If you allow yourself the time and space to consider, the weight of water could be determined in a myriad of ways. Water can be given a mathematically precise weight: “One liter of water weighs 1 kg, and 1 gallon of water is equal to 3.7854118 liters; therefore, 1 gallon weighs 3.7854118 kg, which is 8.345404487293294 pounds” (Quora). This suggests water is dense and a bit heavy. This isn’t a surprise to anyone who has carried a few gallons of water from here to there. Pick up a five-gallon container and you might think, Man, this feels every bit of 41.7270224 pounds!
That said, how many of us pick up and tote five-gallon containers of water these days? We can turn in any direction and locate a tap or other option for abundant, pure and fine-tasting water. We may carry a Yeti tumbler…but rarely more. This isn’t the case in the Third World where clean, potable water is equally difficult to produce and amazingly expensive to obtain. Fresh, flowing (and light) water is a distinctly First World perk. Routinely in Third World locales people will traverse miles on foot to obtain clean water for their families. Sadly, often those who do the walking and the carrying are women and children. Imagine being a barefoot ten-year-old who has to walk two miles for water. This daily occurrence is one way to determine the true weight of water, and as one does the answer morphs from simply 8.345404487293294 pounds per gallon.
I personally feel that the weight of water is beginning to feel closer to the weight of the entire world. Far too many people are sick, dying or moving in those directions for me to feel I am not also affected. This is a reality that makes me proud of our church as we continue to feel the burden to be part of the solution to this global crisis. We have made reverse-osmosis, four-cycle water purification systems available for remote villages. Women and children who had been risking their safety to walk to buy water are now safer and healthier because of JCBC. Our next possible step in living into being the solution to the crisis has been to purchase a truck that will be used for a new and larger distribution plan. Rather than placing as many new purification systems as we originally planned, we will systematically purchase trucks and take the water from existing systems to far-reaching villages. The possibility exists to reach approximately 20,000 people with this new distribution plan. The new plan is tied to trucks that cost $4,000.00 each. Not being a math-guy I’ll skip a new equation and simply state: the true weight of water is truly incalculable.
Our new truck will carry 40 fifteen-gallon containers of water, which in traditional math would be 1669.080896 pounds, but in JCBC-math is, well, the new weight of water.
Michael McCullar
Formations Pastor
