Water is Basic
February 23, 2010
2/23 - Photo of the Week
Water pours from a bore hole at the EPC Orphanage in Lora, S. Sudan. (click to enlarge)
In Aug. 2008, Water is Basic drilled this bore hole at an orphanage in S. Sudan.
At the time, there had been a longstanding dispute between the nearby village and the orphanage over the community bore hole. Several months before we began drilling, the dispute came to a boiling point. Machetes came out and the children and widows were threatened to never come for water again. As a warning, one of the widows was put into the hospital for a week, an act of aggression that forced the orphans and widows to bring water up from a hole they dug by hand.
This past November I got a taste of the peace that comes with clean water. Once their new well opened, Pastor Marceleo Amule, who runs the orphanage, invited everyone from the community - even the machete wielding ones - to draw water from their well.
The children's health returned just three months after the well opened & when I was there, they were healthy, playing and singing. The funds once spent trying to fight diarrhea, worms, malnutrition and dehydration now fund books, teachers trained in math, social studies & religion.
The peace water brings is profound and far reaching.
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