Last year, Water Mission launched a new, independent nonprofit, the Global Water Center. The Global Water Center’s purpose is to end the global water crisis by convening, training, and resourcing organizations and governments around global strategies and standards for safe water projects. 

In its first year, the Global Water Center deployed the Mobile Discovery Center to raise awareness and create advocates in cities around the United States through immersive, interactive activities. The traveling exhibit made 10 stops across the country, opening its doors to visitors in eight states within its first six months. 

The Global Water Center also launched a virtual learning platform this year to share best practices on a global scale with other safe water implementors.  

Finally, the Global Water Center began moving forward with developing a remote monitoring platform to serve the entire safe water, sanitation, and hygiene sector. Once completed, this platform will support accountability by allowing real-time remote access to safe water production.

Many partners enabled these successes, including Kohler, OxyChem, The Rockstad Foundation, and Seacoast Church. Water Mission was honored to support our collective mission by collaborating on events, marketing, and visuals. This year, we transferred all remaining restricted contributions for the Global Water Center to manage independently. This important step is noted in our 2021 Financials.

To learn more about the Global Water Center, please visit globalwatercenter.org. 

Give today

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Major League Baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals pitcher and Water Mission partner, Adam Wainwright, was honored last December with the 2020 Roberto Clemente Award, the league’s top honor for philanthropy. Since 2013, Adam and his wife, Jenny, have touched hundreds of thousands of lives in Africa and Latin America through the gift of safe water.  

A true honor for Adam Wainwright. pic.twitter.com/sWGGsu0fzY

— MLB (@MLB) December 7, 2020

Inspired by Adam and Jenny’s heart for serving our global neighbors, their friends and family are honoring them by investing in a Water Mission safe water project in Haiti. The following video played on the St. Louis stadium’s scoreboard at the start of Friday’s game as a surprise to Adam and Jenny. This tribute will bring life-saving water to thousands of men, women, and children. 

 “As a baseball player, I’ve been given a lot,” Adam said. “I look around the world, and I know there are people that need help—things they need to survive. That is what we like to cater to in our charity work.” 

On September 10, Adam and Jenny were honored at the onset of the St. Louis Cardinals game as the tribute video announcing the safe water project played on the stadium scoreboard. A well-deserved surprise for the Wainwright family, as they learned how family and friends came together to support making this project a reality. Thank you from all of us here at Water Mission for bringing lifesaving water to families in Haiti!

Give Safe Water Now

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Prior to 2015, Western Tanzania’s Nyarugusu refugee camp was home to approximately 65,000 refugees from Democratic Republic of the Congo. The original water systems, installed decades prior, only offered intermittent access to treated water. Then, between the spring and fall of 2015, more than 100,000 refugees arrived after escaping violence in Burundi. This influx put an incredible strain on the aging infrastructure, and safe water was the greatest need.

A humanitarian nightmare unfolded, prompting Water Mission to deploy 10 emergency water treatment systems in September 2015. These systems met the daily safe water needs of an estimated 50,000 refugees.

A year into the emergency relief operation, we received a grant from the Grundfos Foundation to install solar-powered pumping solutions to serve the entire camp. Today, these provide safe water to every man, woman, and child at the camp.

In March 2021, six years after this groundbreaking relief effort, some of the original equipment returned to Water Mission’s headquarters. During our annual Strategic Partners Event, we returned this best-in-class equipment to our partners.

This equipment served tens of thousands of people every day for years in Western Tanzania. It was part of a project that involved sourcing raw, highly contaminated water from the Kaga River, treating the water, and distributing it throughout Nyarugusu refugee camp.

Thanks to our faithful partners, lifegiving safe water continues to flow for hundreds of thousands of refugees in Western Tanzania. We thank these corporate partners for their dedication to quality. They allowed us to respond with safe water solutions in one of the most challenging environments in the world.

GIVE SAFE WATER

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By providing safe water solutions and the opportunity to experience God’s love, we impact lives for decades to come. An essential piece to long-term success is empowering communities to take ownership of their safe water solutions.

One such community is Hicaque Número Uno in Honduras. In 2001, we installed a Living Water Treatment System, which continues to produce 500 liters of safe water every day. Residents have meticulously cared for the system for 20 years. Because of the dedicated system operator and local cooperative that manages the project, safe water flows in Hicaque today just as it did in 2001.

This safe water is essential to the community’s health and economic prosperity. The community’s farmers visit the water distribution point each morning before work, collecting safe water to sustain them through the workday. The treated water keeps farmers—as well as their families throughout Hicaque—hydrated, healthy, and free from water-related illnesses.

For 20 years, Water Mission has aimed to honor God by developing best-in-class safe water solutions that transform lives—and withstand the test of time. We know that the difference between a temporary fix and a resilient, sustainable solution can be truly life-changing for our global neighbors.

GIVE SAFE WATER

The post Serving Safe Water for Two Decades appeared first on Water Mission.

Hurricane Joaquin – a category five storm – caused massive devastation throughout the state of South Carolina in the beginning of October. Hardest hit was the city of Columbia, the state’s capital, just 90 miles north of Water Missions International’s headquarters in North Charleston. Although the hurricane did not make landfall on the east coast, its torrential rains and powerful winds caused catastrophic flooding, damaged roads, ruptured dams and displaced thousands of residents. Coined the “1,000-year flood” in South Carolina, the destructive force of the flood necessitated an immediate citywide boil water advisory for its residents when the city’s water supply became compromised. Faced with an overwhelming safe water shortage, the City of Columbia looked for help.

Andy Fairey, a board member at Water Missions International and COO for Charleston Water System, contacted Water Missions once the need for a response in Columbia was evident. Water Missions immediately began working to deploy two Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems, one of which was donated by Parker Hannifin. Five staff members from Water Missions’ headquarters traveled to Columbia just 24 hours after the receiving the request. They worked throughout the night to install the RO system, which uses water pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane filter to remove contaminants. Each system is capable of providing tens of thousands of gallons of safe water per day.

Water Missions worked in partnership with the City of Columbia and the Department of Environmental Control (DHEC) to treat drinking water for residents of Columbia. The team also received utility support from Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Spartanburg and Buford/Jasper to install 28 distribution tanks at 10 different locations around Columbia, providing safe drinking water to the people affected by the floods.

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Jennifer Lawson and her husband Doug are currently serving with Water Missions in Uganda. Jennifer is a mother to two young boys and was kind enough to be a guest writer for us this week as we celebrate mothers around the world for Mother’s Day. 

Not long ago, our family became a part of the wonderful team at Water Missions International. Our hearts were full and ready for the adventure of a lifetime: one water engineer, one registered nurse and full time mom, and two wild and crazy boys. As I reflect back on all God laid out in preparation, I am reminded again of how richly blessed I am to be the wife and mother of this amazing unit.

Motherhood in America was challenging enough, but then God called me to take it even further by mothering in a third world country. Three years ago, when we started this journey, God was working in our lives in so many ways, most of them unknown to us. We serve a God who sees the big picture. My mission as a mom had not really changed much since moving to Uganda; God called me to raise two energetic boys and teach them to love Him first. If anything, my mission has actually grown as God has added more people in my life who look to me as “mom”. As I write this blog, I have four girls living in our compound, about 20 ladies in my Bible study class, and three workers that call me Mommy or Auntie.

Before we left for Uganda, I remember our pastor doing a Bible study and he asked us to memorize a verse of scripture: Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” My first-born Wyatt memorized this verse along with me and recited it to the church the following week. I don’t tell you this because it was a proud Mommy moment, although it was, but to explain that I could not comprehend at the time how much that verse would mean to me throughout this journey. God has truly done immeasurably more in the last two years than I could have imagined. He has taught, and is still teaching me to love as only He can love. When I say that while living in a developing country most people think I mean learning to love all the new people God has put before us. While that is very true, most of my learning is in how to adequately love my husband and kids the way God wants me to during this season.

Day to day life for this mama on mission can be great, and sometimes it can keep me on my knees. There have been incredible challenges and changes but right alongside those come countless blessings. I have had to adapt to living on a compound. Our yard is surrounded by tall walls or fencing and has a big gate that is maintained by guards 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These guys and their families are great and have quickly become a part of our family, but it has been something to get used too. Shopping is always an adventure here. I go to a central market for all of my vegetables and to the supermarket in search of other items on the list. There is no easy cooking and for the most part things here simply take time. I have learned to make lots from scratch and we have all tried tons of new and interesting things: fried grasshoppers anyone?

I had the privilege of starting a ladies Bible study in the village of Mutai. Their day to day circumstances are very different than what I am use to and they have very different strongholds, but God has grown me while trying to speak truth to them during this time. I also teach ballet to roughly 23 girls each week. I was never a ballet teacher in the states, but I did take ballet for quite some time while growing up. In the eyes of these sweet little girls who just want to twirl, learn the basics, and have fun, I am more than qualified! God has given me this time to love on these girls, which is nice considering I am the only girl at my own house! I love the fact that God has not just stretched me as a mom to my own kids but stretched me to love as a mom to so many others as well.

No matter where God puts us as moms, we have the privilege of striving to be not just a mom on a mission for our own families, but also a mom with a mission for God’s family, however that may look. Being a wife and a mom in a different country has been the most trying year and a half thus far, but it has also been the most rewarding. I would not trade being a mom for anything in this world (your side or mine), as it is one of the highest callings from God for my life. Being a mom in Uganda has stretched and grown me immeasurable more, and for that I am so grateful! There is Hope no matter where we are today as moms, He is Jesus and He is able! To God be the Glory Forever for this blessing He has put before me.

– Jennifer Lawson

The post From America to Uganda: a Mother’s Story of Immeasurably More appeared first on Water Mission.

Situated on the shores of Lake Albert, Dei lives off the lake water. Most community members are fishermen by trade, journeying out every day to cast their nets in the water in hopes of hauling in a catch big enough to feed families and maybe put some extra money on the table. But the same water they relied upon to keep them alive was also killing them.

Cholera broke out several years ago. This waterborne illness spread rapidly, and the 10,000 people of Dei lacked safe water.

“A health center was constructed just because of the outbreak of cholera,” a man from Dei explained. “In 2005, 82 people died [from cholera]. In 2006, 104 people died. Last year alone we treated over 200 people who were sick with cholera. The government could only provide us with powdered chlorine.”

The powered chlorine wasn’t able to meet the need for safe water or quell the rising cases of cholera. Desperate for help, the people of Dei requested help from Water Missions International. Thanks to funding from UNICEF, Grundfos, and Northwoods Church, Water Missions International worked with the community to develop a customized safe water solution tailored to meet their needs.

The project in Dei is innovative in that it implements our TradeWater business model. Water Missions International technicians and community members constructed a water treatment and tap stand system that could reach the entire community. Lake water is pumped to a treatment house where it is filtered by four Living Water Treatment Systems. The now safe water then travels through pipes to a tap stand at the community school and health clinic. However, these are only two of the locations served by this project. The water is also piped to a water distribution store at the community’s business center as well as six small water kiosks. This widespread distribution means that 50% of the population lives within 200ft of either a kiosk or the business center, where they can purchase safe water for a small fee.

“Since this project was brought here, we have never even had a single case of cholera, not a single case,” one community member rejoiced. “The time was right that Water Missions should bring this water here. Since Water Missions installed this project, people have started to know what life is all about. They’ve started knowing the meaning of life.”

Remote monitoring data has shown that since the project’s commissioning, roughly 60% of the population now purchases safe water daily. Water Missions International hopes to see this number grow as our staff continues to work with this community. The difference that safe water has made for Dei’s cholera outbreak has taught community members the importance of safe water, but more importantly, it has given them a new chance for better life.

The post A New Look On Life appeared first on Water Mission.

Miss your chance to get involved today? That’s ok! You can do this any day of the week, or join us next Thursday. Get creative and then be sure to share your story with us on Facebook and Twitter!

For more information, visit http://www.watermissions.org/thirstythursday to learn more about the global water crisis, decorating your bucket, and how you can tell the stories of millions in need of safe water.

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Turning 50 was a “watershed” experience for me. Forgive the obvious pun Water Missions friends, but it was. I know they say that 50 is the “new 30,” and I certainly posted that pithy phrase on my Facebook page, but I still felt a certain pull at my own mortality. It was a good kind of pang, not depression, but rather an exhilaration. Gary and I (married 33 years) have raised two healthy daughters, now busy  professionals. I have written 29 books and achieved tenure at the university. Some of you may hear my “Prayerful Parenting” messages on Christian radio. Clearly, life both personally and professionally has been fruitful.

Yet, four years ago, upon turning 50, I felt the Lord’s leading to use my talents for talking, writing, and encouraging, for that is truly what a professor and consultant does, for His glory and to create something of substance. I had always been involved in charity and service, especially to projects that involve women and children, but this involvement, though consistent, was not focused. I knew one thing clearly: I was to find my “signature charity”. I looked around and, the more I looked, the more signs were given that Water Missions International was to be Dr. Linda Karges-Bone’s “signature charity”.

What signs? Some were literal. I kept seeing posters, mailings, Facebook postings for Water Missions International. It was like they were everywhere. Who knows? I am just telling you that I saw signs.

Then, there was “The Walk”. I walk every day with my rescue dog Ellie. I love to walk, finding it invigorating and reflective. For me, the annual “Walk for Water” speaks of taking action as a community of believers. It makes a public statement. And it offered an opportunity to involve my students at Charleston Southern University. We could all walk together. It made sense.

So, four years ago, I decided to make a gift to the “Walk” in order to start my team off right. I would make it a good gift, bringing to life my decision to start my 50’s with a strong statement about what I valued…..life, hope, and compassion.

I realized, as my husband and I talked, that his company, General Electric, offered a “matching gift” feature through its Foundation. Our gift could double with a few strokes of the keyboard. Again, another sign for me. Water Missions was one of the featured charities that qualified for this matching gift.

It was on. With our gift and the GE match, the number made me happy and when I am happy, I talk. So, I talked to my friends, students, family members, and social network community. I took the number that our gift with the match totaled and decided to double it as a goal. I was affirmed, as I spoke to groups and individuals about the goal and the work of Water Missions that that 1) people want something to believe in and 2) water is something so fundamental, so symbolic of hope, that everyone wants to be involved. I simply talked about the numbers and the need: 1 billion people without clean drinking water; over one third of the world’s population lacking sanitation; and thousands of deaths each day attributed to water borne illnesses.

And, as a teacher of teachers and an advocate for women and children, I shared the back story of the global water crisis with this logic model:

For my future teachers, most of them girls and my friends in the teaching and non-profit sectors, again many women, and their husbands, fathers, and friends, this became a critical rallying cry. Water helps women and women change family dynamics. Interestingly, a number of my friends who are not Christians have written generous checks or pressed $100 into my hand for the “Walk”. Other Christian organizations have “turned them off” over the years said one, but “This is different.” Clearly, the Spirit speaks when we cannot.

So, for three years in a row, I have been the most successful individual fundraiser for the Walk for Water. Over four years, I have helped to raise over $20,000 as best I can tell. It is not a million, but that is my goal. I want to help to raise a million dollars for Water Missions International, if not personally, then through social media, writing projects, grants, and public speaking.

In addition to fund-raising, I have become involved with Water Mission’s Educational arm, helping to train teachers to infuse curriculum about the global water crisis into their schools. My own students enrolled in the Children’s Literature course that I teach now share children’s books and accompanying lessons about poverty, water crisis, and social justice as part of their clinical teaching in high poverty schools. In a fascinating twist, one of these schools, Malcolm Hursey Elementary, with a high population of families living in poverty, became engaged with the work and raised over $1000. Children helping children. The poor reaching out to the destitute. Only God can speak to hearts that way.

You to can form your own fundraising team like Dr. Karges-Bone! Register for the 2014 Charleston Walk for Water by clicking here. We look forward to seeing you at Cannon Park on March 22nd!

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We wish you all a very merry Christmas!

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