Connectedness and giving...

So after a very fun, refreshing weekend, I woke up in the night again last night and couldn't get back to sleep...for over 2 hours. I was dreaming about water. Seriously.
I'm consumed. Every single time I brush my teeth, take a shower, wash my hands, do a load of laundry, a load of dishes, fill up a glass with ice, I think about those who don't get to do that. Those who would give anything to be drinking that water that I'm flushing down my drain.
It could have been me. It could have been my kids. I do not deserve this water any more than the woman in Africa, I just happened be be born in America.
Bono's quote keeps running through my mind,
"Where you live should no longer determine whether you live."
I've been listening to a podcast series from Mosaic Church. I have quoted McManus several times on this blog and I love so much of what he stands for. Mosaic is his church and I love to listen to their messages.
ANYWAY...the series I have been listening to talks about "What if everyone...". Last week it was What if everyone CONNECTED? What would the world look like? And today I listened to "What if everyon SERVED?" What would the world look like?
I found it so interesting that they first talked about relationships. It has become so obvious to me that movements are built on relationships. We cannot do it alone. We cannot knock out the water crisis single handedly. But suddenly our relationships come into play.
I'm so excited about this. And suddenly my mom is so excited about this...because she loves me and she has felt my excitement through our conversations. And suddenly, Melissa, on the other side of town is excited about it and wondering if she can implement it at her place of employment, and then Jennie gets excited about it and decides maybe we don't need to do that $10 white elephant gift game. And then Kelly from Phoenix emails and says she wants to implement it somehow in her classroom and suddenly the word is spreading to Arizona. And then Lisa sets up a table in her deli in Seattle and Kelly's dad is setting up a table in Nebraska. And Larry's wife in Baltimore "is like an amimal", setting up tables all over town. Courtney in Virginia is selling shirts and Christa, a college student in Missouri, has designed shirts and is selling them and Taylor and Joanna have designed water bottles in Pennsylvania and Jill and Josh from New Zealand set up a facebook group that quickly grows to over 1300 memebers and Naomi and her mother in Colorado set up a gift wrapping station and on and on.
Relationships.
Water.
Friendships.
Water.
I'm amazed by this. And reminded how important we all are to eachother. And what a difference we can make if we all band together instead of working against eachother.
Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, New Zealand.
All for water.
We are all connected.
All brothers and sisters.
And it keeps ringing truer and truer in my ear...
"Where you live should no longer determine whether you live."