Well, if you were to believe in a "jinx" - then IĀ did it last week. In last week's blog IĀ ended one paragraph suggesting "I expect to report on another successful clean water project by this time next week..." Unfortunately, I do NOT have that report. Rather, IĀ have to report receipt of the following from Zambia: "We hit a dry borehole at pastor Elias church..." This is not the first time that has happened in our efforts to provide clean water. But it is the first time it has happened in several months, and I began to think it wouldn't happen again. Plus, I love pastor Phiri Elias and am SOĀ disappointed that we won't be able to provide a clean water source to his church community. It could be there will be a way to figure out something a little more expensive nearby, but for now we plan to move to the next church in line and try again this week. I realize it is difficult for us to even put ourselves in this position, but consider:
You are a woman in one of the villages around this community. Your options for water are to trek hours for the nearest clean water source or slightly less for a much less clean source. And then you hear clean water is coming!! How excited you would be - it will change your life! And then the truck with the drill rig comes and starts to drill. Your excitement continues to build... only to hear that they came up dry. And your dreams of a better life for you and your family are crushed. That was the experience of hundreds of households this week in rural Chipata. I feel so bad for my brother and his community.
On the TRAINING front, Tracy visited five of our regions, IĀ believe, in his brief time in Zambia. I think he oversaw ten or eleven of our trainers. The cover photo this week is from a training session in the Mambwe region. I just thought it demonstrated how eager the local growers are to crowd around and learn these new techniques for better yields - and better lives for their families. Thanks, Tracy, once again, for the impact you are making in the lives of so many of our Zambian brothers and sisters.
In regard to our basic feeding program, we saw many pictures this week from communities that were distributing the monthly allotments to brothers and sisters living in deficit in the various communities in which we are serving. Again, hoping to impact around 3,400 families this month with some lifesaving food for their meals.
Let me end back in America once again. This week we received a couple more donations towards inputs and heard of commitments from a couple of other donors. So that fund is building as we try to determine the best way to deploy it over the coming months. The latest from our leadership is that we may NOT be able to participate in the government program that would have potentially impacted thousands of our people. That leaves us trying to figure out how to systematically allocate whatever we collect to the right group of needy but determined growers. I am currently thinking we may treat it a little bit like our feeding program, with monetary donations at the trainer or church level and final decisions for allocation left to local leadership. We could defintely use more help with this effort, and once again, if you have questions about this, contact Rog or me and we will bring you more details as we are able.
ā
ā
