Water, water, everywhere...and all we have are brooms
“It’s too hot and sunny outside, it’s definitely going to rain today,” I say to the new American volunteer as we walk into town. “Really? You can tell that just because of the heat?” he asks incredulously. Sometimes I hate it when I’m right .
A few hours later we learn firsthand just how much it was going to rain as we huddled underneath my umbrella and walked to church, or rather, waded to church. We cross newly formed rivers and pray we don’t get hit by lightening. When we finally get there, my skirt is soaking wet. I take my shoes off, turn then upside down and a stream of water falls out, I half expected to see some fish too. The church service is long tonight, there are 3 baptisms scheduled. The first is a young blind man. His handicap is relevant in this story and worth mentioning. As they are getting into the baptismal pool, the congregation sings the hymnal, I surrender all. The song stops when they are both in the water. Things are going well, the customary prayer with the pastor is done, but when the pastor goes to dip him into the water, the man becomes nervous and refuses to move. So the pastor quietly tries to chat with him. After a few minutes of this we realize that this is going to take a lot longer than expected, so song director makes us sing another stanza: I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed savior, I surrender all. The situation seems to be resolved, so we stop singing. But again the man refuses to be baptized. At this point one of the elders goes up to the stage and tries to help with the pep talk. Then another goes up, and another and another, each one thinking they can help with this unprecedented situation. Meanwhile, the audience (myself included) starts to speculate what’s going on. We conclude it’s one of two things: # 1. He’s blind and therefore scared of the immersion by water part of the process. Since he has never seen anything, much less how a baptism is supposed be, nor can he see the pool he’s in or how deep it is, he’s scared. Or #2, he’s changed his mind about baptism. If it’s number one, then maybe there is something the others can do.
“Can’t we just sprinkle water over his head or something?” my new friend asks.
“We’re not Catholic, we can’t do that,” I answer.
“But isn’t it all symbolic anyway? Can’t we make an exception?”
It’s true, baptism is a symbol and we don’t’ want to traumatize the poor guy and have his first memory as an official member of the church be almost drowning. After another drawn out stanza : All to Jesus I surrender, all to thee I truly give, the seven church members on the stage decide to bring out the other two people waiting to get baptized and use them as examples for the blind man, and of course to boost the congregation’s morale. The first two baptisms go without a hitch, so again the pastor’s tries to baptize the blind man, but he refuses to cooperate and latches on to the pastor’s shoulders. Now it’s getting awkward, like this should be a private event, not a public spectacle. By now speculation is in full swing : Should we leave? No, baptisms are supposed to be joyful events, and it won’t be joyous in an empty church. Do we talk amongst ourselves? Can we reschedule this? Will they just dunk him under? What if he comes up choking, gasping for air, or worse yet, screaming?
This reminds me of a funny story another pastor once told of a baptism gone wrong. I don’t know if it was true or not, but supposedly he was baptizing someone and they started to struggle underwater, he took this to be a sign that they were possessed or something and so he held them under the water for a little bit longer than normal… just to make sure. I smile and try not to burst out laughing at this memory. At long last, the baptism takes place. Another pastor gets in the pool, the first one half forcing him down, albeit gently, and the other one there to catch him. When he came out of the water, the audience let out a loud and heart-felt Amen! The man was in tears and held on to the pastor for a minute or so, I don’t know if this was out of joy, fear or relief, maybe all three. But we got to feel his fear of the unknown and his baptism was extra special because it was so scary to him who could not see the water or know how deep it was. But in the end, he had the faith to put all that aside trust that it would all work out in the end, it puts a whole new meaning to “blind faith”. And as the song goes, he really did Surrender all.
After we FINALLY get out of church, we head back to the hospital for dinner, thankfully the barrels of rainfall and deafening thunder have stopped. But when we get there we notice a lot of unusual activity. The doors are open and there are numerous nurses sweeping. “What the...what happened?” we ask. There’s a simple explanation, it rained. It rained so hard and so fast that the water didn’t drain and instead seeped in through the front door and both halls of the in-patient ward were flooded. This didn’t even happen when Hurricane Mitch hit years ago. “Oh, that really sucks” says Carla, a bit nonchalantly. Then the nurses tell her that her room is probably flooded too. “WHAT?! Nooo! How could this have happened, I just cleaned my room today! Only in Honduras” she screams as she slides and splashes her way down the hall to her room.
I was fortunate enough to live in an apartment that did not get flooded, but I stayed late into the night to help nonetheless, after all it could have very easily been my apartment that flooded. For the next 3 ½ hours, 10 of us gathered our brooms and tediously swept the rain back outside where it belonged. Nurses, maintenance workers, and us volunteers were all sweeping in the halls and in the sleeping patient’s rooms. Ironically, brooms do a better job than mops in this situation. We were strategically placed around each corner and formed a human jet-stream; each one sweeping the river towards the nearest open door. It was funny seeing the maintenance men sweeping . This is usually a women’s job. I was so touched by their dedication, it’s Friday night, but they were there helping in a time of emergency. They don’t get paid overtime and they were soaking wet from checking the drains. At about 11:30 PM we finished and I brought down some cookies from my apartment, it’s the least I could do to boost morale. In the end we swept for over 3 hours, my hands were blistered, my skirt more wet than before and my feet prune-y, but it was actually kind of fun in a way. Yes, we were tired and didn’t want to spend our Friday night there, but no one else was going to do it.
Water: a double- edged sword. It cleans, symbolically and literally. It saves, it rejuvenates, it damages, and that night it unified.
-tuna fish, over and out.
A few hours later we learn firsthand just how much it was going to rain as we huddled underneath my umbrella and walked to church, or rather, waded to church. We cross newly formed rivers and pray we don’t get hit by lightening. When we finally get there, my skirt is soaking wet. I take my shoes off, turn then upside down and a stream of water falls out, I half expected to see some fish too. The church service is long tonight, there are 3 baptisms scheduled. The first is a young blind man. His handicap is relevant in this story and worth mentioning. As they are getting into the baptismal pool, the congregation sings the hymnal, I surrender all. The song stops when they are both in the water. Things are going well, the customary prayer with the pastor is done, but when the pastor goes to dip him into the water, the man becomes nervous and refuses to move. So the pastor quietly tries to chat with him. After a few minutes of this we realize that this is going to take a lot longer than expected, so song director makes us sing another stanza: I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed savior, I surrender all. The situation seems to be resolved, so we stop singing. But again the man refuses to be baptized. At this point one of the elders goes up to the stage and tries to help with the pep talk. Then another goes up, and another and another, each one thinking they can help with this unprecedented situation. Meanwhile, the audience (myself included) starts to speculate what’s going on. We conclude it’s one of two things: # 1. He’s blind and therefore scared of the immersion by water part of the process. Since he has never seen anything, much less how a baptism is supposed be, nor can he see the pool he’s in or how deep it is, he’s scared. Or #2, he’s changed his mind about baptism. If it’s number one, then maybe there is something the others can do.
“Can’t we just sprinkle water over his head or something?” my new friend asks.
“We’re not Catholic, we can’t do that,” I answer.
“But isn’t it all symbolic anyway? Can’t we make an exception?”
It’s true, baptism is a symbol and we don’t’ want to traumatize the poor guy and have his first memory as an official member of the church be almost drowning. After another drawn out stanza : All to Jesus I surrender, all to thee I truly give, the seven church members on the stage decide to bring out the other two people waiting to get baptized and use them as examples for the blind man, and of course to boost the congregation’s morale. The first two baptisms go without a hitch, so again the pastor’s tries to baptize the blind man, but he refuses to cooperate and latches on to the pastor’s shoulders. Now it’s getting awkward, like this should be a private event, not a public spectacle. By now speculation is in full swing : Should we leave? No, baptisms are supposed to be joyful events, and it won’t be joyous in an empty church. Do we talk amongst ourselves? Can we reschedule this? Will they just dunk him under? What if he comes up choking, gasping for air, or worse yet, screaming?
This reminds me of a funny story another pastor once told of a baptism gone wrong. I don’t know if it was true or not, but supposedly he was baptizing someone and they started to struggle underwater, he took this to be a sign that they were possessed or something and so he held them under the water for a little bit longer than normal… just to make sure. I smile and try not to burst out laughing at this memory. At long last, the baptism takes place. Another pastor gets in the pool, the first one half forcing him down, albeit gently, and the other one there to catch him. When he came out of the water, the audience let out a loud and heart-felt Amen! The man was in tears and held on to the pastor for a minute or so, I don’t know if this was out of joy, fear or relief, maybe all three. But we got to feel his fear of the unknown and his baptism was extra special because it was so scary to him who could not see the water or know how deep it was. But in the end, he had the faith to put all that aside trust that it would all work out in the end, it puts a whole new meaning to “blind faith”. And as the song goes, he really did Surrender all.
After we FINALLY get out of church, we head back to the hospital for dinner, thankfully the barrels of rainfall and deafening thunder have stopped. But when we get there we notice a lot of unusual activity. The doors are open and there are numerous nurses sweeping. “What the...what happened?” we ask. There’s a simple explanation, it rained. It rained so hard and so fast that the water didn’t drain and instead seeped in through the front door and both halls of the in-patient ward were flooded. This didn’t even happen when Hurricane Mitch hit years ago. “Oh, that really sucks” says Carla, a bit nonchalantly. Then the nurses tell her that her room is probably flooded too. “WHAT?! Nooo! How could this have happened, I just cleaned my room today! Only in Honduras” she screams as she slides and splashes her way down the hall to her room.
 |
| me, after we've swept away most of the water |
I was fortunate enough to live in an apartment that did not get flooded, but I stayed late into the night to help nonetheless, after all it could have very easily been my apartment that flooded. For the next 3 ½ hours, 10 of us gathered our brooms and tediously swept the rain back outside where it belonged. Nurses, maintenance workers, and us volunteers were all sweeping in the halls and in the sleeping patient’s rooms. Ironically, brooms do a better job than mops in this situation. We were strategically placed around each corner and formed a human jet-stream; each one sweeping the river towards the nearest open door. It was funny seeing the maintenance men sweeping . This is usually a women’s job. I was so touched by their dedication, it’s Friday night, but they were there helping in a time of emergency. They don’t get paid overtime and they were soaking wet from checking the drains. At about 11:30 PM we finished and I brought down some cookies from my apartment, it’s the least I could do to boost morale. In the end we swept for over 3 hours, my hands were blistered, my skirt more wet than before and my feet prune-y, but it was actually kind of fun in a way. Yes, we were tired and didn’t want to spend our Friday night there, but no one else was going to do it.
Water: a double- edged sword. It cleans, symbolically and literally. It saves, it rejuvenates, it damages, and that night it unified.
-tuna fish, over and out.
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