Living Water

It’s before dawn in a remote Ugandan village, and a young girl wakes. She picks up a jerry can and begins her two-mile walk to the nearest pond, where she will fill that jerry can with murky brown water. She’ll carry the now heavy container on the two-mile walk home, where her family will use the water to cook, wash, and drink. The water may make her and her parents sick. It could cause her little baby brother to contract intestinal worms or chronic diarrhea, or worse.

Tomorrow, she’ll wake up and do it all again. She may or may not go to school, depending on how often she needs to travel back to the pond to collect water, or whether or not the water she drank has made her too sick to attend.

It’s time to spill some hope into her life. It’s time to spill hope into a world where children just like her spend their days collecting water that can make them sick and take their lives.

Spilling Hope is an initiative of Bethany Community Church. It’s all about changing the way we live so we can support a better world for everyone. Beginning on Easter Sunday, April 24, you’re invited to join us for our 50-day campaign, during which we will live simply, learn about the water crisis, give generously, and change lives. What might you be able to change in your life in order to change the life—even save the life—of someone else?

In 2010, Spilling Hope funded 20 borehole wells in southwestern Uganda—adding to the 13 wells funded in 2009. For thousands, Spilling Hope means education, and health, and livelihoods, and an end to the miles and miles of walking in the African heat for dirty water.

Simplify. Learn. Give. Spill Hope into the world and help provide clean water and empower churches in East Africa. Are you up to the challenge? Please visit www.spillinghope.org for information, including videos, daily blog entries, and more.