what a difference water can make

Continuing on with a passage from A Hole in our Gospel, Rich Stearns shares a story from his trip to Gbum Gbum (pronounced Boom Boom) in Northern Ghana to see first hand the impact clean water has on a community:

"As we gathered around the borehole well that WV had drilled several years earlier right next to the school, the school's headmaster told us that before the borehole he had just forty students. Now more than four hundred children attended the school! The difference? Before the water came to Gbum Gbum, the women and children had to spend about five hours each day fetching water from a waterhole several kilometers away. They would rise early, before dawn, making several trips throughout the day; they had no time or energy for school. Another man told me that before the well, children and adults alike were riddled with Guinea worm disease caused by parasitic nematodes found in the contaminated water. These worms grow inside the body, sometimes up to three feet in length, and then when full-grown, burrouw out through the skin, causing crippling pain and infection. Now, the Guinea worms were gone.

As Steve and I continued our walk through the village, we met several dozen women working with great effort to make something called shea butter, an ingredient used in skin lotions and cosmetics, from a locally grown plant. To my amazement, they were selling this shea butter for a profit. In fact, I was told that it was even being bought by Bath and Body Works in the United States! The only thing these women had needed to create this business was time and clean water, both of which were now available.

We also talked with some of the men in the community who told us that since they now had more water for irrigation, they also had improved crop yields. Then one man said something that caused them all to laugh. Our guide, who translated for us, told us that the men also felt that the women now 'smelled better', since they no longer had to fetch water all day in the hot sun. Water had transformed Gbum Gbum in every way imaginable."

I have great joy knowing that the money we raise for World Vision might help transform a community like Gbum Gbum! Sometimes during fundraising, I can begin to lose heart in asking people for money thinking that I'm asking for support for myself. But, I am not! When I think of the story above, I remember that this is about building God's Kingdom, and I can more passionately ask people to contribute toward clean water in Africa!