When I got to the mission here in Entre Rios, I was first shown to my room and then shown how to use the shower. It was not that the shower was hard to understand at all, just that there was no water in the shower. To get water for the shower I needed to go outside and turn on the mains tap.
Making a path through the concrete for the pipe.
After inquiring about why the situation was like this, I was told that there is a great amount of water being lost underground through the pipes. This could be seen clearly by the amount of water pouring out of the ground and pipes at the lower part of the building on the downhill side.
Rather than live with things as they were, I offered to help out with the re-plumbing of the place. I told them that I was a qualified plumber by virtue of one of my good friends being a plumber (just as I am a qualified electrician because my cousin is an electrician - runs in the family you see). Also having re-plumbed my house also helped.
The original tap that needed to be opened to take a shower.
All of the materials were present, and a small portion of the pipes had already been joined, although were not in place. With a bit of planning and work, and help from Guido, we had almost the whole place plumbed within two days. After this, there were only a couple of extra things to do, such as running water to another small bathroom that is hardly used and fixing the kitchen tap.
During the last few days there has been a leadership teaching running all day which has limited what I have been able to do. There are a couple of leaks still to be corrected, and some burst pipes that I have managed to fix too, including one that filled the storage room within seconds. Putting in some taps here and there to be able to cut off the water to different sections and fixing the leaking taps and toilets are also on the list.
The pipe on this toilet burst, filling the dining room with water.
The dining room filled with water.
Even now the place is tremendously better than it was before. One of the ladies came up to me and thanked me tremendously for what we had just done with the plumbing. She told me that the plumbing had been in disrepair for a whole year. They had been getting so desperate that they were considering paying a plumber to fix the problem - something that was far beyond the meagre budget of this small mission.
The pipes in place and finished (the old tap no longer works).
When things like this happen and I am able to help out, I often consider it as though God had placed me in this place for that very reason. Perhaps not, but in any case I have been able to help these people in a very practical way.
The pipe that burst, filling the storage room within moments.