www.livingwatersfortheworld.org

The Living Waters for the World Project

Where did you get your water today? 

Did you make your coffee with water from your faucet this morning? Did you go to 7-11 and buy bottled water, drink from a drinking fountain at the office or school, go out to eat and ask for a glass of water at the restaurant? In Mexico, and many places around the world, they drink Coke- because it’s cheaper and safer than water.

Early last spring, Nancy Coffer and John & Pat Jennings attended a dinner for Kenya/Upendo Kids and listened to a presentation on Living Waters for the World and Solar Under the Sun. PAMMF had been searching for their next “project”. God had not shown them anything in a long while. The clinic has medical and dental care and a church and a pastor across the street. We believe God wanted us to wait until we were fed a nice dinner and could sit and listen to the presentation. Living Waters was the project.

Immediately, we found our team.  Mike Laska, Lonny Wall, Nancy Coffer, John and Pat Jennings went to Mississippi in March and were trained at Clean Water U. Training included how to build a system and educate the people on how to use it and what it means to have clean water. While being trained we prayed over where our first installation should be. Of course, the first place we thought of was the clinic in San Cosme but that was not to be. Another site was presented to us. We were sure this was where God wanted us to go.

On July 4, 2011 John, and Pat Jennings and Dale DePue went down and checked out Ministerio de Vida, Iglesia Presbiteriana Reformada de Mexico, a mission church in the barrios of Cancun. This is just one of hundreds of areas in Cancun where people have moved in from the countryside for a “better life”.

Pastor Jacobo and Omega Caamal are the pastor and teachers of this mission church. With the help of Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Mequon, WI in the last eight years, they have moved from a thatched/metal roof building to a concrete block building where they worship, tutor, teach English classes, have computer classes and a place for the children in the neighborhood to come and stay and play and be safe while their parents are working. With the help of Crossroads they drilled a well a couple years ago but the water is not potable and the electricity in the community is “borrowed”. Once the building for the water system is finished they will have “legal” electricity.

The Living Waters Yucatan Network is one of the most highly developed of the Living Waters networks, containing over 40 Clean Water Systems, most of them in Presbyterian Churches in the Synod of the Peninsula. In fact, the Synod of Living Waters of the PCUSA had a covenant agreement with the Synod of the Peninsula of the Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de Mexico, INPM.

Our group came back from Cancun and started getting our ducks in a row, so-to-speak. We connected with Crossroads and the Living Waters coordinator in the Yucatan Peninsula and we have been moving forward. This coming January Crossroads will be taking a group down and maybe some from our church to build the building to house the water system and First Presbyterian will follow later in the spring or early summer to walk alongside the people of the mission church and help install the water system.

In this process trouble began to brew with the Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de Mexico, INPM and PCUSA. They were breaking all ties with PCUSA. All missions were ending all over Mexico, not just with Living Waters.

However, good news does arrive at the last minute! By the end of September, we received an email from the coordinator of Living Waters for the Yucatan Network and they had met with the directiva of the Synod of the Peninsula. To God’s glory and Living Waters’ surprise, the Synod had already devised a plan to form a non-profit association in Mexico. They will not know for certain (until late October) when the synod meets but Living Waters has given us the go-ahead to resume all plans. Our prayers have been answered.

Mateen spoke directly to this a couple Sundays ago:

1. Hang around where Jesus is found. Our team is hanging around with people of the church who are very excited about the project. We are also hanging around, through email and telephone calls with the members of Crossroads Pres Church and Jacobo and Omega Caamal in Cancun and Living Waters.

2. Obey what you already know is the right way to live. Clean water is the Living Water of Christ. This will give a whole community clean, sanitary water and more importantly, good health.

3. Confess your unbelief. Our group has prayed over this and we have had many concerns. Satan has put a lot of roadblocks and doubts in our way. Through prayer and faith God has been making pathway for us.

4. Most important: Embrace your calling. We feel Jesus has called our church to this ministry. This is the first step in a clean water ministry. Many other opportunities will follow. We can see installations in Kenya, Uganda, even more in the Yucatan, and even the United States.

Here are some statistics:

99% of the earth’s water is either salty or frozen. And 90% of the remaining 1% is used by agriculture and industry, leaving only 1/10 of 1 percent of the entire world’s water as available fresh water. And almost all of that has become contaminated by chemicals or human and animal wastes.

While people are worried about their drinking water, paying $3.50 or more in Mexico for a five gallon bottle, their children are sick from contaminated water. They don’t eat properly and their education suffers. These people make only $5.00 a day, if they make anything.

In the time that you have been reading this over 300 people, mostly children, will have died from preventable water-borne diseases. But think about the tens of millions of people who live, but live in constant poor health due to dirty water. Men and women who live in pain, far below their productive capacity and children who will never reach their God-given potential due to the terrible toll that chronic illness takes upon their developing bodies and brains.

We are asking our congregation to “Buy a Part” of the installation in October 2011. The costs range from 55 cents for a valve up to $4300 for a water softener. This will even allow the children to be a part of the mission by buying a 55 cent part. We have $2,000 already from one donor.

Our prayers are to have the money raised by December 31st then our partners, Crossroads Pres Church and Jacobo and Omega, will know that First Presbyterian Church of Edmond is fully on board and we are committed and embracing this mission. Once it is installed we invite you all to come to the dedication of our first installation. It is also our prayer that this congregation will feel called to become engaged in this ministry of clean water called Living Waters for the World.

Nancy Coffer, Lonny Wall, Mike Laska and Pat Jennings will be in Cancun Oct 14-17 meeting with the Caamals and Doug Depies, a representative of Crossroads, to sign a covenant between the three partners, Ministerio de Vida, Crossroads Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church.

The most important thing you can do for us, though, is to provide prayer support for this mission. Please pray especially for the children and elderly whose lives depend on being relieved from the dangers of germ-infested water that runs through the communities where they live.

If you have any questions about Living Waters for the World please don’t hesitate to ask Mike Laska, Lonny Wall, John and Pat Jennings.

Please watch for updates on this project.

Dios te Bendigo! (Blessings) from the First Pres. Church, LWW Team