@powertochange:

What can a single water well do?

Written by Eric Reynolds

November 29, 2011

According to the World Health Organization, a child dies from a preventable disease associated with lack of clean water every 20 seconds. When you support GAiN’s (Global Aid Network) Water For Life Initiative, you are providing hope. GAiN drills deep-capped water wells that access clean, disease free water that will save lives from water-borne disease such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.

Entire villages and their surrounding areas are impacted by a well.

GAiN went to the village of Goro Bani in the north of Benin and interviewed the chief of the village. He said that their women had to go way across the railway track and the main highway to get water from the swamp, that it was very dangerous and that the water was dirty. Four people had been killed crossing the highway with water.

We then interviewed a woman named Corimo who said she believed the well was there because of her daughter. She told us this story: One night she and her daughter went out to fetch water at 2:00 am. There was not a line up at that time but they still had to wait till the water seeped into the hole they dug. Corimo finally filled the first bucket and sent her daughter home with it and told her to bring the bucket back while she filled the second. Her daughter never made it home; she was killed crossing the highway. Corimo had no words to express her gratitude for the well.

We need your partnership.

The Water for Life initiative can literally break the cycle of suffering and death that contaminated drinking water has caused for generations.

“I was in Africa this past summer and have personally seen the strategy work,” says president of Power to Change, Leonard Buhler.

In Africa, water is life and GAiN wants to share hope with those who have not yet experienced the gift of clean water.

Your involvement with our ministry is vital for the survival and wellbeing of people around the world. A deep-capped water well costs $8,500 to drill (each well on average supports 1,000 people), but there are other ways you can pool your gift. $1,000 will provide a hand pump and concrete pad for a newly developed well. Or perhaps you would consider providing water for 50 people at the cost of $425?

The work does not end there; not only is pure physical water provided but the Living Water is provided through the message of Jesus Christ. GAiN partners with the JESUS Film Church Planting Strategy where local church partners in the area of a village empower and train members in discipleship and follow-up.

• At every water-well dedication the JESUS film is shown

• New believers who indicate a decision to follow Jesus are followed-up in an eight-week program by trained local church members

• Once 15+ are discipled a new church is planted

• In one year this new church is encouraged to reproduce itself

To date, through this strategy, 159 churches have been planted.

There are currently 457 active wells providing clean, fresh water to nearly half a million people around the world. The spread of hope in these regions is both an intangible number as well as an incredible number. These wells are beacons of hope that fight the despairing statistic mentioned at the beginning of this letter.

Please give to help stop others from dying like Corimo’s daughter. Fill out the information in the return device or go online to give.

Give life, dignity, safety and opportunity to those who need it most.