According to the World Health Organization, about 80 percent of all illnesses in the developing world are caused by the lack of potable water and adequate sanitation; lack of safe water is also among the chief causes of sickness and death in children.

In Mexico, it is estimated that as many as 24 million people live in extreme poverty and lack adequate sanitation systems. Many of them are without access to clean and safe water.

Rodrigo, 16, has attended the Enlaces Amigo Child Development Center since he was 8 years old. As a young child he was very ill. His mother recalls those hard times:

“Five of my seven children got sick, all at once. They had fever and diarrhea. I gave them some remedies and most of them got better but Rodrigo was getting worse. He was already very skinny and then he started throwing up.

“I thought he was going to die. But I knew that God existed and I asked Him from the bottom of my heart to heal my son and to let him live.”

After receiving medical attention and medicine for typhoid fever through Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program, Rodrigo’s health was restored. He has been part of our program ever since.

He is now a tall, handsome young man who attends school and helps his mother support the family in her home-based business.

Rodrigo shares,

“To me, Compassion has been of great help. My father abandoned us and I got sick. I believed in the [Compassion] program because they helped me through my sickness.

“I remember I was isolated from my family and friends because it is a contagious disease. I had fever and diarrhea and I felt very tired or weak all the time. After the treatment they kept taking care of me and then I received medical checkups every six months.”

Rodrigo and his mother are the only Christians in their family, and Rodrigo has witnessed the struggles and sacrifices his mom has made to support them.

Rodrigo attends high school and dreams of becoming an electrical and mechanical engineer.

In the future, Rodrigo would like to work for PEMEX, Mexico’s state-run oil company, designing and maintaining their equipment. He would like to start using machines that would be environmentally friendly.

During the mornings Rodrigo attends school. In the afternoon he helps his mother with their juice and shakes business.

Outside their home they have stools and a counter where they prepare fruit shakes and fruit juices for the people on the street. On most mornings, they are rushed by mothers taking their children to school; these moms buy milkshakes for their children to have something healthy to drink.

The entire family lives off the revenues of the juice stand – about $10 per day. Subtract the amount they spend for water, fruits, milk and ice and the family takes home approximately $5 per day.

For Rodrigo’s family, obtaining clean water has helped them stay healthy.

Before the water purification plant was established, they purchased water from a little cart pulled by a motorcycle and had to boil the water before drinking. The cost of the water and of the gas to boil it was too high for their regular income.

Now that they are able to buy the water in five-gallon containers for only 45 cents, they are able to save money and stay healthy.

Rodrigo is one of the many local beneficiaries of the Child Sponsorship Program and the water purification plant. He has experienced a dramatic change: from being malnourished and sick to being a healthy young man with dreams and expectations for the future.

In response to one of the foremost needs of Rodrigo’s community, the Implementing Church Partner (ICP) taught the community about improving the health of their children. Upon learning that Compassion was partnering with Healing Waters International to provide water projects to communities in need, Rodrigo’s community teamed with the ICP to apply for a purification plant in their neighborhood.

In 2009, the church and child development center inaugurated the water purification plant that now serves the community. Many people benefit from this clean water. In addition, the elementary school and the kindergarten refill their water jugs at the development center at a very low cost and with excellent quality.

Pastor Abelardo of the ICP shares,

“This Complementary Intervention was of great impact to the whole community of Mapastepec, but above all, to the children’s families. They have greatly benefited and the family economy was strengthened by paying for the water at a low cost.

“Now, families have clean, purified water that will help them to decrease gastrointestinal diseases.

“We are now sure that the children drink purified water not only in the child development center, but also in their homes. This gives satisfaction to the project.”

The water purification plant works with the support from the child development center and Healing Waters, and sells more 100 five-gallon-jugs of safe water each day. The community has even hired a member of the ICP to manage the plant full time.

Rodrigo tells us,

“The benefits are for all. [The purified water] is cheap and with good quality. When we buy this water we are benefited.”

Rodrigo is now old enough to understand that his life was once threatened by the circumstances around him. One simple element — like water — became a life-threatening monster empowered by poverty. But Rodrigo is no longer one of the negative statistics; he is healthy and strong and on his way to a bright future.

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Today is World Water Day. In my house I have nine I can get water. All I have to do is turn on a faucet.

In fact, I don’t have to walk more than 15 feet to reach a water source anywhere in my house.

I don’t have to think about or make an effort to get water. I don’t have to boil my water or worry about drinking it. It’s clean and refreshing.

The water that comes out of my fridge is even filtered to make it taste better.

As long as I pay my water bill each month, I get clean, cold (or hot), refreshing water to come out of every single one of my nine faucets.

Do I take this for granted? Definitely.

A person can live four weeks without food, but only three days, depending on the circumstances without water. Lack of water can cause short-term memory loss, fatigue, and trouble learning. Your body will not function without water.

While I have almost immediate access to clean drinking water at any time of day, more than 1 billion people in the world do not. Water.org is an organization that strives to ensure safe drinking water worldwide. Below are some staggering statistics shared on their website.

• More than 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease; 84 percent are children.
• Nearly all deaths due to unclean water, 98 percent, occur in the developing world.
• Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
• Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection.
• Millions of women and children spend several hours each day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. This is time not spent working at an income-generating job, caring for family members, or attending school.
• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related illness.

(Statistics from water.org)

Thankfully, many organizations have seen the need and are stepping up to help. Another organization is Healing Waters International, which we partner with to provide clean water to the churches and children we serve. Healing Waters uses purification technologies that tap an existing water supply and make it safe to drink. They currently serve more than 120,000 people with clean water each day.

Since 2008, we have invested more than $6 million in water projects benefiting 650,000 people in all but three of the countries we work in. Because we are committed to equipping and empowering our children, we also provide educational activities on water and hygiene to ensure they are healthy during and after they complete our program.

We have also purchased 56,000 water filters, which are being distributed in Haiti to help fight the spread of cholera. The filters can convert filthy, dirty, muddy water into clean, drinkable water and can be used to make potable water in places where animals are present.

What’s incredible is that there are no chemicals, no moving parts that can break, and no training or electricity needed to use these filters. Each filter can produce at least 1 million gallons of water – enough water for a lifetime supply for 60 people.

In addition to water filters, rainwater harvesting systems we recently implemented in Tanzania can reduce the spread of waterborne illnesses and provide clean water so children can practice good hygiene. The people of Tanzania, for example, experience water shortages regularly because of natural and human factors.

Rainwater harvesting will help decrease illnesses and will hopefully improve program attendance and Compassion’s ability to successfully reach the children on a regular basis.

Today is World Water Day. How many water sources do you have in your house?

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We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.

The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.

We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.

According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,

“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”

Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.

Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.

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The church’s leadership calls for periodic members’ meetings where all ministry managers update the assembly on their ministry. Since all the ministries overlap in some way, these reports help the church make the best decisions.

The ministries include Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program, the Healing Waters International water project, a school and a community holistic vocational center.

These church meetings have become a forum at which the community, represented by the believers, can discuss the best ways to manage resources.

Milqueya is a mother of eight and grandma of seven. She and her husband still live with 11 children and grandchildren at home. Milqueya and her large family enjoy the benefits of the decisions she’s been helping her church make as a voting member. One important decision was the incorporation of the Healing Waters International water project.

In the past, even the least harmful water source wasn’t safe enough for Milqueya. She bought water from the trucks that drove past her home.

Miqueya paid only RD$20 for a 5-gallon water bottle, avoiding the RD$35 price at local stores. But the truck-bought water was making her and her family sick.

“The water caused us stomach diseases. But after we began to drink the water from the church, we are always healthy and we don’t have any stomach problems.”

After the Healing Waters International project began, the community’s health has improved.

“Since we’ve been running the project, there’s not been any health problems reported,” says Ana Ivelisse, manager of the Healing Waters International project. “The National Ministry of Health comes and tests our water to certify it.”

Not only is the water from the church the purest, it is also the most economic.

For RD$10, half of what she paid for the truck-bought water that made her family sick, Milqueya can take her 5-gallon water bottle home, saving her family’s limited resources for other living expenses.

Proceeds from the water project go toward human and social development to serve and benefit the community through education, health and nutrition.

In the field of education, the Healing Waters International project provides 20 children from Barrio Mexico with a scholarship so they can study at the church’s school.

The project also pays for a watchman who protects the property and equipment of the Compassion-assisted child development center, and a housekeeper who cleans the center’s building.

The proceeds also support the church’s vocational school, which trains locals in a variety of jobs, including computers.

Motorcycles, carts and trolleys arrive each day, taking home 41,000 to 45,000 gallons of purified water each month. The church donates another 600 gallons to the community.

The highest water consumption in the year comes during the summer months when the temperature reaches around 34 degrees Celsius, and the children are home for school break.

The 600 gallons of water that the church donates to the community benefits many groups, including the Compassion-assisted children at Cedina Student Center, the students in the church’s school, the medical staff and patients at a local clinic, and some neighbors in times of special need.

When the community holds a sports event, the church is always willing to support it. Pastor Ventura Taylor says,

“We serve the water in small bottles and we donate it to them as a way of our church being committed with that activity, which has to do with the social and cultural development of the community.”

A label is put on the bottles specifying that it is purified water from Comunidad Cristiana El Santuario Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Church and Healing Waters International.

A recent major effort included donating purified water to the residents in Barrio Mexico during three days to commemorate the World Water Day and the Healing Waters International anniversary.

For the occasion, the local church had given special tickets to the customers, and on the first day of the celebration they picked tickets from a surprise box. The winning clients were given Healing Waters International promotional items like ball pens, key rings, caps, T-shirts and water bottles.

The water supply in the pipes in Barrio Mexico can be scarce at times.

“Many times the people don’t get water for even five days in a row,” sayss Ana Ivelisse. “We also give the people raw water so they can mop and clean their homes.

This concept of service derives from the way the church sees the people. Pastor Ventura Taylor and the church have a holistic concept of stewardship.

“The people using the purified water are not just in need. They are human beings with dignity, human beings in freedom, and human beings created in the image of God and after His likeness, whom we must value and respect.

“To us, the way we treat the people as users is the start of our own stewardship.”

For this reason, the church has chosen the most suitable staff from the congregation for the water jobs, people who can be the face of the project, upright and committed to their faith.

Pastor Ventura Taylor continues,

“They need to be people who can transmit the name of the Lord Jesus Christ through their living. And they will transmit it by thinking of the God of excellence and quality, who is the God whom we serve.”

As the church opens every morning, the staff has a short devotion with a reading from the Bible and a time of prayer, and invites any neighbor who has come for water to join in for a couple of minutes. Many people have come to know Jesus because of this courteous Christian attention.

As a community of faith, this church understands that the resources it has should be managed for the sake of the kingdom of God, and that it should be done with transparency.

Pastor Ventura Taylor testifies,

“Being accountable for the things we do has never been a bother to us. Instead, it is a satisfaction. We like to do our inventories, we like to do our audits, and we even like to have our yearly budget of how we are going to do things.”

Read about the Compassion and Healing Waters International partnership on the Healing Waters blog, Waterworks.

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Take a trip with Healing Waters.

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And for World Water Day 2009, we, Healing Waters, are celebrating our role in helping resolve this crisis by giving away free water at each of the water purification systems we’ve built with our local ministry partners. This event happens to coincide with a major ministry milestone for us – distributing 75 million gallons of safe drinking water to poor communities in developing countries.

Sustainability along with personal and community transformation are key components of our operational model. Over 110,000 people in poor, urban slums receive their daily drinking water from churches we partner with.

The churches have put nearly $500,000 back into their neighborhoods with community service funds and donated more than 3 million gallons to local schools. Every $50 donated to Healing Waters since we began seven years ago has provided life-giving water to another person.

While it took us 18 months to distribute our first million gallons of water and three years to deliver 10 million, we’re now distributing water at a rate of more than 1.6 million gallons a month.

With the addition of nine new systems this year, of which at least three will be at Compassion-assisted child development centers, we expect to deliver more than 2 million gallons per month by year end. (We currently operate 67 systems in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Mexico, 18 of which are at Compassion centers.)

“We are humbled to play a role in closing the gap on the world water crisis. We have become experts in our area of providing for the poor, urban communities of the developing world; but there is still so many more in need.” –  Ed Anderson, CEO of Healing Waters International.

Go to www.healingwatersintl.org to learn more and donate.

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The problem of contaminated drinking water is a serious one. 3.4 million people, mostly children, die from water-related diseases each year — that’s the equivalent of thirty-eight 777s crashing every day and killing everyone on board. — UNICEF/WHO, Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000

There are many organizations in this world building clean water delivery systems in rural areas of the developing world, but the need for safe drinking water in more developed communities gets overlooked.

Communities may have water infrastructures in place, but the water that is distributed is contaminated. Purified bottle water is available in local stores, but not everyone can afford the “luxury” of clean water. Healing Waters International, one of our business partners, is changing that.

Healing Waters International builds water purification systems at local churches in the developing world, and trains the church staff to operate the systems and manage the accounting. The churches then sell the water in their communities, typically for less than a quarter of the cost of store-bought water, and then sponsor community service projects with the revenue that remains.

Healings Waters International Mission Statement

To see safe water provided in the name of Jesus in every poor community of the world, Healing Waters International empowers local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities by providing sustainable, safe water solutions.

What a remarkable mission!

Kind of sounds like ours, doesn’t it?

Join the Healing Waters International cause on Facebook.

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