How Far is Heaven

I'm going to venture a guess that you the reader are thinking that this post will be about one of two things with a title like that. 1.)This will be an end-of-times post calling everyone to repent and turn to the Lord because the apocalypse is near and you don't want to be "Left Below", complete with mathmatical formulas to prove we should be gathering at the Springfield Mesa next week for the rapture. Or possibly 2.)A post devoted to Los Lonely Boys and thier hit song that I stole the title from. Or I guess I could throw out my proper english education, go against what I previously said and add a third option. 3.) some whacked out, crazy mumbo-jumbo about Heaven that probably has the potential to get me labeled a heretic, or a schismatic, in any number of circles.

I'm going to venture another guess that if you picked option #1, you really have no clue who I am and randomly found your way to my blog by some strange quest through the wonderful "tubes" of the internet. So for those who picked this option, hey and welcome. I'm also gonna guess that if you picked #2 you know me in some sort of manner to know enough that I'm not down with the whole predicting the apocolypse thing, and that I dig Los Lonely Boys. So to you I say hey, good to see ya again, hows your momma? And to those of you who picked option #3, you probably know me the best, I do tend to be a little whacked out from time-to-time. So to the friends who picked #3, you get the hetero-hug and an invitation to grab a beer, throw some darts, and shoot the perverbial breeze. Actually that invitational goes to everybody.
Anyway, now that the intro has grown much larger than I had intended, lets get down to business shall we? Or at least I'll get down to business and attempt to hold my ADD-ness at bay long enough to finish this exceedingly long post.

Today while chilling on the couch, reading Time magazine, I caught a beautiful glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven, which I am hoping to share with all of you. First let me start with a picture.

These are kids in rural Africa where clean drinking water is hard to come by and usually involves women walking very long distance with pots to collect water and then return to thier village. Many times the women are injured in the trip, as its a necessary, but not always easy, journey to make.

So whats that have to do with this awesome pic of African kids smiling and having a great time? Pretty much everything. This great time is being had pumping water for the community they live in. If you've managed to look past the smiling faces, which is hard to do, you've noticed the kids are pilled on a Merry-Go-Round, one of the best classic playground toys ever invented. But, as you have guessed, that is no normal Merry-Go-Round, this one functions as a water pump, pumping large amounts of safe drinking water for the community. I'll spare you the numbers here, but check out the link at the bottom if you want to know more.

These amazing creations are called PlayPumps and are being installed in many places in Africa right now. I'm not sure of the technical aspects, but as the merry-go-round turns, it pumps water into a large holding tank nearby. I read a little blip about them in an article called "How the New Philanthropy Works" by Laura Bush and Jean Case. It talks about these amazing creations being an example of how people in the private sector partnering with governments are doing some pretty amazing things.

See the picture on the right? That could very well be the first time in those kids lives that they have been able to "drink straight from the hose." I'm not going to even attempt to take a stab at how many times I have done that growing up, I don't think it would be remotely possible, and these children are getting to experience it for the first time. That picture is just so exciting for me.

Another thing that is so awesome about these new pumps is the fact that they make thier own money to cover the cost of maintence for 10 years, a whole decade of having clean drinking water with no cost of maintence. The holding tank has billboards mounted on 4 sides, and the ad revenue from that covers the cost. It gets even better though. 2 of the 4 billboards a reserved for educational messages in lines of teaching good hygiene and HIV/AIDS prevention.

So we have rural areas of Africa plagued by water issues getting the water they so desperately need. The kids are having an amazingly good time on recess playing on a Marry-Go-Round, and there is great messages being sent to the youth and everyone else who goes to get water. What an amazing invention. If thats not The Kingdom work, Gospel, "Yahweh Ethics", God at work in the world, or any other name once could attribute to God's work of redemption to the whole of creation, I don't think there would be much that would count.


So, in the words of Los Lonely Boys, How Far is Heaven? I say its right there in the picture.

Googled: PlayPump Water System, link 1.5 the pdf file is where I stole the pictures from.

guess who's back... back again

Duby's back, tell a friend...

anyway.

I had totally forgot about this blog, and so sad for y'all, now that more people I know are using blogger, and I've been getting into the habbit of posting things more than a sentence long, figured I'd step up to a blogger acount, and then realized I had one (with a funny picture I forgot about) that has laid dormant for almost a whole year.

I'm gonna (re)start this blog in the way I think any blog should begin, with a good, solid, uplifting refelction of a fart, enjoy.

So I get off the plane in the Smith terminal of wonderful DTW in Detroit, MI. Walking through the terminal to baggage claim and I'm got the soundtrack to Idlewild (a sweet cd by the way) on my rather loud headphones, big headphones that pretty much block out the world. So I've walking to the baggage claim and realize I have to fart, no biggie, I think, I'll just let it out nice and quite in the middle of this crowded terminal. Well, judging by the swinging around of 3 conservatively dressed older woman and the faces of laughter coming from the little kids next to me, its hard to determine the volume of a fart with loud music blaring directly into your ears. It must have been a rather decent volume because the ladies were a good 10-12 feet away. I really wish I had my camera on me at the time, because the look on the old ladies faces were amazing, espically when compared to those of the little kids.