The Makazi Children Are Looking To Us

Just stop and think, whenever you or I want a glass of water, we go to the faucet or refrig and help ourselves. Or perhaps we grab a bottle of water or our favorite water bottle so we can drink on the go. And after we have all we want to drink, we use water to take a bath or shower, wash our hands, do laundry, run our dishwasher and flush our toilet.

You might be surprised to know that the average American uses 75-100 gallons of water a day! The average family of four uses 300-400 gallons – a day!

In Zimbabwe it’s much different. The average family of six uses 20 gallons! This entire amount has to be used for drinking, sanitation, washing clothes and personal hygiene.

So, imagine what life is like for a woman or young child in Zimbabwe. You wake in the morning and your job is to walk 45 – 90 minutes to the nearest watering hole to get water for your family. The walk to the water source isn’t too bad as your jerrycan or bucket is empty. You fill your five gallon container up with 40 pounds of water and begin the long trek home. Your neck is burning with pain by the time you return. And in the afternoon, you do it all over again. Day after day after day!

The tragedy is that, having spent so much time and effort in reaching a source of water, the water itself is dirty, polluted and a health hazard.

15 schools representing 7500 children, many of whom are orphans, are waiting for wells and clean drinking water in Zimbabwe. Let me tell you about one of these schools.

The school located the farthest from the MushayamundaChristian Development Foundation’s (MCDF) Christian Development Center is Makazi. I wrote about MCDF on this post. Pastor Solomon with MCDF travels to Makazi a couple times a month to teach Bible classes to around 500 children.

The short-term team from New Covenant visited the Makazi school a year ago. Although Makazi is just 20 miles away from MCDF’s home base, it takes 2 ½ to 3 hours by bus to get to the school. The school, once a British Settler’s home, sits on plateau in the middle of a huge valley.

Doug Forret, New Covenant short-term missions team leader, writes: “We could tell soon after we arrived that these kids hadn’t seen many white people. The smallest boy to the left in the picture is scared of me and his older brother is holding him so that he doesn’t run away. Once I turned the camera around and showed them their picture they decided I wasn’t so scary!”

The Makazi school doesn’t have a well, nor is there one even close by. The kids have to carry water from miles away and then lug it up the large hill to the school. 

This shouldn’t be! I want to provide a drilling rig for MCDF so that they can bring clean water and the message of Jesus Christ to thousands of children and to schools like the one in Makazi. The need is urgent. Together, we can make a difference.

I hope you will join me in giving generously to the Zimbabwe Drilling Rig Project. I will share more about this project and how you can give later this week. And don’t forget about the special Open House Celebration on Sunday, October 30 from 3:00-5:00! I hope to see your there.