Nicaragua (MNN) — Imagine if you shared the same water source with all of your neighbors. Bath water, drinking water, it all comes from the same place. Then, one morning, that water source is gone.
That’s exactly what’s taking place in Central America, says Chris Hough of Living Water International.
“For the last three years, Nicaragua has been going through a very severe drought. As a matter of fact many of the wells within Nicaragua have dried up, and so it’s a very difficult time.”
(Photo courtesy of Living Water International)
Entire villages are short on water supplies, and families are forced to march to neighboring communities. Yet even then, the wells are often too shallow and are contaminated. The need is almost overwhelming.
Hough shares, “We are very busy with new communities that are reaching out to us and saying, ‘We are very interested in clean drinking water. All of our wells have dried up and so we are without water now. So we need you now more than ever to come in and drill us a well.’”
And since water is such a daily necessity, time is of the essence to meet the villages’ needs. “On a daily basis they are going without clean water or any water at all, so it’s very important to us to try to reach those communities as quickly as possible.”
From prayer to equipment to support, Living Water needs all the help they can get to accomplish the foreboding task before them.
“We have come to understand that we need participation of others to come alongside of us to make sure that the goal is met and that it’s beneficial to those we’re trying to serve…. We are teaching and training individuals to take over, to take ownership of the wells that we had repaired or rehabbed in that area so one day they [will be] maintaining and taking care of those pumps and those wells.”
(Photo courtesy of Living Water International)
Yet all the while, as the ministry provides liquid water for the communities, they make sure to spread the Good News about Jesus Christ, the ‘living water’.
“We work with them by showing them different health and hygiene lessons and incorporated with those lessons are different Bible stories, different verses. We do different crafts with children to help illustrate God’s love and how He cares for each and every one of us, and of course we also work with the local pastors.”
The pastors and believers already in the villages are eager to help, says Hough. “Their faith is very strong and they receive our teams, they receive us and our staff, with open arms and with love, and we just enjoy partnering with them side-by-side to complete a project!”
But these projects don’t come without their struggles. Some of the equipment is getting older, and though the volunteers are careful to take good care of their resources, the rigs and other tools won’t last forever.
This is where you come in. If you want to give, we’ll connect your right here. Otherwise, there are other ways you can help Living Water fight this crisis.
You can go on a short-term mission trip with Living Water to drill wells in Central America! (Photo courtesy of Living Water International)
“If you want to do more than just financially support us, if you wanna go and get muddy and dirty and sweaty and actually get your hands on the rig and actually work with us in these communities, you definitely can do so!… You’ll be tired at the end of the day but the love that you receive from the people in the community and the smiling faces from the children make it all worth it.”
Living Water currently offers short-term missions trips for individuals or groups to drill wells in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras. Click here to learn more about a trip with Living Water.
As always, prayer is the most powerful tool you could possibly put to work. Ask God to provide the hands and resources necessary as they fight the water crisis in Nicaragua.
