Where water flows freely, do you know what it is to be thirsty?

To my surprise, I was greeted with a video of a car floating into the ocean at Wye River. I froze. I was in Wye River. I looked out the window toward the grey expanse. From my distant vantage point on the hill, everything looked blurred. I couldn't see a car, but I knew I had to investigate.

I ran upstairs to the oblivious crowd. “I think there’s a flash flood! Someone just posted a video of a car in the ocean!”

The room shifted instantly. Everyone huddled around my phone screen, watching the impossible footage before racing to the windows.

“There!” my sister-in-law shouted. “It’s there! There are three of them!”

Over the next few hours, the scale of the flash flood began to emerge via news sites and social media. The caravan park at the bottom of the hill – where hundreds had been holidaying - had been inundated. Yet, safely cocooned in our hilltop retreat, we still couldn't truly grasp the reality of what was happening only 100 metres away.

Eventually, when the rain stopped, a few family members walked down the hill to find out more about the situation. They soon returned, with visibly changed demeanours.

“It’s horrible,” they told us. “There are hundreds of people taking shelter in the pub with nowhere to go. Some had seconds to escape. There are babies with nowhere to sleep. People are just wandering around with mud up to their knees, they have nothing.”

Their accounts brought the room down to earth. Geographically we were so close, yet the four walls of our house and our elevated position had kept us entirely ignorant of our neighbours' trauma.

If I can remain oblivious to an event a stone’s throw from my front door, how much more disconnected am I from the experiences of my neighbours half a world away? Even closer to home, how often do I remain ignorant to the harsh realities of my Pacific Island neighbours, who face the "climate chaos" of natural disasters with terrifying frequency?

At Tearfund, we’ve just launched a Water Relief Appeal, and I’ll admit, I thought I knew a lot about water insecurity. I understood the statistics and some of the heartbreaking consequences of life with dirty water. But as I began to look closer at a community’s experience in Nepal, I realised there is so much more to living without safe, secure water.

Imagine with me for a moment. You wake up one morning, ready to fill your glass with water, and turning that faithful tap, you find there’s nothing. You soon discover the water basins have disappeared and the local shops have run dry of bottled water.

It’s up to you to find water: what would you do? How would it change your day? How would it change your week? How would it change your life and that of your children? 

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average household now consumes roughly174,000 litres of water a year. For most of us, that's nearly 200 litres every single day.¹

Those who walk to find water, usually mothers and their girls, typically can only carry about 20 litres, walking an average 6 kilometres a day² (imagine carrying a 20kg suitcase, everyday for that long!).

Who would sacrifice their career in your household to ensure you had just enough water to get by? And of these buckets of water, what activities would you give up to ensure you had enough for the basic necessities like drinking and washing your hands?

Reading about a community in Nepal that was finally able to repair its water source, I was struck by their satisfaction in being able to properly care for their animals again. Animals that were vital to sustaining a livelihood, they were now able to nurture properly. Lack of access to water impacts every part of life. We just don’t know it because we’ve never experienced it. But we can learn, as we listen to the stories of our global neighbours.

In the 1986 song Don’t Dream It’s Over, Neil Finn wrote, “In the paper today, tales of war and of waste. But you turn right over to the TV page.” This impulse to bypass the realities of the world, has only intensified over time, evolving into a phenomenon now termed "news avoidance." This has consequences: if we do not read, hear or understand what is happening to our global neighbours, how can we truly fulfill God’s command to love them? When we retreat within our own four walls, we see only reflections of ourselves. We stare in the mirror and our needs are magnified. We fixate on them. This individualistic worldview leaves us isolated and out of touch.

In our Lent series, The Table, Armando Licoze reflects, “The Pharisees were so confident in the Scriptures, but based on their own understanding. Jesus came to confuse them, because he showed them it’s not about following the script - it’s about loving. And when we love, we go the extra mile because we care.”

The extra mile might be uncomfortable, it might mean giving up time, resources, hearing things we would prefer not to, yet God calls us into this kind of sacrificial solidarity and so we must look to the God of love.

Henri Nouwen, who ministered at L’Arche Daybreak, a community for people with intellectual disabilities reflected in his book, The Road to Daybreak, “When our love is rooted in God’s love, we can carry the burden of life and discover it to be light. Jesus calls us: “Come to me, all you who labour and overburdened and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart…. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30). The burden of Jesus is the burden of all human suffering, but when we take on that burden in communion with him, it proves to be light and easy.”

For many of us, we will never physically visit a community struggling with water insecurity. However there is still so much we can do to stand in solidarity. Partnering with Tearfund is a good way to start, to stay informed, with helpful prompts on how to pray and give. This kind of action is truly life transforming.

I once worked as a youth worker in a school, I was only a few years into the job when tragedy struck our community. An older, wiser chaplain offered to come in and help support staff and students. I have a visual memory of her sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped around my colleague. She didn’t know them, she said nothing, but in that moment she provided love, acting as a physical representation of God the comforter.

This chaplain couldn’t fix the tragedy, but she refused to let them be alone in it. That is the essence of solidarity. It is the choice to leave the 'hilltop retreat' of our own comfort and sit in the mud with our neighbour.

When we choose to look past our own reflection in the mirror, when we lean in to hear the story of a mother in Nepal or a family in the Pacific, the walls of our ignorance begin to crumble. Apathy turns to empathy and empathy invokes solidarity.

A Prayer for Solidarity

Heavenly Father, You know us intimately, down to the number of hairs on our heads. Through Your Son, You showed us the depth of Your love and the path of service: retreating to your Father, then stepping out to feed the hungry and care for the excluded.

Help us follow. Renew our spirits so that we do not turn away from the world's pain, but instead face it with Your courage. Thank You that we never walk alone in the work of restoration; You go before us as our light and our strength. Amen.

1. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/5-insights-water-use-australia
2. https://www.worldvision.org/clean-water-news-stories/global-water-crisis-facts