Paying It Forward: African community helps fund wells for neighboring villages
In West Africa, just one water well created a ripple effect and empowered a community to share their abundance with others.
This community was forced to use a water well with brown, muddy groundwater. This was the water they cooked with, washed with, and drank. But it was all they had. The flow was so slow, women would sleep by the well so they could wake each other when enough water had filled back into the pit for the next one to draw.
That’s no way for people to live. With your support, two BGR partners provided a quick solution: repairing a broken hand pump on a nearby well. For only a few hundred dollars, they extracted the old galvanized pipes, replaced them with longer-lasting stainless steel, and taught several local villagers how to repair the pump themselves. After a few hours, clean water was flowing again!
But one clean water source for 2,000 people? The math didn’t add up. BGR partners returned a few months later—and this time, they brought the big trucks. After drilling a borehole 70 meters into the earth, a new fresh source of water was available. The villagers erupted into song and dance.
To make sure people understood the importance of their new water source, the team gathered seven locals and christened them the WASH team—a group dedicated to maintaining the wells and teaching the people about sanitation and hygiene. They even learned how they could make money from the pumps to fund other initiatives in the community.
There’s so much to praise God for in this story! But there’s more!
BGR measures success by when a community no longer needs people like BGR for help. When they can live—and thrive—on their own. And when they can pour their blessings into others. In the case of this village, clean water was a gift to be shared.
When BGR teams returned a year later, the village had done such a good job maintaining the wells that they’d saved enough money to help two other villages fund wells of their own. Now, that’s worth celebrating!
When you donate to clean water projects or help fund a well as part of the Well Dig Dare, one well could become three. One community transformed could become ten. There’s no limit to what God can accomplish through your gift. Give to the Well Dig Dare today and see how God can use your gift!