As I peered through streaking raindrops and a steamy visor, nothing spurred me on more than the thought of a warm home. After driving the motorcycle through driving rain. my mind's eye fixated on flickering flames inside the fireplace and a hot shower.
The whole day seemed dreary. Last night we had a somber drive to the airport to put Breanna on the plane to the US to see her mom. I shared about her trip in our last newsletter. She ended up missing that opportunity, this side of eternity, by mere hours.
Saturday afternoon I worked with another AIM AIR pilot to fix an oil leak on my motorcycle. The project went long, so I stopped at a Chinese restaurant to take food home to the kids.
As I pulled up to our gate, through fogged glasses, I saw a newborn lake where our driveway used to be. The driveway lay somewhere below ten inches of murky water. I forded the driveway on the motorcycle, then coaxed it over the curb. I parked it next to the front porch in 2-3 inches of water.
We received a lot of rain that night. But the rain was only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem had begun much earlier, and had been lurking for several years.
As you may remember, I moved into the house in January, while Breanna and the kids were still in the US, on a compassionate trip to be with her mom, but delayed in their return to Kenya while waiting for two new passports. Perhaps not the best time to move when most of the family is away, but the house had suddenly become available and was a lot closer to school for Breanna and the boys. It even had an open view out the back, while many other houses were surrounded by walls on all sides. The view to the back was a swamp, which kept it from being developed. Therefore - the open view. Beneath the gentle ambiance of frogs, collectively sounding like hundreds of bubbles popping, the swamp sat ticking down the hours until it could no longer hold the built up water.
When this development was built their was an operational pump in the lowest part of the land to pump water over a small hill and into a drain. Apparently, that pump worked when they were trying to sell houses, but has since fallen into disrepair, along with the pipe.
Sunday morning arrived with all the weight of a persistent bad dream. Daylight showed how much of the ground was underwater. An SQ (Servant's Quarters) stands in the back corner of the property. The water was about 1 inch below the door sill.
Our neighbors, fellow missionaries who invited me into their home for every meal while Breanna was away, offered to help put sandbags in place to seal the bottom of the doors. I reached out to a couple Kenyan friends and apologized for ruining their Sunday morning. Wycliff said he would be able to help organize a pickup truck full of sand and find some empty bags. The bags would be too big to be ideal sandbags, but I didn't want to lose time by sewing them into smaller bags.
I checked the forecast on my phone. Everyday this week showed a cloud. Most days also had a lightening bolt.
Other missionaries said they would come over to help. Realizing we would have a decent size crew in our house in a matter of minutes, I suddenly realized I needed to tell Grace, Isaiah, and Jack about the loss of Breanna's mom before the crew arrived. It would be better that they hear it from me, and better to have a quiet house to talk, sob, pray, or absorb the news. Each child handled the news differently. Once again I felt the parent's pain of seeing my child endure heartbreak. We prayed for Breanna, for her sister, and her dad. This would be a heavy day.
Fortunately several missionary moms came over with the rest of the team and were able to check in on the kids. The sandbag project and sloshing around in swamp water proved to be a needed distraction.
Sunday ended with a gift from the landlord. A portable water pump... that seemed like it was a relic of days gone by, was backed into place, hitched to an old tractor by several pieces of cut branches or logs. The air filter housing of the water pump had a chain wrapped around it that went to the ground, and was wrapped around a large rock. Our guess was to keep the filter in place and not jumping off from the vibration of the old diesel engine?
Monday began with added rain, the boys wading with rain boots to higher ground, where they caught a ride to school with another missionary family (so thankful for them), and I worked from home, with an eye on the water level. The water pump was quite a racket, so I worked out of Isaiah's room, furthest from the pump, with every window of the house and door closed, and good headphones.
Each day that week the pump ran faithfully from 7 am to 5 pm. We all were thankful to have peace and quiet during the evening.
I began to measure the water level twice a day. If I thought that would encourage all of us, I was mistaken. Usually ten hours of smoke and racket only lowered the water by less than a centimeter. If it rained that night, then often the level would go back up or even higher than the day before! There was a lot of water. I estimated at least 1,056,688 gallons in the swamp and the yards of the seven houses affected by the flood. The little portable pump barely kept up with the added water from rainfall.
Politics kept any quick solutions from happening. I learned the main sump pump for the whole neighborhood hadn't worked in over a year, and no one wanted to be responsible for maintaining it.
We praise God that our house never had water inside. One of the other houses wasn't so lucky, and also had a sewer leak going into the floodwaters around them.
Eventually, on Friday, things began to happen. Owners and people of influence realized that portable pumps were not the solution. An excavator had been sitting by the whole week, ready to dig a trench to a nearby watershed. However, it would mean cutting through a coffee plantation on a hill - a lot of dirt to move, and no doubt displacing a lot of crops. The solution was to dig a big hole in the swamp.
It worked. Eventually the water retreated into the hole, and stayed there for the next several months.
Since our lease would end in June, I called around to see if there were better options we could move into. We realized this flood plain problem was too complex an issue for anyone to solve. The big hole was a temporary solution. With enough rain over time, it would all happen again.
A house in a better location was going to be available in July! It had a bigger yard, and was on top of a hill - flooding should not be an issue. We are excited about opportunities to host groups from our team, the church youth, and a small group from church. It is an oasis in the city, which we are realizing is a blessing -more than we deserve or could have imagined!