When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.

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When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. ~Author Unknown
 
September 13 the anniversary of my Kara leaving this earth for eternity.  That day I was forever changed.   I am not the only mother who has lost a child.  Many of us are in that ‘club’.  No one wants to become a member but even as I type this blog, another member is initiated.   I do not know that new member but I know her pain.

Today, a dear  and special man, Ron Jones is being remembered and then laid to rest.   He was not my child but he was a grandfather, father, husband and a friend to many who knew him.  God created him, his life was valuable and he cared for others less fortunate.  He is now gone from this earth, and those who knew him and loved him do not want him forgotten.  Why, because life is important, valuable and a gift.  All life should be given value and hope not just here in the United States.   Life something  for us to treasure.

When you lose someone you love you desire that they are not forgotten.  Tombstones serve that purpose and they have for time memorial.  Family names thread one generation to another.  Family trees and genealogies are treasured as we try to figure out if we are related to someone important or very bad.  

But I imagine each of us want something more than a tombstone as a remembrance. I imagine most of us want more than a bouquet of flowers that wither and die as our remembrance in flowers is left at our grave. Deep down we want some legacy, some story, and some ‘thing’ that we can to pass on to our children or grand children. Our brief time on earth (and it is brief) should be remembered at least a generation or two.  Unmarked graves are sad statements of a life lived.  No one cared. All of us want someone to care.

As I ‘blog’ my journeys in the Western Provence of Zambia, I keep a resounding message and perhaps even today a resounding plea to help give life to those children who do not have to die early or to live poorly, because they have bad water or very little water.  We cannot control the number of our days but we can bless others who cannot help themselves by providing clean and accessible water.   Just simple, plain, clean water. 

As you drink your clean, sweet, fresh water today, will you think about helping one or perhaps a village who have never tasted it.  http://www.handsofhopeonline.org/giftcards.asp#well As you think about how to honor some one you love that you want to be remembered for a long time, give a gift of water in their name.  As you turn on your faucet to brush your teeth, wash your hands, fill your very large bath tub consider blessing someone who would be thrilled to just fill their bucket with clean fresh water.    The giving on our end is quite simple the gift of fresh clean water in the Western Provence of Zambia is life changing and giving.

As we continue to miss Kara and to keep her memory alive, we will work to place wells.  The well in her honor is blessing a village and giving kids health, something she longed for.   Each well placed whether it has Kara's name on it or it is a collective effort of many,  the well is a gift of life that gives and gives and keeps people alive with hope.  

This little girl has a chance to live because she now has clean water! Thank you! Hands of Hope!  Thank you!

This little girl, her family, her village were gifted with a well! 

This awesome lady is blessing a village with fresh water! 

 

 

 

 

 

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. ~Thomas Fuller, 1732

A gift of life! Like Kara this little girls life depends on water!

The week of September 13 changed me forever when my daughter died.  No one should die at 25 but our world is unfair, our circumstances are not ours to control.  Mothers who loose their children are changed forever.  Oh, we go on but a piece of our hearts are torn and the hole is never filled.  The scars remain and all scars hurt from time to time. When they hurt the pain of remembrance reoccurs and we always must decide what to do with pain.


 My choice has become to provide water to those who cannot get it on their own.

Kara was a Juvenal diabetic.  Her journey through life was atypical. Too many days her blood sugar levels were high and she required water.  Her thirst was insatiable and water was a critical part of her life line.   Water, that simple element we take for granted.  We have water available to us in all forms, tap water, fresh spring water, purified water, flavored water, mineral water, vitamin water, well water, sparkling water and probably more I have not listed.  We are blessed and for most of us we do not think twice about this most critical thing we need to live.  We brush our teeth while water runs freely into our sinks, we flush our toilets without a second thought that this is a luxury.  We wash our clothes and our dishes without thinking of a secondary use for our water.  We bathe with the ease of turning our showers or faucets to fill our tubs, we can choose the temperature and the water levels without any extra effort.  Our norm is a foreign concept for most of the world.

Because someone cared this little girl lives!

As my eyes were opened to the need of water around the world, the lack of good, clean fresh water something with in me snapped.   I thought of the other mom's who wanted nothing more than to get water for their babies.  Mothers who could not care for their families because their water source was miles from home. Mothers who served dirty water to drink because that is all that available.  Mothers who watched their babies die because of water.

Today's blog will be short because I want those of you who read to take mental note of the part water plays in your life.  How would you feel or function without it?  If the day to day water use were pulled from you how much would you give to get it back?

Kara loved children!  Kara needed water!  Kara's memory is shared in place that is no longer forsaken. 

Will you consider a donation?  A village in Western Zambia is waiting for someone who cares enough to build them a well?  My goal through HANDS OF HOPE, Barrington, IL    (http://www.handsofhopeonline.org/giftcards.asp#well) is to get 10 more wells placed in 2013.  One well is only $5000.   Check out the link above and purchase some "Well" Cards as a gift of life for someone you love.   Would you like to dedicate a well in memory of someone you love?  The gift of water gives life and hope to those who have none.

Proverbs 3:27
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it