Something small like plastic

What do you have to share?

Many, many nights here during rainy season are cold and rainy. The storms come on quickly, are very powerful, and then they taper off.

Because it rains at least once a day during this time of the year, it is hard for people who "dry" things for a living, to get anything done. The example I'm thinking of is "thatch." Most people here live in a thatched hut like this.

They need to re-grass their roof sometimes as often as once a year.

Alice, my houseworker, often walks to work in the rain, with Sarah on her back. She would tell me of the cold, wet night. She told me her roof was leaking in many places, but that there was no grass anywhere to fix it.

Can you imagine you and your family, including a new born, trying to sleep through rain storms night after night, while your bed, sheets, floors, etc. have water dripping on them?

I kept trying to think of solutions for her because that's what we do– we Americans problem solve and try to fix things. But she kept saying since no grass was available; it couldn't be fixed until dry season. She was very matter-of-fact about it, until…

Doug started constructing the crates into storage, and he ran across a large sheet of plastic that had been used to ship our mattress in. He took old pieces of cardboard and that plastic down to the trash pile.

Patrick (our watchman) and Alice (our house worker) went down to gather these treasures. Patrick wanted to use the cardboard for a fire-starter, and Alice took the plastic to "fix" her room for the time being.

Her face was priceless the next morning. She had had a dry night after her husband fit the plastic on the roof. I don't know how they did it (I should probably go see), but it gives me peace knowing during the rain tonight, she will be protected.

How many other families out there are getting wet night after night? How many babies are sitting under a drip, catching cold and getting sick? This is a reality I'm sure of, I just don't know who they are.

We didn't even know that the plastic would be such a blessing. What gifts and talents are you throwing away because you don't think they would be of use to anyone? God wouldn't have given them to you if He didn't intend for you to use them for His glory somehow.

What can you do with your own "plastic sheeting?"