Imagine having no water at your house; no cooking, no bathing, no cleaning. It would definitely complicate your life in a major way. Now imagine you have no water in your entire city with no ability to get relief or repairs: no public works department, no on-call emergency response crew, and no parts available to be able to fix the problem.

This is what happened here at the Love A Child compound yesterday. The main water pipe from the well that fills the water tower failed. It broke in a place that should never have broken. This little piece of broken pipe caused a massive problem. The entire ministry and hundreds of people depend on this water daily! The Children’s Home, the Birthing Center, the Malnutrition Center, and so much more were halted without water.

After digging deep in the dirt to find the broken pipe, it quickly became apparent that the fix would be impossible. We needed a very specific part, a 4-inch compression fitting. It was the only way to repair the breach. There is no Home Depot, Lowe’s, or local plumbing supply house here. The roads to the west are impassable because of the gangs. The only solution would be to send someone east on the long trek to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to look for the part. It would take days!

But God is bigger! One of our plumbers on the compound went searching in a storage area that houses old plumbing parts. Deep in the old shipping container, he located the single piece we needed. Somehow, we happened to have a brand new 4-inch compression fitting. After several hours, the repair was made, and the water was restored.

This problem could have meant no water for several days. We thank God for the compression fitting. No one really knows why or how we would have this type of fitting. But I do. It is a miracle!

Jesse Ostrander