End of Year Giving

THE GIFT OF WATER

It keeps our Christmas trees green, boils sweet potatoes for the casseroles, and it makes chocolate into a delicious hot drink.  We turn the faucet, and there it is. Clean and fresh. Instantaneous. But many are not so blessed.

More than 1 in 10 of our global neighbors lack ready access to clean water.  For them, getting water means carrying 5 gallons at a time, bucket perched on their head, for miles, everyday.  That water is often not clean, but drawn from a source that carries disease and parasites. It is mostly the women and girls doing the lifting and carrying, taking them away from opportunities for school and work.   

Together, we can bring good tidings of great joy to some of these neighbors.  The Living Water Project works with local Christian ministry partners who help us place wells and water sources where they are needed most.  Those ministers bring the good news of Jesus to the same people receiving the good news of life-giving water. These projects are dug and built by local tradesmen, delivering water for, on average, $9 per person.  That modest amount can save a life from death, sickness, blindness, and disease, just by providing what we take for granted. Every penny of your donation goes to water projects because we are completely volunteer-run.  

This year, Living Water is working in more than a dozen countries in Africa and Central America.  We have plenty of opportunities to put your gifts to work. Here’s how you can help -

  • Year-End Generosity.  Generously include Living Water in your giving this year.  We are a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, so your donations are tax deductible.

  • Monthly Giving.  Sign up to be a monthly donor.  We can facilitate an automatic gift that will share your generosity all year long.  This year, we set a goal of ending 2018 with 33 monthly donors. We currently have 19.  Help us meet our goal!

  • Give the Gift of Water.  Make a donation to Living Water to honor someone on your Christmas list. 

  • Corporate Gifts.  Talk to your business, employer, or church about making a gift to Living Water.  We have corporate partners who honor their commitment to mission, social justice, and honoring their people by sharing the gift of clean water.

  • Amazon Smile.  Designate Living Water as your charity of choice on Amazon Smile.  Here’s how.  Every dollar you spend on Amazon, when you shop through smile.amazon.com (same stuff, same prices as Amazon without the smile) results in a donation to the charity you designate.  

Your giving will change lives.  Please join us. We promise good stewardship of every gift.  


TLWP Partner Spotlight: Alfred Beyan & Liberia

When people ask us how the Living Water Project thrives by an all-volunteer model, the answer is simple: We have outstanding, dedicated local partners in every country where we’re active.  The newest of these partners is Alfred Beyan, who lives in Monrovia, Liberia.  After being introduced to Alfred through a common acquaintance in 2016, it immediately became clear that he is passionate about reaching the people of Liberia with not only clean water, but also serving various other ways and bringing the Gospel of Jesus.  

Alfred works with a team of evangelists who go all over Liberia, having to trudge through jungle-like terrain to reach some remote villages.  Since our partnership with him began in October 2017, Alfred has overseen the completion of five new LWP wells in villages where he and his team serve. This October he identified five more villages in dire need of clean water, and construction is already well underway on three of those wells. 

One of the initial five Liberia wells constructed in July 2018 was in the village of Wee Town.  These pictures show the dirty stream the community had been using for drinking, cooking and cleaning, and the newly completed well bringing forth clean water.  After returning from praying and dedicating this well to the village, Alfred remarked, “I give God the glory that this well is finished.  I actually shed tears when I saw the water they had been drinking, cooking and washing with.”

The Living Water Project is grateful for Alfred, and for his hard work and dedication to serve the people of Liberia in the name of Jesus.  When you think of the Living Water Project, remember Alfred and our other local partners  - the “hands and feet of Jesus” that make this work possible.

Written by TWLP Director of Operations, Jon Lee

Local children gather water from the only water source they had prior to the well.

Local children gather water from the only water source they had prior to the well.

Happy children rejoice in their new well. Partners like Alfred Beyan advocate for to TLWP for their communities in need of clean water.

Happy children rejoice in their new well. Partners like Alfred Beyan advocate for to TLWP for their communities in need of clean water.

Give the Gift of Clean Water this Giving Tuesday!

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70% of our earth is covered in it.

65% of our bodies are made of it.

Yet, more than 1 in 10 of our global neighbors don’t have reliable access to clean water.

This giving Tuesday, won’t you join Living Water in giving the gift of clean water?

For Americans, clean, fresh water is abundant. We pay the bill, turn the tap, and it pours out— about 100 gallons a day for those of us in the United States. But many other countries do not have such access. In many places, our neighbors are dipping water from sources that carry river blindness, giardia, guinea worm, and other parasites and diseases. They then carry that water, sometimes for miles, 5 gallons at a time. It’s no wonder that they live on only 3.5 gallons a day. (That’s how much Americans flush in one or two trips to the bathroom!)

The lack of clean water and accompanying poor sanitation hit our youngest neighbors the hardest. Every year, more than 700,000 children ages 5 and under die from preventable diseases caused by lack of clean water. It hits our female neighbors hardest of all, particularly in places where they’re responsible for collecting water for the entire family. Such a time-intensive daily task makes it hard for them to go to school.

The good news? Living Water can bring water to these neighbors. Our large network of ministry partners alerts us to places that lack this life-giving resource, so we know where the needs are. We have drilling and construction partners who employ crews in-country to dig the wells and build the projects. We also employ an efficient process that allows us to complete these projects affordably. On average, our projects bring clean water at a cost of $9 per person.

$9 keeps our neighbor from catching a crippling or blinding parasite from a stream. It keeps infants and toddlers from fatal diarrhea. It frees girls to attend school. It frees all individuals from worry over a daily need, elevating the life and culture of the community.

Living Water currently has opportunities to provide wells in more than a dozen countries in Africa and Central America, and others will surely arise—like last year’s typhoon relief in the Philippines. Will you partner with us financially to bring clean water to our global neighbors?

Please give generously. Our organization is all volunteer-run, so your gift goes directly to clean water projects—to the gift of life.

TLWP Annual Dinner 2018 Results!

WHAT A NIGHT!
Thanks to our generous donors, our recent annual dinner raised $60,000!  TLWP board wasted no time in committing those funds to clean water. This week, we approved wells in Liberia, Cameroon, and Chad (like the one below in Chagoua). We also approved a well maintenance program alongside our partners in the region. If you weren't able to attend the dinner, it's not too late to give! (Click here to donate). Your donations will be turned into clean water in the coming months. Thanks again for partnering with us!

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RSVP for TLWP Annual Dinner!

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The Living Water Project Annual Dinner is quickly approaching. 

Click here to RSVP TODAY

We can't wait to see you there!

We invite you to join us for the 3rd Annual Living Water Project fundraising dinner.  You will learn about the exciting work we do, people and ministries we partner with and serve, our all-volunteer-run model, and how you can be a part of our mission. 

This year's theme focuses on Nicauragua, where TLWP is partnering with local organizations in both new projects and well maintenance systems. Come enjoy some delicious, authentic Nicauraguan cuisine.

Dress: casual / business casual

Child care provided at no cost for families with children ages 10 and under (please sign up for this when you register).
 
As always, 100% of donations will go toward life-saving, community-transforming clean water projects.

Questions?  Contact Scott Schwieger at scott@thelivingwaterproject.us or 615-823-0919

Share this event on Facebook and Twitter

See you on September 13!

Cheers,

The Living Water Project Board

The Setzimaaj Water Project

This post was contributed by TWLP Board Member Kevin Colvett.

Over the past 15 years, The Living Water Project has undertaken a little over 400 water projects.  Along the way, we’ve made a few mistakes, had a few frustrations, and have learned an awful lot. Besides the obvious “we have a lot yet to learn”, there are several things we have learned that we believe are essential ingredients for making a successful water project for a community.  Those include:

  • A project must have the buy-in of the community – they must view it as “theirs”

  • A water committee must be in place, and if there are no women on that water committee, the project’s long-term viability is tenuous at best

  • A project must be well-designed

  • The community must agree to pay for ongoing maintenance of the water system

  • A ministry partner who has been or is committed to working in the area long-term is necessary

  • Without exception, miracles are needed

Over the past year, we have been working with Lipscomb University and a Guatemalan Engineering firm “ADICAY” (www.adicay.org) on the largest project we have undertaken to date – a water system in the village of Setzimaaj (pronounced “sets-ee-mah”), and it is so exciting that each of the essential elements listed above are a part of the project.  Lipscomb has been conducting medical missions to the area for the past three years, and water-related diseases have been a recurring theme for Setzimaaj and the surrounding villages, so it made sense to try and prevent, rather than simply treat, waterborne illnesses here.

In November of 2017, an engineering team as well as members from The Living Water Project made a surveying trip to the community, studying the water source (a pristine spring up in the mountainous jungle above the village), considering alternatives for locating a water storage tank above the village, and then laying out a preliminary alignment of waterlines to serve the 800 or so residents of the community, shown below:

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After consulting with ADICAY for a few months, Engineering students at Lipscomb’s Peugeot Center as well as Living Water Project Board members made some small modifications to the design and began soliciting funding for the project.  Some of our long-term partners (www.wellcoffeehouse.com, www.adventresults.com, and www.knoxprocorps.org) committed several thousand dollars each to the project.  It is a blessing from God to partner with so many entities like these.

In March of 2018, construction began on the project, comprising of a few people from ADICAY, a few from The Living Water Project, a few from Lipscomb, and a few hundred from the community.  In the span of just five days, almost three miles of pipe were installed.

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Lots of work still remains to be done.  The remaining piping (an additional couple of miles) is being installed.  Work on a large spring box and filtration system is now underway, with men from the village carrying hundreds of 100-pound bags of cement on their backs up the mountain.  Most importantly, ADICAY is conducting several weeks’ worth of training with the community on how to run a utility and how to maintain it. Some of this training is the nuts-and-bolts of how to repair pipes and spigots, and some of it is simply how to collect user fees and track finances.  All of the challenges, all of the hurdles, and all of the headaches present for running a utility for a city in the United States are present here too. As are the rewards and benefits and community development.

As is often the case, the “story” here isn’t what engineers are doing, or what ADICAY is doing, or even what the villagers in Setzimaaj are doing.  The story here is what God is doing. On the day before the construction team left in March, I was having a conversation with the project superintendent for ADICAY.  We were standing up on top of the tank overlooking the village, and I asked him, because I was curious of the perspective of a Christian Mayan, “Do you believe in miracles?”  It’s a question that has been on my mind a lot recently, but I wanted to know his response.

There is a distinct difference in worldviews between the indigenous culture found in the rural Guatemalan mountains and the suburban culture found in many parts of the United States, and this difference is one of the more challenging aspects of the work we do, and it’s also one of the more beautiful aspects of the work we do.  And while I thought I knew the answer to my “Do you believe in miracles” question, the way the affirmative reply was given caught me off guard. Instead of saying “yes”, he thought for a moment and then waved his hand back and forth in front of him, pointing at the village below and said “you mean miracles like this???”. And I looked down, from that water tank above the village, and saw the following things:

  • There were 50 villagers digging a trench on the east side of the villages, preparing to install new water piping;

  • There was a team of Lipscomb Engineering students carrying a bundle of about 20 pieces of pipe to be installed;

  • There were 40 villagers waiting in line to be seen by a dental team in the community;

  • There were 50 villagers waiting in line to be seen by a medical team in the community;

  • There were school children in their new uniforms who had just finished the school day playing soccer in the field in front of the school -all within a hundred feet of a new waterline that was going to serve the school kitchen and latrine;

  • There were villagers watching drinking water come out of the new water service line that had just been installed at their house.

So I simply replied to him – yes, miracles like this.  I believe in miracles like this.

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