Guatemala (MNN) — The country of Guatemala was burned into the hearts of 38 Christian radio listeners with our sister ministry WaY-fm in West Michigan. The listeners traveled to Guatemala on a short-term mission trip to help Buckner Orphan Care International revitalize several government orphanages there.
Station Manager Rich Anderson says they did everything from painting, roofing, Bible school and other evangelism ministry and Bible distribution. Anderson says they handed out the World Bible Translation Center’s Easy to Read Spanish version of the New Testament. “Most of them went to orphans and they loved them. In fact, we got a report back from the San Gabriel Boys Home that the boys were using them every day. They had them right next to their bed.”
The end of the trip didn’t mean the end of ministry for the team. Anderson says while they were at the boys’ home they discovered the orphans didn’t have running water. “Literally they carried in five gallon pails and they use the same water in a big basin to brush their teeth and wash their face and we saw a kid washing his shoes in the same water that another kid came and washed his face. And, that really hit our team hard.”
That’s when they asked, ‘Can we provide a well for this orphanage in Jesus’ Name?’ Because it’s a deep well, some 500 feet, the cost is $45,000. “They started thinking, ‘Well, how much would each of us have to raise? Maybe we could take ownership in this project,’ and (we) started putting it on the radio station’s blog and one person who was reading that stepped forward with a $20,000 matching gift.”
Now, WaY-fm and Mission Network News are partnering together to raise the $25,000 that remains. While this seems purely a humanitarian effort, the new well will allow Buckner to continue bringing Christians into these government orphanages. “They’re bringing in teams, like our teams like our team, doing VBS programs with these kids. As the kids make decisions for Christ they have a follow up staff that goes back in and make sure the kids are getting into God’s Word.”
If you’d like to help go to http://way.fm/special/well/ to help with this project.
