Loading...Imagine you are a proud, young mother or father on a blisteringly hot summer day. You can feel the sweat slowly dripping down your back, and you can see it glistening on the foreheads of your children. They have been playing in
the heat for several hours now, their joyful shrieks of laughter keeping a smile on your face as you go about your daily business. You long to give them water to keep them cool, but there is not enough of it to go around.
You think about telling them to drink from the river, but you know they could get sick, and even die from drinking there. You know because you hear about it happening to the children of your neighbors, maybe even because the clean water problem has affected one of your own. Fighting has broken out again over your community of 4000's only clean water source, a small hand pump that draws clean water from a well. You love your children very much. What can you do?
It has been said that God helps those who help themselves. Well, as part of the Body of Christ, we can be that help. When one part of the Body is thirsty, the other parts of the system do what they can to work together to bring it life-giving fluid. So abundant in our lives that we sometimes forget to turn off the faucet, its hard to remember that clean water is a rarity to so many people, people like those of the village of Senase, Ghana. I am fortunate enough to be in a situation where I can directly help to alleviate that need.
Traveling on Semester At Sea, a study abroad program that takes college students and adults around the world by ship, I
will soon get to visit that village! With the help of many others, several students and I have found a way that the people of Senase might finally have enough clean water to go around. With the aid of the local community, we plan to install a chlorine generating water purifier to purify the water from a nearby river. We will also show the villagers how to use and
maintain the purifier, and we will teach them basic health and hygiene information. We have the opportunity to make a difference and the able and eager bodies to make use of it, but we still need your support, especially spiritual and financial. The estimated cost of the project is $2500.
Each of the several students involved are contributing financially towards the costs, but we still have a ways to go, so if you are in a position to help it would be wonderful if you would, whatever amount you can contribute. Also, please pray for us, and for the citizens of Senase. (I am told by my Ghanian friend and village liaison that they getting very excited for our upcoming arrival, and are planning a celebration in our honor. Don't worry--I will take lots of pictures!! )
Thank you for all your support, and God bless.
Please make checks out to Semester At Sea , with "Fall 2010 water purification project" in the memo, to the following address: Semester At Sea, P.O. Box 400885, Charlottesville, VA 22904
