recent rain that has caused this problem. It has been on the rise for a few years. Is there ANYONE out there that can help? Can ANYONE offer some suggestions? The houses below, just a couple of years ago did not have water flowing in their front doors. There is NO WAY to move the houses. Soon the lake will overcome many homes. The homes will be lost.

If you or anyone you know can shed some light on this issue, if you or anyone you know can do something about this issue, please contact me.

If you can't do anything about the water, you can pray. Pray the UN adds this issue to their list of operations before the houses are swallowed up by the lake.

Please contact Sherry or myself if you can offer any help.

Lucia = Numbers

Licia, the wonder woman I've talked about before... you'll remember her, she's the person who makes me look at numbers different.

Psalm 40

1-3 I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.

Why are her feet so muddy? Was she just posing for the camera?

One hole in the ground. What do you believe is in that hole? What in the world could Lucia be thinking now?

Oh, I've got it. You are going to put that water in a bucket to wash your feet?

What's that in the bucket Lucia? One cactus?

You put a cactus in the water? To make it cleaner? You think that's going to work?

You are going to strain that yucky water through 2 towels?

NOW you have to give 60 children a bath with that water?

Now you filter the water so you can drink it? Just how much water are you filtering 1 gallon at a time?

330 gallons of clean drinking water a day? Lucia, why? Why are you filtering water?

Click here to find out why Lucia is filtering water.

Lucia = 1 woman

Lucia + YOU= 2

PS. One more number

P.O. Box 23

Real Hope For Haiti
P.O. Box 23
Elwood, IN 46036

Broken Heart

Story from AFP
In storm-battered Haiti, humanitarian crisis as 500 are killed

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) — More than 500 people were found dead in Haiti as international aid trickled Saturday to desperate residents who have not eaten in days since the latest in a battery of storms crushed the country.
As the death toll jumped nearly five-fold in the wake of Tropical Storm Hanna, the poorest country in the Americas faced a likely new beating from Hurricane Ike, which strengthened to an "extremely dangerous" storm and threatened to dump heavy rains on Haiti's vulnerable northwest coast.
And more deaths could emerge.
"The toll is increasing hourly," warned the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "According to information from the government we have reached more than 500 deaths" following Hanna, which hit Haiti early in the week.
The UN Children's Fund warned that 650,000 people have been affected by the flooding, including 300,000 children, and that key bridges have been washed out or blocked leaving many of the country's roads impassable and complicating the task of humanitarian groups trying to deliver crucial aid.
Ground zero of the devastation was in Gonaives, a flood-prone northwestern coast city where about 3,000 people died four years ago when it was drowned by Tropical Storm Jeanne.
Senator Yuri Latortue, who represents Gonaives, said 200,000 people have not eaten in days.
Massive deforestation has left Haiti vulnerable to flooding and mudslides. After Hanna struck, many residents took refuge on the roofs of their homes before they were rescued by UN helicopters.
From the air, the rivers were muddy brown as they spilled over into entire villages. Only the roofs of homes could be seen.
Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers on Saturday were evacuating several thousand residents from Gonaives, a civil protection official there told AFP.
"The problem is that there are not enough shelters to house all these people, thousands of whom need to be evacuated," the official, Youdeline Joseph, said.
Kone Amara, the Haiti humanitarian assistance coordinator for the aid organization Oxfam, said the situation in Gonaives, a city of 300,000 people, was "very grave."
"There's no food in the city and people live in shelters with precarious hygienic conditions," Amara said.
The aid group had planned to ship 2,000 bottles of water with the help of the World Food Program, but it could not get a boat until at least Monday, he said.
Oxfam might take aid by road, but it wants to be escorted by the UN peacekeeping mission due to security concerns.
"The people on the road feel abandoned and don't want all the aid to be focused on Gonaives," Amara said.
Parnell Denis, the contact for Oxfam in Gonaives, said the city was "completely devastated."
"The streets are lined with groups of people walking through the streets trying to find higher ground," Denis said.
"Food supplies and water are scarce and the price of the food that's left is rising. The morale of people staying in the shelters is so very low; I am afraid to tell them that another storm is on its way."
Hurricane Ike was forecast to pass north of Haiti, sparing it from a direct hit, but it strengthened Saturday to a Category Four storm and was expected to lash northern Haiti with heavy rains, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
"They will still get pretty strong winds and rain... as well as the Dominican Republic," NHC forecaster Cristina Carrasco told AFP.
A tropical storm warning was issued for Haiti's northern peninsula. Radio alerts urged residents to take precautions as the storm could strike on Sunday.
Ike, now an "extremely dangerous" hurricane energized with winds of 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour, was bearing down on Turks and Caicos and the southern Bahamas Saturday and was forecast to rage across Cuba late Sunday or Monday before heading towards the United States, the NHC said.
Haiti was already hit in recent weeks by two other storms, Gustav and Fay, which left nearly 120 people dead.
OCHA said it would issue an appeal in the coming days for urgent financial aid to help 600,000 people over the next six months.
In Brussels, the European Commission has launched "fast-track" aid action for two million euros (2.9 million dollars) to provide relief for Haitians.
Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States are among the nations whose governments have committed relief aid for Haiti.
Michele Pierre-Louis, Haiti's new prime minister who was approved Friday to take office after four months of political standstill, now will have to manage a grim humanitarian crisis.