One Friday during an especially cold winter over fifty years ago, a kind neighbor, who was a master plumber, came to me and said that most of the houses in our village had no water. He told me that he had been trying to thaw frozen waterlines for days using a blowtorch but had had no success, since the lines were frozen in the ground. Water was needed for cooking and washing, and people were having to fetch it far away in the cold. This man had come to me because he felt I had a "gift" for finding solutions in emergencies. Of course, I did know something about electricity. But the "gift" for finding solutions was really Christian Science—or rather, the study and practice of it.
I had become acquainted with Christian Science a few years before and thus knew that we can turn to the all-knowing, infinite Mind, God, for guidance in the solution of every problem. The unselfish love of this neighbor in trying to help others indicated to me that divine Love had prompted his visit. So I listened to know what to do. I prayed, "Father, show me how." As I did, it spontaneously became clear to me that we could transmit an electric current with a low charge and high amperage through the waterline, which in turn would warm the pipes and melt the ice.Note: This is today standard procedure for thawing out frozen metal water pipes. I then realized that I could use my dynamo to generate the needed electricity. All we would need to buy was a one-hundred-meter length of cable, which we did.
On Saturday a tractor owner and I mounted the generator on a large platform wagon, to make the power source portable. Even though no one involved had ever read anything about such a technique as the one described above, I knew that because we were being guided by divine Love, we could only have success and our labors would bless everyone. When we hooked up to the first faucet in a kitchen where no water had flowed for many days, there was no lack of observers who said that our toil was in vain; that no water would flow until the spring sun thawed the ground. But five minutes later the joyful calls from the kitchen reported that the water was flowing. The previously doubting observers rejoiced, and the good news spread quickly.
