“Water is life”, as they say in Africa. Children especially need to drink clean water
so that they don’t get sick or die of water-born diseases. Most women and children in Malawi walk 3-5
kilometers every day to the nearest water source to fetch a can of water-which
is not always fresh and clean. WorldHope Corps believes that every family
should have access to clean water and every
village should have their own well.
Since 2007, WorldHope Corps has funded and drilled 28 deep-water wells in Malawi--at a cost of $10,000 per well (see list of Sponsors of village wels below). Most of these boreholes are located near a new church plant (known as “Methodist wells”). We’ve drilled other wells near rural elementary schools (known as “Presbyterian wells”). And we’ve drilled many community wells in a remote rural areas (sometimes called “Pentecostal wells”). Methodist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal community wells share one thing in common—they represent Living Water as they pump the “water of life.”
In addition to the 28 donor-sponsored wells, WHC has
co-sponsored another 31 village
wells in partnership with DrinkWater
International (who used our well-rig) and Central Church of Africa Presbyterian (CCAP)—who shared their
hydro-geologist missionary, Jim McGill, with us to help develop our program. And in addition to these 50 village wells in
Malawi, WorldHope Corps in Uganda bought a plot of land, drilled a community
well, installed a water filtration system, and opened a water store in the
Katikara trading centre in Western Uganda.
All together, WorldHope Corps is responsible for installing a grand total of 60 village wells in the
last ten years! For this we are
proud and give thanks to God!
Though we have other community development projects and
training programs in many places in the world, our primary focus is on
providing clean water for thousands of families in Malawi and Uganda.
In May of this year, a new village well was installed in
Kakholi, Malawi—thanks to the generous sponsorship of Dr. and Mrs. Val J.
Christensen. Kakholi Community Village Well is now serving over 500 people in
rural areas. According to our program
director, Pastor Dennis Singini: Residents of Kakholi only had access to
drinking water from a spring found on the side of a hill, which runs dry during
dry season in Malawi. They spend many days without fresh water and have to walk
for miles to fetch unclean water from a shallow well. They village reported three serious illnesses
among their children last year from water-borne diseases. Now that the new well is installed, the children
of the village are no longer getting sick and the people are rejoicing about
their new source of water.
Jenda Community Well is currently being drilled in
Malawi, sponsored by suffers who attend the Ocean Beach Bible Study led by Dr.
Ed Holly, and co-sponsored by Point Loma United Methodist Church in San Diego. Jenda
has long been on WorldHope Corps target list of villages in need of fresh
water. When Dennis came to the USA last
Fall and shared with this group the need for a deep water well in Jenda, the
men’s Bible Study raised over $5,000 which was matched by the Point Loma UMC.
Again, we thank God for timely provisions for the families of Jenda who were previously
without access to clean water.
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