Clean Water- a message from Vernon Brewer of World Help

Vernon Brewer, the founder and president of World Help, is in Guatemala right now and he talks here about the plight of families all over the world without something as basic as clean water. Imagine YOUR family, your children, walking 4 miles a day to get contaminated water. Hard to read but we need to KNOW so we can PRAY and ACT.


The Contaminated Snowball

The contaminated snowball begins in an unexpected place . . . the dry heat of sub- Saharan Africa. Two young brothers wander down a rugged path in Uganda. They are each carrying a yellow 5-gallon jug they call a “Jerry Can”. This is the normal path they walk everyday to get to the nearest water source. It is 2 miles from their home and the daily 4 mile round trip leaves no time to attend school. You see, when you are struggling just to survive, schooling is a luxury you can’t afford. As they reach the spot where they will fill their Jerry Cans, all that is visible is a muddy, stagnant pond. The surface is dark brown with green sludge around the edges. Animals such as goats and cows are cooling themselves off in the pond, leaving behind them a trail of filth and waste. These are the animals that their family will later eat. Garbage floats through the entire pond.Mosquitoes swarm the surface of the water, creating little black clouds. Their eggs that float on the surface ensure that these mosquitoes will always be here. The 2 brothers fill their Jerry Cans while the mosquitoes constantly bite. Close to 90% of the world’s Malaria deaths occur here in sub-Saharan Africa. This day in Africa alone, 2,800 children their age will die from Malaria causes by mosquitoes. After another grueling hike back home they bring in the water to their mother. She takes the Jerry Can and pours the water into different containers. One is for cooking the family’s dinner. The next is for bathing. The third is for washing the dirty dishes. The rest for washing clothes and wetting down the dirt floors to alleviate the dust. Now what started as a single source of contaminated water miles from where they live has snowballed into a parasitic and disease laden blanket covering the entire home. If one of the brothers becomes sick with Malaria, they will use rags soaked in this water to try and bring down his fever. He will drink it to try and stay cool. The snowball eventually ends in sickness, disease, and death.

When the Jerry Cans need rinsing, they will clean them at the same dirty water source. They will take dirt, mix it with water and grass, and then scrub down the can. And the snowball will start again.Although this snowball started here in Uganda, it begins as a single contaminated water source everyday for the estimated 1 billion people who are left with unclean water. Out of the 2 million unclean water deaths each year, 90% are children just like these 2 brothers. And this isn’t just a story, this is reality. I have seen it in Africa and in India and in Guatemala. But, it is a snowball that we can stop with the installation of a single clean water source per community. I believe that we can do it and we must do it.