Community members gather at a well planning meeting.
Across the globe in rural Kenya there is a small village called Orngoswa. A place that bears a resemblance to the tiny zip codes dotted around rural Montana. The families throughout the area are stockmen, raising cattle, sheep and goats to provide for their families. They have generally been there for several generations and value their neighbors as friends. When a community member is in need, neighbors come together to support each other and carry each other through tough times. Moms, dads, children and extended families often work together to care for the herd and their plot of land.
Cattle grazing at Orngoswa
Pastor Benard and his family call Orngoswa home.
However, that’s where the similarities end. As we rise in the morning and turn on the faucet to fill the coffee pot, open the fridge and grab some cold milk for our cereal, the ladies in Orngoswa are starting a fire in their dirt house to heat the milk they will squeeze out of the animals with their own hands. Once finished, they will each hoist a 20 liter jerry can to their back and begin walking quickly in the direction of water. The walk takes them through the bush, thick with wildlife, up the side of a mountain and down the other side. If they choose this nearest spring to fetch water the journey is about 2.5 miles in each direction. When the jerry can is full on the return trip home it weighs 40 pounds! The women must make the journey each day, sometimes more than once in a day.
A mother prepares to go fetch water.
Children help to fill jerry cans with water at an unprotected spring source.
We have the opportunity to bring clean water and fresh hope to Orngoswa. In March we met with the community and brought in the hydrogeologist to test and locate a suitable location for a well. The geologist found a promising location in the community that is on land owned by a local pastor’s family. The family have offered to donate a parcel of land to the community so that the well will be community owned and the clean water will be accessible by anyone. This means mothers will be able to fetch clean, safe water for their families at a location close to home, without climbing a mountain to get it! This also means more children will be able to attend school since they won’t need to help fetch water from a long distance. Clean water always brings with it improved health and opportunities for the community.
The Lepore family is donating a parcel of land to the community for the well.
Once drilled, if the volume of water is adequate, we plan to pipe water to the local school which magnifies the impact of the clean water, benefitting another several hundred people.
We are so excited for the opportunity to bring clean water to Orngoswa. Won’t you join us? The cost of drilling and outfitting a well with a pump and tanks costs an average of $40,000. The people of Orngoswa have an average income of $2/ day and have committed to raise 10% of the cost. If you would like to be a part of this life-changing gift please make a donation to the H2O For Life fund at our website:
This is how they will know you are my disciples, love one another. John 13:35
