The Water To Thrive team has had a full day in Ethiopia.

The W2T team traveling Ethiopia this time arrived on time in Addis Ababa on Monday October 3^rd with Rennie and Ed Scharlau and Jim Sorensen coming from Austin and Dick Moeller arriving from London.

After a good night’s sleep, our morning started early, leaving the Beer Garden Hotel with members of the Glimmer office in Addis.  We headed southwest out of Addis for Gedamba, about an hour’s drive away.  This was a very special visit to Gedamba as all the construction had been completed and water is flowing to three communities (Gedamba, Kajima, and Migira) with over 8,000 beneficiaries from 11 water points.  The project has been built to serve over 15,000 as the Gedamba area is experiencing rapid growth. 

We had a busy day visiting 5 of 6 community water points dedicated to W2T sponsors for Gedamba as well as the borehole, generator/pump house and the 100,000 liter reservoir. While some of us walk to the top of the hill to see the reservoir and visit the Migira community, Rennie and Jim were able to visit a nearby farmhouse to experience their family life briefly and saw the woman of the household preparing injera from their home grown grain, teff.

 It was an incredible, uplifting experience to share the joy of clean, safe water with the communities and to hear their stories of how access to clean water was already impacting their lives.  The visit to the Migira School was especially uplifting as about three hundred students (grade 1-4) lined the pathway to the water point…..singing, clapping and presenting us with flowers.  The school has never had access to water and now the water point is less than 100 yards from the school’s front door!  It was a great joy for all of us to see the kids enjoying the water.

We departed the Gedamba area about 3:00 pm headed a short distance to the Sebata Awash area.  We stopped along the way to enjoy some of the delicious Ethiopian coffee in order to regain our energy! W2T currently has 10 projects under construction in this area.  We visited the completed shallow bore hole project at the community of Kantalo.  Community members here have been enjoying the benefits of clean water for over 3 months.  We were able to visit with community members using water from the site, who expressed their gratitude for the blessing of clean water.

Also, this was a special day because the 4 Water to Thrive Board members, Ed Scharlau, Jim Sorensen, Eric Schmidhauser and Dick Moeller, were all together for the full day to experience the visits to the communities and the water points.  It reminded us all of how grateful we are to all those that contribute to our mission in so many ways, donors, volunteers, staff, implementing partners and many more.  It is truly an honor and blessing to represent everyone’s effort when we celebrate with the communities and share in their joy.

Tomorrow we catch an early morning flight to Gondar, near Lake Tana.  In this area we will visit water projects that are underway as well as prospective communities for projects later this year and in 2011.

Dick Moeller

Stairs

Last year when we visited Dembi Dolo, in western Ethiopia, one of the things that weighed heavy on me was how difficult it was to access some of the water collection sites in that region. In that area of Ethiopia it rains for several months out of the year, so there are often naturally flowing springs that people use to collect water. The springs are contaminated as soon as they flow out of the spring eye, so it is not an adequate source of water. In these areas we often build spring protection systems rather than hand dug wells. In addition to the water not being clean, a big problem is that accessing these springs is often treacherous. The springs usually are down in a ravine with very steep, slippery slopes that you have to walk down to access the water. The women and children have to climb these slopes while carrying heavy jugs and clay jars filled with water. It is very dangerous.

Here they are cutting footholds into the ground with a machete for us.

You can imagine what would happen if someone fell while carrying a full jug of water.

So last year when we sat down to talk to the Zonal Administration about the water needs in their area, I felt like I had to express my concern about the conditions the women faced in carrying water out of those areas. My heart was burdened and I just kept thinking what good have we done them if we give them clean water, but it is still just as dangerous to get to it. When we fund a well or spring protection, the contractor uses local labor from the community to build the site. So we asked them to give us their word that if we funded the spring protection, that they would do something to make access to the sites easier and safer. They understood my concerns and agreed to address the problem.

This year when we returned to some of the same sites, I was overjoyed with what I saw.

Stairs!

The contractor and the members of the community had built stairs on the site where there was a steep slope accessing the water point. I was pleased, the women were pleased and the community seemed proud. In addition to being safer, I think the whole process helped to build a level of trust between us and the communities. We kept our word to fund the project and they kept their word by building stairs. Everyone was happy.

Back Home!

Hey everyone! I made it back home yesterday evening. If you are wondering why there were not more posts while I was gone, it is because I could not get logged into my blog for most of the trip. Just a little reminder that I was in a developing country. :)

I will post some stories about my trip in the coming days, but in the mean time here are a few pictures.

It was a good trip and I look forward to sharing stories with all of you.

We made it safely to Ethiopia on Tuesday and have been very busy since then. We had a little bit of down time and then started visiting projects.

Tuesday afternoon we visited the Gadamba project. My Dad and I visted Gadamba on our first trip to Ethiopia. We were overcome by the need for clean water in that community.

There are about 4000 people that live in this community and they have no access to clean water. The challenge in this area is that the water table is so deep that to access it, required a deep bore hole well. It was such a big project that many people had visited it but had left feeling like there was nothing they could do to help. We did not want to be another organization that came to see the need, but then decided that it was to big. So Water to Thrive committed to this project with Glimmer of Hope, and God has blessed it! They started the drilling process and hit water a lot sooner than they anticipated. After they hit water, they also discovered that there was considerably more water than was anticipated and they will be able to add additional water access points to this project. Initially there going to be five different water points off that one well, but they are looking into adding two additional water points to the project because of the amount of water they found.

Here is a picture of the well site. The project is still under construction, so right now it is capped so the rest of the project can be built to pump and distribute the water.

To be able to see water being brought to a community that we visited a year ago is amazing. To know that the things that broke our hearts a year ago are issues that will no longer be faced by this community is such a gift from God. And I am reminded that we can make a difference.

Tomorrow we leave for Dembi Dolo in west Ethiopia and will spend a week there visiting communities and projects. I will probably not have internet access, but will post as soon as I get back to Addis Ababa.

Tomorrow we leave for Ethiopia. The past few days have been very hectic, but I think I am finally packed... I think.

I look forward to seeing what God has planned for us on this trip, and I can't wait to share it with all of you. The places we go and the people we meet have changed my life and I hope I can share a glimpse of that here.

Please keep us in your prayers, for safe travel and that we are able to find peace in the center of God's will.

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" 

And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"Isaiah 6:8

On this Mother's Day

Today is a special day for all those mothers out there, and as we honor the mothers in our lives, I ask you to take a moment to think about mothers that are a world away. Mothers that you may never meet, but yet you share something so deeply with. What we share is a love for our children that is unshakable, unselfish, and unending. A love that will cause a mother to rise early in the morning, before the first rays of sunlight pierce the dark sky, and walk for hours to the only source of water that is available for her family. The water is unclean, not even safe to give to animals, yet it is the only water that is available. So she gives it to her thirsty children, and she says a silent prayer. A prayer that begs for the health of her children, that this water that she gives them today does not make them sick, does not take their lives.

Today, as I think about all the mothers that I know, I also think about all the mothers that I don't know, that weep for their children. That weep for a life they wish they could provide for them. And I pray for those mothers and their children.

Countdown

14 days until we leave for Ethiopia!

I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to return to Ethiopia, and I know God will go before us to prepare a way. I look forward to what He has planned for us, and I look forward to sharing those experiences with all of you.