Pressing Needs
Help Us Fund Our Well
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.
We have a huge problem in our area of Tanzania. Currently we have outgrown our little hand dug well and have inadequate water to both irrigate and support our ministry. We feed hundreds of meals a week and need more safe water. We are asking for your help. Due to our proximity to two volcanic mountains, Mt. Meru and the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro, the water we have, has incredibly high doses of fluoride. I know you are aware of the safe levels of fluoride added to water in many cities. Here, it has devastating effects both on our bones and teeth as well as our crops, when used in irrigation.
Our problems are exacerbated by the missed rains from our normal “light rainy season”. It just passed us by this year. The Maasai tribe in the area were here recently seeking help, stating cattle were dying by the sides of the road from thirst, emaciated from our current conditions in bad need of water.
Even when the rains come, our fluoride issues are debilitating. While one can visibly see the effects of fluoride on our teeth, what you can’t see is the devastation it has on our bones, organs and in causing cancer. It even damages our crops. The good news is that we had a survey done on our farm and found abundant deep water under our land. In fact it is like a river or lake. Over 100 METERS deep and two hundred METERS wide. That is astounding. While there is no guarantee that the water is fluoride free, typically, the shallow wells have high concentrations of fluoride here and the deep ones with river-like attributes like ours, are safe when accessed.
As you might imagine this is life changing for our area and our community. There is so much water we can change the lives, from a health standpoint of thousands in our area. The potential is stunning. We have contacted a local NGO that is also based in the US called World Serve. They drilled a well for us years ago in another location to great success. They have quoted us 20,000 USD to drill the borehole and then estimate 29,000 for the pump, electrical, solar and staging construction. Basically, 50,000 dollars.
We have received an $8,500 dollar donation already with another $1,500 promised. So we are well on our way! Please prayerfully consider donating to our well. We literally ran out of water twice in the last two days.
Meet Raheel, Gulnaz and Josiah
This family came to Tanzania due to persecution the resulted in their mother being arrested for leading Muslims to Jesus. They joined our ministry four years ago and have been a valuable addition to our work of making disciples. Raheel is particularly gifted in leading Muslims, Sikh and the Hindu to faith in Christ.
Every two years we must provide work visa’s, resident visa’s and now there is a new requirement. Whereas we could home school in the past, it is now required that children attend school either public or private. Since little Josiah speaks Urdu and English, he cannot attend a public school where all classes are in Swahili. We have immediate needs for visa’s and school for this family. Simply put, without compliance to the laws here, none of us can do the work of the Lord. In the case of this family, they would be forced to return to Pakistan and likely suffer persecution. Please consider helping this family and this little guy get into a local school to begin the first grade. Thank you for your prayerful support.