In the last week we have been playing some catch up in our clean water program. Because of extremely wet roads in the rural Chipata area targeted for projects in December, we have been waiting. The cover photo this week is the drill rig getting ready to dig one of TWO projects completed this week. That means TWO rural communities received the gift of clean water in the last week.
To our American friends, just a quick reminder of what is happening here. These brothers and sisters can't just walk to their kitchen and pour themselves a cup of water to drink. They can go to their sink and fill a pot with clean water for cooking. Before these projects they had one of two options: 1) they could walk however far it took to find clean water. Or they could get possibly avoid the walk and use water that I wouldn't wish on them. This is the reality of life in rural Zambia and so many other communities around the world.
It cost around $2,000 each time we do a project like this. That means for $2,000 we have changed the lives of hundreds of Zambian families not once, but twice in the last week. As much as I get excited about providing supplemental food to families for less than $5 per month, changing entire communities for $2,000 just blows my mind. These were our 29th and 30th projects to date. That is 30 communities that have clean water today that suffered without previously. But we are also aware of nearly 100 other communities just in our distribution system that would benefit from this effort. And we know that would only scratch the surface.
In our clean water efforts, like our feeding efforts, I rejoice in knowing there are so many families benefiting from the work we have done. But I hurt for the many we realize are still starving. And the many still without clean water.
We Americans are so trained to think "Bigger is Better." To look at our spreadsheets and imagine getting to our second million dollars sent to Zambia faster than the first million was - just for the sake of "growth." This just feels so different than that. We want to do more. Not because it makes our numbers bigger. Certainly not because it makes our shareholders wealthier. The opposite it true here!! The ONLY way we can get bigger and do more is if we are willing to become LESS wealthy. And that goes against everything we have been taught - both in the American business world AND, perhaps, even in the American church.
Like Paul in II Corinthians 8, we are only begging our American friends to share some of their SURPLUS. We had a small handful of friends from Colorado and Wisconsin share just a little bit of their surplus, and this week TWO Zambian communities received a clean water source. My hunch is the American donors weren't even inconvenienced a little bit. But the difference in the lives of these two communities in rural Chipata is HUGE.
If you haven't considered jumping in with us before, I hope you will give it a thought. If you are a donor, but you haven't yet joined the 30+ friends and family that are donating monthly, I hope you will give that a thought. If you have a LOT of surplus (yes, I realize it can be hard to define what with healthcare costs and so much other unknown), we would love for you to consider our HARVEST effort coming over the next few months. Many Zambians have learned new maize growing techniques and been working hard to improve their own self -sufficiency. At harvest time we hope to reward them by BUYING their maize at a price slightly more than they would otherwise get from the government. Then we will ship those wonderful bags of maize to dozens of distribution points around the country to be distributed monthly to the most vulnerable among us.
Zero American overhead. Six wonderful Zambians managing the process. And thousands of vulnerable families benefitting every month. While we work to train them to care for themselves and each other. Would you be a part of this?
