Desert Blues

Hello friends! We are so thankful to every single one of you for taking time out of your day to read about ours. We had a not so fun adventure this week I wanted to share with you all. It proves that even through difficulties God can bring forth blessings.

Tuesday morning I awoke to John telling me our water had been turned off. Luckily we had a few bottles of purified water so I could have my morning coffee, as I knew I would desperately need it this day! John called the water authority who informed him that we were two months late paying our water bill! This is highly unusual, as I always pay the bills by check within a few days of getting the invoice. Somehow we either stopped receiving the bills or they had been misplaced. We received no late notice or phone call, not even a note left by the worker who turned it off. John immediately payed the balance over the phone and explained our unique situation to the woman, how we had 17 special needs children and adults living here, three wear diapers throughout the night and need to be bathed in the morning and we now had no working toilets for so many people. The woman on the other line almost seemed amused by our predicament and responded, with a little giggle, that it "should be back on by five". 

After I'd had my coffee (you don't want to talk to me before that!) I called back to explain to her we had children just sitting in the bathtub waiting to be bathed and that we desperately needed the water. We had laundry and dirty dishes backing up, it's flu season and nobody can wash their hands or flush the toilet. I told her had we just received a phone call prior to them cutting off the water we could have quickly paid it off and avoided this catastrophe. Again, the woman seemed completely unconcerned and responded with, "We don't make courtesy calls, we'll get someone out there as soon as possible."

As soon as possible turned out to be 3:45! It was quite a trial, but we were happy to have our water back and moved on with our day. 

That morning, after fruitlessly pleading with the water authority, John had called the Mayor, who he remembered telling him a few years ago to call if we ever need anything. He didn't answer, but John left a message detailing our situation in the hopes that maybe he could help us get our water back faster. We didn't hear back from him on Tuesday and once the water was back on we didn't think much more of it. 

However, yesterday he called back and proved true to his word that he would always be there to help! He told us he had spoken with the County Commission Chairman, who in turn called the water authority. He said the Customer Service Representative for the water authority should be giving us a call. She did so, just a few minutes later and very kindly offered an apology on behalf of the water authority. She said she had looked at our account and we were excellent customers with a great record and that nothing like that should have ever happened. She informed me that she had already refunded all of the late fees and water restoration charges that had been added, and even offered to flag our account so that nothing like that would happen again! Amazing what can get done with one little phone call to a compassionate person. We are so grateful to have good people in office down here in Henry County!