Jesus said this about the Gospel. Blessed are you to drink deeply from Jesus’ promises! Through the work of Pastor Bernard, our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Haiti are also given living water! We thank God for that. However the drinking water they have is limited, alive with bugs, disease, and gross things. So, the church in Leogane, which Thomas serves has indicated a need to have a water well dug so the congregation and future school can drink fresh water. Would First Lutheran like to help? We’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks.
Consider:
• It costs about $1 to provide clean water for one person for one year in Haiti.
•One well in a community will serve about 2,000 people, but that number can reach as high as 4,000 in some areas.
• One of the greatest needs in Haiti is water. Haiti has a population of eight million, and the World Health Organization and other similar organizations estimate that at least half and as much as 60 percent of the population do not have access to clean water.
•The majority of all fresh water sources have been polluted because of poor sanitation systems. More than half the deaths in Haiti are due to various water-borne diseases – diseases that could be easily prevented by simply drinking clean water.
• Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere — for the most part, people are living on about a dollar a day. In a study conducted a few years ago, Haiti was also named the “most water-impoverished” country in the world.
• About 80 percent of disease there is water-borne, and that stat affects children most acutely in a country where one in eight children won’t make it to his or her fifth birthday (generally because of a mixture of illness and malnutrition).
• It is often the youngest child in a family who must walk to find water for the family. They walk anywhere from half an hour or an hour to six hours each day, and the water they find may still bring illness to a family.
• This would be a problem in itself, but it’s compounded when you consider that walking for water prevents them the opportunity to attend school. In a country where only 54 percent of children get the chance to go to school, water has even more far-reaching implications.
• Creating a well is a low-cost project that meets a great need and shows much love. Imagine churches in Haiti becoming places where people can come for both the literal and spiritual water of life.