The last excerpt from The Hole in our Gospel written by Richard Stearns.
"A few years ago I was traveling in West Africa with Steve Hilton, head of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, one of our most faithful partners in bringing clean water to the poor. We visited a village in Northern Ghana called Gbum Gbum (pronounced boom boom). As we gathered around the borehole well tha World Vision 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 five hours each day fetching water from a waterhole several kilometers away. The 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 contaminated water. These worms grow inside the body, sometimes up to three feet in length, and then when full-grown, burrow 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 it was even being bought by Bath and Body Works- in the United States! The only thing these women 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 can imagine my own life without many of the so-called necessities that I have. You can take away my car and I would find a way to compensate by using public transportation or carpooling with a friend. You could take away my computer and my Internet access, my television, stereo, and radio, and I could still have a full and prosperous life. You could reduce the size of my house and my income by half, and even take away my education and I could survive and perhaps even thrive. But if you take away water and sanitation, you take away my health and that of my children. If you take away my health, you ahve taken away my energy and my industry. If you take away my energy and ability to support my family, you have taken away my dignity; and it you take away my dignity, you have taken away hope- for the future, for my children, for a better life. This is the harsh reality of the more than one billion people in the world who live without access to clean, safe water.
In Africa, they don't say that water is important to their lives; they say that water is life. It is absolutely the foundation upon which civilization and human life is built, and the best news is that we have the knowledge and the technology to provide it. All we lack is the will."
"A few years ago I was traveling in West Africa with Steve Hilton, head of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, one of our most faithful partners in bringing clean water to the poor. We visited a village in Northern Ghana called Gbum Gbum (pronounced boom boom). As we gathered around the borehole well tha World Vision 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 five hours each day fetching water from a waterhole several kilometers away. The 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 contaminated water. These worms grow inside the body, sometimes up to three feet in length, and then when full-grown, burrow 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 it was even being bought by Bath and Body Works- in the United States! The only thing these women 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 can imagine my own life without many of the so-called necessities that I have. You can take away my car and I would find a way to compensate by using public transportation or carpooling with a friend. You could take away my computer and my Internet access, my television, stereo, and radio, and I could still have a full and prosperous life. You could reduce the size of my house and my income by half, and even take away my education and I could survive and perhaps even thrive. But if you take away water and sanitation, you take away my health and that of my children. If you take away my health, you ahve taken away my energy and my industry. If you take away my energy and ability to support my family, you have taken away my dignity; and it you take away my dignity, you have taken away hope- for the future, for my children, for a better life. This is the harsh reality of the more than one billion people in the world who live without access to clean, safe water.
In Africa, they don't say that water is important to their lives; they say that water is life. It is absolutely the foundation upon which civilization and human life is built, and the best news is that we have the knowledge and the technology to provide it. All we lack is the will."
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