I walked out in to the garage and saw a puddle of water creeping out from under the washing machine.

“Great”, I thought. “My washing machine is leaking. I pulled the washing machine out and cleaned up all the water and picked up some laundry that had been mysteriously missing for months.

The next night, I noticed another puddle. Only this time, the washing machine had not been running. I pulled out the washing machine again and moved in behind it for a closer inspection. I noticed that the moisture was not just on the floor but it was on the bottom part of the dry wall as well.

I pulled a piece of the wet drywall away and stuck my hand into the wall. The pipes in the wall were definitely wet and I felt water dripping onto my hand. We had sprung a leak and it appeared that the leak was in the wall. I immediately called the Plumbing M.D. to come out to fix the leak.

The next day a small van that looked like an ambulance pulled up in front of my house. On the side of the van were the words, “Plumbing M.D.”

I explained the symptoms to the plumber and expected him to go into the garage and pull apart a large section of the drywall so that he could pinpoint the exact location of the leak and fix it. But he didn’t do that.

The first thing he did was inspect my dishwasher. You see my dishwasher is located in my kitchen on the other side of the wall from where the washing machine is in the garage.

He unscrewed a metal plate from the bottom of the dishwasher and turned a flashlight on so that he could get a good look under the dishwasher. He turned the dishwasher on and sure enough, water came pouring out from underneath. There was so much water that had been coming out of our dishwasher when we had run it the 3 previous nights that it went through the wall, into our garage and underneath our washing machine.

Two days later, I was finally able to get a service technician out to remove the dishwasher. When we got the dishwasher out, there was so much water that our floor was sopping wet, and moldy. I had to remove the particle board to get to the sub-floor, which was also pretty wet. Fortunately I was able to get a fan blowing on the sub-floor pretty quickly and I hopefully have avoided any permanent damage to our sub-floor.

As I’ve pondered our dishwasher situation (which we’re still trying to resolve over one month later), I think there are several correlations to our spiritual lives.

First of all, we often treat symptoms instead of dealing with the real problems in our lives. My first response to the puddle was to clean it up. Though I knew that the water came from somewhere, I was not initially interested in finding out where it came from. I was afraid and hoped it would just “go away.”

Secondly, when we do begin to deal with the problems in our lives, the immediate diagnosis is not always correct. On the surface, it seems like there’s a problem with the washing machine, but when we inspect it closer (sometimes with the help of a professional), we find that the source of the problem is entirely different and much deeper than we thought.

Third, if we don’t deal with the problems in a timely manner, we’re liable to do serious damage to our foundation, resulting in even more costly and inconvenient repairs.

What are the areas in your life that you’ve been neglecting to service? Who do you know who can help you inspect your life and determine the real source of some of the symptoms that need attention?

Thanks for your partnership with us and if you think about it, PLEASE PRAY for us as we try to get our floor and drywall repaired and our dishwasher replaced.I walked out in to the garage and saw a puddle of water creeping out from under the washing machine.

Thanks to your prayers and your partnership, UC Davis is beginning to become a sending base to reach the world.

In each of the last 3 years, we have sent about 25 students on summer missions projects. This year, we saw 3 of our students go on 1 year missions to reach students in other nations, while 3 other former students are spending a year interning with us at UC Davis.

Next year, we have potentially 4 students who may intern with us and another 2 who may spend a year overseas (this doesn’t include students who are overseas now who may commit for another year!).

In addition, we hope to see as many as 3 of our former students join Campus Crusade’s full-time staff this summer. They will be assigned to other ministries where they will seek to reach lost students and turn them into Christ-centered laborers who are in turn sent to do the same. PLEASE PRAY for these students as they make decisions about how to spend the coming years of their lives.

PLEASE PRAY for this campus to continue to be a sending base to reach the nations!

PRAY ALSO that we would see 40 students attend summer missions projects this summer.

LASTLY, PRAY for our “One Day of Faith” outreach that ends on February 12th. It’s a 5 week program designed to end with “one day” of campus evangelism for our whole movement.