When There is No Water

It’s been a gut and heart wrenching week of ups and downs for the well digging project at Sangano

You might remember a few weeks ago I shared that we’d made arrangements with a local company to do the survey and find out if there was any water in the area. The company, Water Solutions, arranged for the survey right away.

There are specific criteria that must be met before they can survey for the well. They can’t dig the well anywhere near any pit latrines, for instance. There was a narrow area of land where the surveyor could use his equipment. His report came back that the ground penetrating radar had shown several features indicating the presence of water. We could dig and hope to find water if we went deep enough.

Nothing ever works quite like you plan it here. The boring machine needed a new part before they could begin. The company had to order it from Kenya. Customs held them up at the border with it for three weeks. They didn’t even start digging until this last week.

The first day, they weren’t able to start until the surveyor arrived to show them the spot. They started digging. They reached the level at which he’d first seen indication of water. Nothing.

They tried a second location. Still nothing.

They dug deeper. The boring machine reached mud and some muddy water. But no matter how deep they went, there was no clear, drinkable water, nothing that could be pumped out of the ground.

It appears that the severe drought experienced by that region, coupled with the large amount of refugees in the area has used up all the available water table.

I cannot express the level of discouragement we’ve felt the last few days.

Our people had hope that they’d no longer have to go without water. Our people were eager that this privation would be over as soon as the well was installed. But they can’t use what isn’t there.

We had hoped that some suffering could be alleviated with this well. We’d hoped this would cut down on the sickness and diseases that come from drinking dirty water. We have to take medicine out for these illnesses, knowing full well the people will have to go back to drinking bad water and will get sick again.

Right now, we’re waiting to hear from Water Solutions. They’ll be refunding part of the money we paid since they didn’t find water. Then we’ll look into buying water reclamation tanks and setting up guttering in time for the rainy season. The people can collect rainwater in preparation for the next dry season. But the rainy season won’t be here for almost 2 months.

Please pray for our people not to be discouraged – that God will give them hope. Pray for another good rainy season and that it will start earlier than expected for the refugee camp.

Right now, our prayer is that our Water of Life, Jesus Christ, will give us wisdom as we seek to help these people with one of their most basic needs and in so doing, doors will be opened to reach them with the Eternal Water so they’ll never thirst again.