And now, the Rest of the Story

So it was Sunday, and I had just typed up the previous post.  But I never posted it.  Well, not until a week later.

When I went to post it, I discovered that our website was down.  I requested help from the host, and hoped all would be well by the morning.

In the morning, the water was still pouring out of the ground.  We were supposed to be leaving on a retreat (with our Camino Global team members), but the water was rising again and – well, we now had no water in the house.  Not a drop.

Theoretically, the water had been pouring out since sometime late Saturday night/early Sunday morning.  The ground must have been pretty wet, the worms were evacuating madly, and the hole in the ground had grown quite a bit.

The website was still down.  No response whatsoever from the host, and I couldn’t reach them by phone.

So I thought I’d better post a note on Facebook to let people know that we were aware of the problem and were working on it.

Yes, it was the 21st of October, 2013.  The day of the Great Facebook Outage of 2013 – when users couldn’t post a status update or like anything at all for over 4 hours.  (That’s right – light a candle and remember the victims)

Twitter was all good, of course.

So no website, no Facebook – but more importantly, not a drop of water.  No washing dishes, no showering.

So how did it all end?

Well, of course Facebook returned in a couple of hours or so, and so we were able to tell our Facebook friends that things weren’t working on the site.

The water?  Well, just in time, the water company showed up.  They dug a big hole, ripping out our grass and smashing part of the sidewalk, and they fixed the plastic pipe.  Then they left, suggesting we fill up that hideous hole and clean up the mess.  And they asked for a tip.

“Just in time”, because we were able to leave for our retreat almost when we planned – just after 1pm (yes, God even cares about the little things).  And the place we went to – had WATER!  Feeling a lot cleaner now.

And the website?  Well, we’re still working on that.  As you can see, the majority is back up and running.  I’m not sure it’s ever been down for a whole week before, but we were gone for part of that time, and there have been numerous adventures in between.

There may still be some problems here and there – let me know if you find them.  And the Photo Gallery isn’t back yet – hopefully it will live again.

The retreat was a time of worship together, meetings, and relaxation in the nearby town of Cuautla.  Where it’s around 4° warmer.  Which, at this time of the year, makes all the difference.

We had a great time with our friends, and ate a lot of meat, and then returned home to near freezing temperatures.  A bit of a shock, but it’s warmed up a little since.  Winter is coming, though.

In other news, on Saturday we got to see our friends Julian and Malu from Canada, who were passing through and had a stopover at the airport.  So the Rod and Mayra Fry and our family went to the airport to see them.  They’re hoping to come help us with the ministry here, and so we had a great time catching up.

Well, now you’re more or less caught up.  I do have some other things I would like to post – a whole week of silence is a little uncharacteristic of Finding direction.  So hopefully we’ll be back to regular programming soon.

* The title is a nod to Paul Harvey, of course.  I see some of his famous short programs are here.