Local & Global Water Issues
_We hope to bring together Michelle's passion to use water for restoring ones health with Nathan's passion to help people feed themselves or make a living feeding others. During the past couple of years we have been blessed to have developed friendships with families serving in parts of the world with serious water issues. Through prayer, research and support we hope to move forward in helping provide them with safe drinking water, adequate water resources and irrigation practices that can increase food supply for their communities. We are passionate about this because we believe that healthy food grown and sold within a community makes it stronger and more connected.
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2
Manuelito Project (Honduras)
In December 2012 our family traveled to Talanga, Honduras to visit our friends Justin and Ashley Guest who are from Bowling Green. Nathan helped to repair and install irrigation systems, plant a new garden and Michelle and the kids were able to spend lots of time with the children in the project. Our time in Honduras put new meaning to the blessed to be a blessing and we hope that you will consider blessing the project with your own gifts as well. While the project is very successful at helping street children overcome their past and prepare for their future there are always financial hardships in Honduras and the Manuelito project is not excluded. Here are a few ways that you can help.
Sponsor a Child
One night Pastor Jorge Pinto was visiting kids on the streets in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. With him was a visitor from the UK named Duncan. While ministering to some boys, they found a baby in a cardboard box. The baby's mother had left the him in the care of the young boys while she was off selling her body to support her drug addiction. This is not uncommon on the streets.
Today Duncan is a healthy little boy and resides at the ranch in Talanga where 30+ boys and girls live as part of the project. He has some special needs and needs some focussed care. His life is now full of love and his future is full of hope! |
Guests in Service
Justin and Ashley Guest are our friends from right here in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They are serving the Manuelito Project as parental figures to approximately 40 children taken off the streets of Honduras. Their main ministry is to show the love of Christ to the children and help them grow in their spiritual walks. However, it is also the Guest’s responsibility to help provide for the 40 children in regards to food and job skills that can be used once the children are of age to leave the project. Monthly contributions help allow Justin and Ashley to stay long term with the project. Consider what you can contribute monthly to allow the Guest's to stay at the Manuelito Project!
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The Coffee House-a Manuelito Business Project
Who doesn't enjoy a short time out with a cup of coffee and wifi access? A coffee house that also sells cakes, items made by the children and free wifi is the dream of Ashley Guest who is working one on one with her students at Manuelito to develop business skills they can use as adults. The coffee house will be located at the entrance to the project and provide a safe place students to do homework and for those in the community to come and enjoy a good cup of coffee, desserts and wifi. You can help support this project by contributing financially to making it a reality!
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Others from South Central, Kentucky living around the world...
Ben and Beth Kickert, Swaziland
_Our region (the Lubombo
lowveld) has been in drought since 1992. That obviously sets the stage
for a host of other issues. Most recently (as in the last couple
years), there has been a HUGE sugar cane expansion in our area. It has
been advertised as an income generating project for poor people in our
area, but the only people who really benefit are the already rich
company owners and people like Coca Cola who get cheap sugar. Sugar
cane requires massive amounts of water and even though they have put in a
huge dam and canal infrastructure, this is only multiplying the impact
of the drought. With the expansion of cane production and the already
bad drought (this has been a particularly bad year), I expect water
rights issue to be a major theme in the coming years.
Locally on the mission, we have plenty of our own water issues. We do have a water system in place that provides relatively safe and reliable water to the entire mission, but it has its own problems. The pumps break down, the tank stands are crumbling and even though we should have an abundant supply of water even with a power/pump failure, we are losing it within a few hours. We have about 6 hectares of land that we irrigate, but I am sure we are not very effective in it. ~Ben Kickert
Locally on the mission, we have plenty of our own water issues. We do have a water system in place that provides relatively safe and reliable water to the entire mission, but it has its own problems. The pumps break down, the tank stands are crumbling and even though we should have an abundant supply of water even with a power/pump failure, we are losing it within a few hours. We have about 6 hectares of land that we irrigate, but I am sure we are not very effective in it. ~Ben Kickert
Wesley & Kimberly Page, (Duyun, China)
_We appreciate your thinking of the development of the Thousand Hills
Farm project here in Duyun. Below are suggestions from our team leader,
Tim, regarding the water issues/needs on the farm.
Water issue needs:
"We have an average of about 52 inches of rainfall annually. We have built rain tanks on most of our buildings and will need to build more for the new cattle feed shed and the activity center. We have built a few small surface dams as well. Do you think we could get help with well-digging? Water purification systems? Using windmills to pump water? Building a ram pump? Teaching us and the neighboring village leaders about water safety? One of our dams has a hole somewhere above the site which drains our potential water away. We have been unable to find the fissure in the earth. Is there a way to stop our water loss? Can we get help in better protecting the nearby streams/watershed?"
Water issue needs:
"We have an average of about 52 inches of rainfall annually. We have built rain tanks on most of our buildings and will need to build more for the new cattle feed shed and the activity center. We have built a few small surface dams as well. Do you think we could get help with well-digging? Water purification systems? Using windmills to pump water? Building a ram pump? Teaching us and the neighboring village leaders about water safety? One of our dams has a hole somewhere above the site which drains our potential water away. We have been unable to find the fissure in the earth. Is there a way to stop our water loss? Can we get help in better protecting the nearby streams/watershed?"