Project Report Submitted to: Bethany Community Church
People Served: 850
Project Report Submitted by: Living Water International

General Information
The spirit of the people in this community was amazing. The people were so grateful and inviting to the team. Even with the delay and problems with the first borehole, the community stayed positive through it all. They helped the drill team with food and materials. Most people in this community earn a living through fishing and farming.

Their previous water source was from a spring about 1.5 kilometers away. Most of the sickness that they would get from this spring were: cholera, malaria and typhoid. When the well was complete, the community established a water committee and a point person to be the caretaker of the well. Testimony from community member: Pastor Edward spoke with the team about water for his community. “Thank you so much. The community is so happy what you have brought. We are looking forward to meeting the donors in January and dedicating this well in Jesus’ name”.

Testimony
The community members were so lovely and lively, kind and receptive. The team was welcomed warmly by Pr. Edward and some few community members. The team did the chronological Bible stories that are the creation of the Spirit world, the creation of the world and the first sin and judgment. The people liked the stories and they were very interactive, asked questions, and when I asked them about the six attributes of God they discussed them well. After the stories, I went to be with the pastoral team and did training in discipleship. They asked questions out of the lessons we did and general questions and was able to answer them from the Bible and the Pastor too helped in answering some of these questions. The pastor was really good he helped pretty well in telling these stories. At lunch break I went to play with kids and after, I told those two stories that are the creation of the Spirit world and the creation of world. I asked if some kids can tell the stories and some tried though not very well. And after telling stories, I gave all of them the wonder book which has illustrated stories for kids. They loved these books and the following day brought me mangoes to eat.

After the stories, I went out with the pastoral team and did our training. And again we practiced the chronological Bible stories and it was good. This day there were no kids to share with because it was world AIDS day and kids went to celebrate this day out of school. On Wednesday 2nd/12/2009 the team shared the last two stories which are the prophecies and birth of Jesus Christ and His death, resurrection and ascension to heaven. After the stories, I shared the offer of salvation. After the training they said this training was good and asked me if can come back and train more members from the neighboring churches, if I can extend this training to the youth and the children in schools.

Hygiene Teaching
This was BEST community ever! As a team we had a lot of fun with the community members, they were receptive. I will begin by highlighting some things about this community that made them outstanding.
Cultural Practices: While teaching about “CLEAN TEETH” they told me that in their culture, when someone had a toothache they had him/her drink his/her urine to relieve the pain. This was gross and I had to look for a better/kind way to address this issue without offending anyone. Thank God we talked about it together and we had a great time trying to see the dangers of doing that and just the fact that it was wrong! It was a sensitive thing to address but they were openminded about it. Finally, they said that they were going to let their community know that what they were doing was wrong.
Sexual abuse: The high rate of HIVAIDS spread was perturbing! What surprised me was when the community members told us that girls were raped from the wells as they went to fetch water and a lot of sexual abuses were taking place in the water sources encouraging the spread of AIDS. It was a pity to see the number of women who went to have their HIV status checked on World AIDs day. The statistics were high as we talked to some medical doctors after training. Some of the common diseases that were imminent here included the following: malaria, bilharzia, measles and AIDS. The health issues included the following: the community members used what they called “flying toilets” and this is so common in other places especially in slums. They threw their feaces in the lake. It was killing hundreds of children because they played, swam and bathed in the water sources, In some areas in the community, people did not have latrines at all and they preferred defecating in the bushes. At the primary school where we trained from (Buzaama Primary School), the school children urinated and defecated behind the latrines (instead of using the latrines). This was a result of using flying toilets right from their home hence they did not know/understand the value of a latrine. The community members confessed that they NEVER boiled their water despite the threat of bilharzia, cholera and typhoid. They related this to poverty and the high prices of charcoal. They said that the money they had was enough to get charcoal for a meal and not to boil water. I challenged them by asking them if in their poverty when their children fell sick whether they took them to the hospital and paid some money and the answer was a loud YES! I told them that it was cheaper to boil water than spend money in the health centre’s for treatment which was going to cost them more. We were able
to cover all our lessons successfully and to have the class divided in two groups to practice some of the topics we picked out. We had a class of 15 members and we had two more join us in the second and last day of our training. The lessons taught included the following: community mapping, health/unhealthy community, hand washing, germs, introductioon to disease transmission/blocking, diarrhea doll, ORS, keeping water clean, wordless book, good/bad hygiene, three legged stool-growing strong bodies, three legged stool-growing strong in the Lord, Mr. Bubba learns a better way to feed his family, clean hands clean hearts, clean teeth, worms and parasites. We gave out 3-community kits, 17-thank you bags and 20-ORS spoons. As a team, we were able to meet for devotions and prayers and we covered Acts chapter 8 & 9. The Lord is good and His mercies endure forever! We are grateful for yet another opportunity to serve in this community. Many thanks go to all the people who gave to see to it that these amazing people get water. The community members appreciated so much and their prayers are with you!