By Caroline Anderson
March 22, 2011 is World Water Day. India is one of many countries around the world with water needs. In 1992, the UN General Assembly designated March 22 of each year as the World Day for Water.
No longer without clean water, a South Asian pastor stands by a newly built well. Members of a Sunday School from Flemings Baptist Church in Lenior, N.C. contributed the money to build the well.
INDIA – For a village in India, having clean water meant walking more than a mile round trip. For most Americans, having clean water simply means walking into the kitchen. One woman from North Carolina and her Sunday School class decided to shorten the walking distance for a village in India.
Katie Justice heard about the need for water in this village of 200 to 250 people after members of her church, Flemings Baptist Church, Lenior, N.C., took a mission trip to work with her nephew Cal Hardison.* Hardison and his wife Maggie work with national pastors in the area.
Justice learned from the mission trip debrief that the only usable well in the village had not been well maintained and the water was too dirty to drink. The United Nations (UN) estimates most villages in India do not have clean drinking water, with one in six people in the world denied access to clean, fresh water. The international organization has designated March 22 as World Water Day in an effort to draw attention to the dire needs for water in villages such as the Haridons’.
The Hardisons said women brought back as much water as they could carry in containers, often weighing as much as 41 pounds, while carrying their babies at the same time. This water provided for their families daily needs — drinking, cooking and cleaning. The UN suggests every person needs five to 13 gallons of water a day.
Justice and several friends from her Sunday School class decided to send $1,000 to build several wells in this village, to eliminate the mile-long walks.
“After church one Sunday night, we (Justice and her Sunday School class) were talking about the church budget not having a designated amount to send,” Justice said. “It seemed to us that we three, in fact, could be the ones to provide money for one or more wells.
“Providing wells was a way to put our desire to show the love of our Savior Jesus to those in need,” Justice said.
It also provided inroads for national pastors in the area to share the Gospel. One of the wells was built on the property of a national partner.
“It (the well) has created several opportunities for him and his wife to re-share the Gospel and to share more stories from the Bible as the people come to his house to pump water,” Maggie Hardison said.
Before, the national partner didn’t have much success in sharing the Gospel. Hardison said the well strengthened his credibility within the community.
“When he put in the well, many neighbors walked by and asked if they were going to be able to use it,” she said.
There are two hand-pump wells in the village, one located in a government-owned school and another personally owned. The government school would not allow usage during school hours. The man who owned the private well wouldn’t allow anyone outside of his family to use the pump. Villagers were also banned from using a well located on a mosque compound.
“He told them, yes, that it would be available to anyone in the community,“ Hardison said.
There are 10 known believers in the village, Hardison said. The majority of the village professes to be Hindu. Some of the villagers are Muslim.
“People understand that the Christians are willing to help anyone in the community despite religion or caste (class status),” Hardison said.
A second well will be dug soon for the community.
*Name changed
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