But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. John 4:14


Water is life. Unfortunately, easy access to water is not a luxury that everyone enjoys. The average person in Uganda must walk six kilometers a day to get to drinkable water. Even then, it is hardly what you and I would consider to be clean. Their reality is often a long journey down to the dirty watering hole with their jerry can. Young children go to fetch water before school and are often punished for being late to class. Older girls can be raped as they fetch water late in the evening. Water borne diseases like typhoid, cholera and dysentery, and malaria carrying mosquitoes lurk in this dirty water. People get sick and then can't work, so the families go hungry. Some even die.


Mission4Water, a small Christian NGO, is working to change that reality for many communities and institutions throughout Uganda by installing simple and accessible boreholes and shallow wells. They employ local labor and utilize low cost materials These simple solutions bring the wonderful gift of clean drinking water, so helping whole communities to stay healthy, active and sustained.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

We Hit Water!

Our first day onsite was a huge success! Before we came, the head of Mission4Water, Sue Morgan, did a scouting mission to see which village would most benefit from a well. Amazingly, she found two right near each other. With the extra labor (us) and no extra transportation costs (because of the closeness of the two villages), she had determined that we could put in two wells for minimal extra money! Needless to say, we were thrilled and came prepared to do just that.

So, our team split up into two different groups and made our way to the sites. Immediately, we became the day's entertainment for the village. Apparently, if "white people" are an exotic species around these parts, white people doing manual labor are sequin covered unicorns. It seemed like the entire village came out to greet us. And once we started working, they settled in for the show. Despite the blazing sun, the crowd only grew as the day went on.

Our biggest prayer before we came was that we would hit water quickly. As usual, God was not messing around. We hit it on our first try. We were able to dig twenty feet down on the very first day, praise the Lord!

Drilling the well is really hard, of course. We have some big metal poles and manual augers, but it takes some serious muscle power to make that hole. Nothing has ever felt better, though. Seeing the wide eyes of all those children as they watch us work and knowing that they've been told that we are doing this because God loves them is pretty much the greatest thing ever. We all feel so incredibly blessed to get to be a part of this.

Please pray that we won't run into any complications and that, despite the language barriers, we will find a way to develop real relationships with the people of these villages. Thank you again for going along on this journey with us! Your prayers are definitely being answered!

 When we arrived, these two little girls were collecting water for their families. They just walked all that way to get to the "good water."





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