LIBERIA – Imagine the life of a villager in remote Africa: living in a mud hut, working the fields each day, growing crops like rice and cassava. There’s no easy access to education or health care. One must travel long and dangerous distances, or simply manage without such necessities. But perhaps most troubling, these villagers live daily without access to safe, clean water.
For many people in the Kakata region of Liberia, the scenario above is all too real. In some cases, villagers survive on water from a swampy hole or a dirty creek. In other villages, the residents walk as far as 45 minutes during the dry season to fetch water from the next village—water that is still dangerous to drink. Waterborne diseases like cholera are sadly a part of everyday life. Yet in many ways these primarily Christian villagers are just like the rest of us. They work hard to provide for their families and pray for a better life.
A man from Noko’s Town, had this to say. “Since this village came to existence, safe drinking water has been a problem and our utmost important need. Our neighboring villages laugh at us during the dry season for going to their unsafe creek to fetch water…. We were often sick, our young children and elderly ones too, with diarrhea or running stomach.”
Liberia Water Wells Help Hundreds
Learning the needs in this remote area, Operation Blessing went to work digging brand new wells in five small villages in the Kakata region. The new wells will provide safe, easy to access water for over 2,000 people in Noko’s Town, Sao’s Town, Smith’s Town, Tumu’s Town, and Wallah’s Town.
OB Liberia also held dedication ceremonies for each of the five wells. During the ceremonies, ministers shared the love of Christ. In addition, each ceremony included important lessons on good health and hygiene practices, areas in which too many of the villagers were previously uneducated. The attendees showed much enthusiasm and thankfulness for these life-changing wells, and for those, like you, who made them possible.
A mother from Wallah’s Town summed up their feelings, saying, “Our struggle of walking twenty minutes to fetch water that will do harm to us and our children is over…. We are grateful for this new water source which now brings abundant relief… Thank God, thanks to the donors, and thanks to you, Operation Blessing International.’’
