Last updated on: August 25, 2022 at 10:57 am By GFA Staff Writer
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) – Discussing the great need for solutions like Jesus Wells to combat the water crisis that millions suffer under.
Every March through May, drought settled in Vimal’s area, exasperating their water crisis by drying up the small ponds and turning the fields to dust. No longer able to water their cattle in the little streams and ponds in the fields, Vimal and the other farmers of the village brought their livestock to join the women and children at the well, swelling the line waiting for water.
Bickering often broke out in these long lines because villagers were convinced their own needs were greatest. During the dry season, there was not enough water to go around, and villagers had to forgo bathing and limit cooking. The lack of access to clean water filled the village with tension and illness.
Several years ago, Vimal’s relative became sick because of the unsafe water coming from the well.
“[My relative] complained of stomach pain,” Vimal shares.
“He suffered for more than two months, and the problem started to grow even worse. After two months, he passed away because of stomach pain and, I believe … consuming unsafe water.”
Other families suffered loss too. A young boy around 5 years old developed severe diarrhea because of the contaminated water. Not having a hospital close by, the family had to wait until the next morning to see a doctor. The boy was too sick, and the doctors were not able to help him. He passed away.
These difficulties soaked into the fabric of the community, infusing it with a great sense of need.
The First Drops of Hope
Pastor Bharit
Pastor Bharit began ministering in Vimal’s village, praying for people and sharing God’s love. He knew the troubles of this community intimately because he grew up there. He brought comfort to deathbeds and encouragement to the weary.
Vimal became the first in his village to join Pastor Bharit in worship and prayer. As Vimal’s heart for the Lord grew, so did his burden for his community. He began asking God to provide good, clean drinking water for the village. As Pastor Bharit’s congregation grew, they joined Vimal in praying for abundant, safe water, trusting God to take care of them in their crisis.
As the congregation, which had grown to more than 100 people, began planning for the Jesus Well, they looked for the best place to put it. They wanted a good location that would be convenient to all the villagers, eliminating the several miles traveled each morning and evening to fetch water.
Vimal’s neighbor heard about the planned Jesus Well. Though not a member of Pastor Bharit’s congregation, he donated a portion of his land for the well. Being alongside the road in a central location, it was the perfect spot.
“Because of this Jesus Well we are helped so much,” Vimal says. “My family doesn’t have to walk a far distance … Now the time [spent] fetching water can be invested in any other work.”
The health of the community has improved tremendously. When the Jesus Well was first installed, the community had it tested, at the direction of the local authority, for safety. After testing the water in a lab, the report came back that the water was very pure and safe to drink.
Word spread to other villages about the pure water available from the Jesus Well, and people now travel several miles to get water from Vimal’s village. As Vimal sees the needs beyond his village, he has begun praying for more Jesus Wells for surrounding communities, so everyone can share in God’s blessings.
Last updated on: September 10, 2022 at 7:47 pm By GFA Staff Writer
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) Special Report #1 – Discussing the world’s quest for access to pure water that is safe to drink.
India: Success and Challenge
In recent decades, India has emerged as a global economic powerhouse. It is now the seventh-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product (GDP)[27] and at least the fourth largest in purchasing power parity.[1] Much of this success stems from the technology field, India’s fastest-growing sector. Information technology, process outsourcing and software services are among the country’s booming industries.
600 million Indians face high-to-extreme water stress.[6]
By 2020, 21 cities could completely run out of groundwater.[7]
By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the supply.[8]
The booming cities have borne a large portion of India’s water stress. Bangalore, known by some as India’s Silicon Valley, is a good example. The city’s needs were once met by wells that reached 300 feet deep. But now, 400 bore wells must go down as far as 1,500 feet to find water. How long will that suffice? No one knows.
In the countryside, the challenges are different but just as dire. Agriculture uses some 80 percent of India’s water.[9] When water is unavailable, the farmers feel it immediately. They can quickly lose their livelihoods.
Much of India is arid or semi-arid. Vast areas receive rain only sporadically from storms brought by the summer monsoons. Many people collect their water from surface sources, which are often contaminated. The daily trek to a local pond is a regular feature of life for many rural Indians. They may walk for hours just to obtain their day’s supply of water. That leaves little time to work productively or improve their lives.
For years, Gospel for Asia (GFA) has been helping to equip national workers to get wells installed in needy communities. They’re called Jesus Wells and are fitted with a plaque sharing Christ’s words to the Samaritan woman:
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13–14).
Israel: A Glimpse into the Future
While discussions of global water issues typically focus on the problems, it’s also helpful to consider the success stories. One of those is the tiny state of Israel.
After World War I, the territory of Palestine came under the control of the United Kingdom. As the British government was considering what to do with this important strip of land, its economists concluded that the area’s water resources could only support about 2 million people.[10] There were slightly more than 800,000 residents there at the time. But after the modern state of Israel was created in 1948, that number nearly doubled in just three years—and kept climbing.[11] Today, Israel is home to more than 8 million people,[12] with another 2.8 million in the West Bank[13] and 1.8 million in the Gaza Strip.[14]
Clearly, a drastic program was needed to meet the water demands of this booming population. Through the efforts of visionaries such as water engineer Simcha Blass, Israel not only met this challenge but became an exporter of water technology, water-intensive crops—and water itself. The story of that success can serve as a model and inspiration for other countries.
Israel points the way to a future free from water insecurity.
Simcha Blass, an Israeli visionary in the clean water field. Photo by Ybact on Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
Israel’s leaders realized that all those new immigrants would need to eat, so food production became an urgent priority. The Negev in the south of Israel was a vast dry desert where few people lived. But Simcha Blass was convinced there was water underground that could be accessed through deep drilling. He was right. That was the beginning of an agricultural boom in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments. Some people saw it as a fulfillment of the prophecy in the book of Isaiah: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom” (Isaiah 35:1 niv).
Blass also envisioned pipelines that would stretch from the water-rich north of Israel to the south where water was most needed. Through years of effort, his visions became reality.
Israel’s visionaries then turned their sights to the world’s most abundant water source—the oceans. The idea of processing seawater for drinking and agriculture has long been an elusive dream for people around the world. Israeli scientists experimented with several desalination techniques, most of which proved too costly to be practical. But with perseverance, Israel developed a system which, though still expensive, provides an important supplement to its other water sources. Israel now has several functioning desalination plants on its Mediterranean coast, which provide an astonishing 27 percent of the country’s water.[15] Most importantly, the desalination plants serve as a kind of insurance policy against severe droughts and other disruptions. The ocean, after all, is always there.
Drilling for water in Qumeran Valley, Israel Photo by Tamarah on Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 2.5
Reclaimed waste water is another promising source of water for agriculture that Israel has used effectively. The idea of reusing sewage is repulsive to most people, but when water is at a premium, as in Israel, it’s an option that can’t be ignored. The main concern with recycled waste water is that dangerous microbes or other contaminants might remain even after processing. That could endanger anyone exposed to it, as well as the crops treated with it and the groundwater under the crops. Israel addressed this risk with a process that resembles a giant version of the BioSand water filters described earlier.
Israel’s sewage treatment plants were located near some sand dunes, under which there was a known water aquifer. The water engineers began speculating: What if the treated waste water were released into the sand and allowed to percolate down into the groundwater? Would the sand act as an effective filter? It was a risky experiment, but worth trying. After more than a year, the results were in. Yes, the sand made the water clean, safe enough for agricultural use. Today, Israel reuses more than 85 percent of its sewage, which provides 21 percent of its water.[16]
Israel also pioneered the use of drip irrigation, which made it possible to grow abundant crops by using limited water supplies efficiently.
These innovations may seem out of reach for many developing countries. Their implementation would require concerted, long-term effort, and they can be expensive. But they show what is possible. These are things we know can be done—because they have been done. They point the way to a future free from pure water insecurity. And that’s something all people can aspire to.
Internally Displaced People fill containers with water at a tap inside the Dalori camp in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. Photo by Ashley Gilbertson VII Photo, UNICEF
The Big Picture
The world’s need for pure water has only accelerated with the inexorable growth in population, which could reach another 2 billion by 2050. And by then the demand for water could increase by 30 percent.[17]
The United Nations has appropriately designated March 22 as World Water Day to focus on the global need for pure water. Along with international bodies like the U.N. and the World Health Organization, countless nonprofits and NGOs are addressing the issue. Many of them focus on Africa, which has some of the most severe water problems. But Asia is in urgent need of help too, and even affluent countries are not immune from water emergencies.
Those who deal with the global pure water crisis recognize the critical need for funds to attack the problem. Usually, the people most in need don’t address their own problems because they simply can’t. They don’t have the resources. And they often don’t have the leisure time to think beyond their immediate survival. So outside funds are essential to solving the problem. But that’s not all that’s needed.
Relief organizations that drill wells in poor communities must also think about their long-term maintenance. When the local people haven’t been taught how to care for the wells, over time those wells become useless. In a 2009 report, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) noted that 50,000 such wells in rural Africa had become nonfunctional. The reason was distressingly clear: “The root cause is the water community’s failure to plan for maintenance of the infrastructure in a systematic way …”[18]
Outside organizations came in, installed wells with the best of intentions, and then left. But their work did not endure.
Gospel for Asia (GFA) knows of the pitfalls that beset many relief efforts. To ensure their work will be sustainable while keeping costs low, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers employ local people to drill Jesus Wells, and they train local people to maintain the wells. In addition, Jesus Wells are constructed with local components, making them much less expensive than those brought in from outside. Buying materials in bulk saves even more money. Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers can install a complete well for 1,400 USD. By drilling deep, they can reach water that may have been inaccessible before. Villagers can be assured of pure water even through the dry seasons.
Jesus Wells are conveniently located for community access, and the water is always freely available to anyone, regardless of religion, class or background. Each Jesus Well serves an average of 300 people, and the wells are built to last for decades.
Along with providing pure water, Jesus Wells strengthen the local economy and inspire a healthy pride of ownership.
In 2017, Gospel for Asia (GFA) helped install more than 4,600 Jesus Wells in Asian communities. But that’s just a start. With the generous support of donors throughout the world, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers will continue to help address the global water crisis—one community at a time.
Six Steps to Pure Water Security
The world’s water problems can seem overwhelming. Some of the solutions are complex, difficult and expensive. But others are simple, easy and cheap. Here’s a short list of things that can make a difference—starting with the easiest and ending with the ones that still await as promises for the future.
Provide BioSand water filters.
Just one of these portable, inexpensive items can literally save an entire family from a life of sickness and hardship. To deprive vulnerable people of this simple solution would be tragic.
Drill deep wells.
Not every well will endure through droughts and overuse, but here’s the key to long-term success: Don’t stop when you hit water! Keep drilling. Deep wells will ensure the water keeps flowing through the dry times.
Train local people to maintain the wells.
What good is a well that’s broken or contaminated? Remember 50,000 wells in Africa alone are sitting unused because of inadequate maintenance. It’s not enough to provide the well. Instilling the knowledge to maintain it over the years is also essential.
Launch water-reclamation programs.
Sewage may be unpleasant, but it’s also a valuable resource. Properly treated, reclaimed water can revolutionize agriculture almost anywhere in the world.
Develop national water policies.
Water is a community resource. It can’t be managed effectively with scattered, isolated efforts. Most national governments are grappling with this reality. Some are responding with effective programs. That must happen on a wider scale.
Pursue desalination.
It’s expensive now. But so are sickness, poverty and death. The ocean is the one water source that will never be depleted. This is a promising avenue for the future.
Dying of Thirst: The Global Water Crisis – The Crucial Quest for Access to Clean Water: Part 1 | Part 2
This Special Report article originally appeared on gfa.org.
[15] Siegel, Seth M. Let There Be Water, p 252. 2015 Thomas Dunne Books.
[16] Siegel, Seth M. Let There Be Water, p 252. 2015 Thomas Dunne Books.
[17]The United Nations world water development report 2018: nature-based solutions for water; facts and figure, p. 2. UNESCO Digital Library. 2018.
[18] Skinner, Jamie. Where every drop counts: tackling rural Africa’s water crisis. International Institute for Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/17055IIED. March 2009. Accessed December 27, 2018.
Last updated on: August 25, 2022 at 11:47 am By GFA Staff Writer
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) Special Report Part 2– Discussing the global water crisis and the quest for access to clean water.
A mother cares for her son who is being treated for cholera at a UNICEF-supported cholera treatment center in Baidoa, Somalia Photo by Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin, UNICEF
Waterborne Diseases Caused by the Global Water Crisis
Children are most vulnerable because their metabolisms use more water than adults’, and their body weight consists of more water proportionally than an adult’s. Their kidneys are also less able to conserve water.[2]
Diseases that are so deadly can be prevented
with changes that are simple.
In some documented cases, improving the quality of water at the source, combined with treatment of household water and safe water-storage systems, has reduced the incidence of diarrhea by 47 percent. And studies show that simply handwashing with soap can reduce the incidence by 40 percent.[4] These figures underscore a tragic truth: Diseases that are so deadly can be prevented with changes that are simple.
Trace Element Contamination Adds to Global Water Crisis
Sometimes it isn’t living organisms that make people sick, but it’s the naturally occurring elements in the water. Heavy metals and other trace elements are usually present in our diets, and in fact, many of them are essential—but only in tiny quantities. When we ingest more than the safe levels, we can experience illness and even death.
In 2014, four Jesus Wells were dug by Gospel for Asia-supported workers in one drought stricken region—now approximately 5,300 people benefit from these wells. Read the story »
Some of these elements are in the ground and leach naturally into the water we use, while others are introduced into the water supply through industry, mining and agriculture.
This was the problem facing four Asian villages when Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers came to the scene in 2014. This area typically experienced several months of drought, followed by heavy monsoon rains. But the water left by the rains was contaminated with chemicals. Villagers with enough money could buy their own water, but the poor had to walk long distances every day to ask for water from local landlords. Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported pastors in the area arranged for wells to be installed in all four villages, bringing clean water at last to approximately 5,300 people.
Water is a fragile resource, and its problems
are not limited to the developing world.
Since lead paint was identified as a major problem in the United States during the 1970s, a concerted national campaign reduced its impact over time. But Americans received a wake-up call in 2014 when the water supply in Flint, Michigan, came under scrutiny—as described by Karen Burton Mains in GFA’s special report “The Global Water Crisis: Finding Solutions to Humanity’s Need for Pure, Safe Water.”[5]
Residents complained about the color, taste and smell of their water. It turned out that the service lines from water mains to individual homes in Flint were made of lead and were not treated with corrosion inhibitors, which keep the contamination at acceptable levels. Eighty-seven cases of Legionnaire’s disease were associated with the contaminated water, leading to 12 deaths. Overall, more than 100,000 people had been exposed to a dangerous poison.
The Flint saga reminded everyone that water is a fragile resource, and its problems are not limited to the developing world.
The National Guard delivers bottled water to residents of Flint, MI.
In 2017, the Reuters news agency conducted an investigation that revealed how widespread such issues really are even in the United States. Their reporters discovered 3,810 areas in the U.S with childhood lead poisoning rates twice as high as those found in Flint. And 1,300 areas showed lead levels four times greater than those found in Flint.[6] The affected locations included 34 states and Washington D.C. In the best of outcomes, such a national scandal should at least inspire compassion for others around the world who struggle to find clean water.
Arsenic is well known as a poison, but it’s actually an element that occurs naturally throughout the world. When it enters a water supply, however, it can cause unimaginable suffering.
In 1983, scientists discovered arsenic in the water of 33 villages in West Bengal, India. Subsequent investigations revealed similar contamination in 2,417 villages along the flood plains of the Ganges River.[7]
Arsenic poisoning can cause severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Other symptoms include abnormal heart rhythm, muscle cramps and tingling extremities. Some victims first notice unusual lesions and growths on their skin, and many then discover they have cancer. Victims of arsenic poisoning can recover if the source of their illness is removed in time.
Several other disease-causing trace elements—most of them heavy metals—contaminate water supplies today. Cadmium accumulates in the kidneys and hepatic system and can cause cancer. Chromium, likewise, can cause liver and skin cancer when it reaches high levels. Zinc and copper can also be dangerous to health.
A simple family solution to the global water crisis are biosand water filters.
A Simple Solution to the Global Water Crisis
People in the developed world rely on their water providers to protect them from such threats. For those who can afford it, a home filtration system offers added security. But people living in poorer areas have no such protection. They often collect their water from fetid ponds or polluted streams. They’re exposed to all the worst dangers that may be hidden in their water.
Aanjay, a farmer in Asia, saw firsthand the effects of contaminated water on his family and his entire village.
“We were forced to use dirty and filthy water for cooking and drinking,” he recalls. “Thus, we suffered stomachache, jaundice, typhoid and diarrhea.”
The villagers also had to use the tainted water for bathing, which caused skin infections.
That changed when some Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported pastors provided BioSand water filters for Aanjay’s family and several others.
“Along with receiving a filter, families also received health and hygiene training that works to significantly lower the incidence of waterborne illness,” Aanjay says. “Now the villagers are getting purely filtered water for drinking. Since [the Biosand water filters] were installed, all water-caused and waterborne diseases have ceased.”
Two young boys towing a can of water in the slums of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in order to distribute water to the inhabitants.
Burkina Faso: Africa’s Anguish
Recurring drought, contamination and lack of funds have all contributed to Africa’s severe water problems. A vivid example of all three can be found in the little landlocked country of Burkina Faso.
Located in the vast savanna region south of the Sahara Desert, Burkina Faso endures up to eight months of dry weather each year.[8] When drought makes conditions even worse, as it did in 2016, a true crisis occurs. That year, the capital, Ougadougou, was able to provide only intermittent water service for its 2 million residents. People were forced to travel far into the countryside to find usable water.[9] Water shortages like this, and the power outages that accompany them, have become a normal part of life for city residents.
Nearly half the residents of Burkina Faso live without clean water.
For people in rural areas, the hardships are even worse. Eighty percent of Burkina Faso’s people are subsistence farmers,[10] so droughts are especially devastating for them. The country is also plagued by waterborne diseases common to undeveloped areas—diarrhea, hepatitis A and typhoid fever.[11]
According to Water Aid UK, 4,500 children under the age of 5 die of diarrhea each year in Burkina Faso, and nearly half the residents live without clean water.[12] When the rains do come, mosquitoes that breed in the standing water spread malaria, yellow fever and dengue fever.
These women are collecting water for crop irrigation in Burkina Faso, where the global water crisis is severe.
One of the main industries in Burkina Faso is gold mining. But the mining process has introduced deadly arsenic into the groundwater.[13] On top of all these challenges, the rapidly-growing population is putting unprecedented stress on the water supply. War and disruption in neighboring countries have displaced millions of people, many of whom seek refuge in Burkina Faso. This has only exacerbated a problem that was already severe.[14]
Efforts to improve conditions in Burkina Faso haven’t always been effective. Relief workers from Water Aid UK found that many existing wells there were unusable because of broken handpumps. And toilets provided by the government to improve hygiene were going unused—because people don’t know what to do with them.[15] This underscores the importance of education to go along with physical improvements. One without the other leads to failure.
[7] Ghosh, N.C., Singh, R.D. Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in India: Vulnerability and Scope for Remedy, Uttarahkand, India, National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, p. 2. Accessed December 26, 2018.
They wake up each morning knowing they must fight to survive.
For those of us who enjoy ready access to clean water, these numbers are difficult to grasp. But for the individuals they represent, life is simple: They wake up each morning knowing they must fight to survive. The day might begin with a long journey to a watering hole. Everything else depends on that crucial task. For others, the day begins and ends in wretched poverty—because chronic illness prevents them from working. And for some, a normal day means watching their children die slowly from waterborne disease.
This is the heartbreaking reality for people around the globe. The widespread lack of clean water is a crisis we can’t ignore. But to address it, we must understand it.
Why Clean Water Is So Crucial
Water comprises about 60 percent of every human body. It’s essential to the functioning of our cells. And when we don’t take in enough water, things go wrong very fast. We can survive for weeks without food, but without water, we last only a few days.
When acute dehydration sets in, we feel thirsty; then we can begin to experience headaches, dizziness, muscle cramps and rapid heartbeat. If we don’t receive water in time, we may drift into a quiet sleep—and then death. The effects of chronic dehydration can be less dramatic but just as insidious. Over time, the skin may become dry and flaky. Constant fatigue and muscle weakness make it impossible to function normally.
A lack of clean water affects every imaginable area of life
Another cruel fact of life for millions is that the water they do have is contaminated with microbes or deadly trace elements. They can choose to go thirsty—or drink water that makes them sick.
To stay healthy, we need to drink about a half-gallon of water each day. But of course, we need water for more than drinking. We use it to wash our clothes and our bodies. We need it to care for our livestock and to irrigate our crops. So a lack of clean water affects every imaginable area of life. Overall, we need between 13 to 26 gallons to perform all our daily tasks.
Access to safe water is also a key to economic well-being. Farmers need a steady supply of water for their livelihood. If there are no reservoirs to draw from, they must rely on the rain. So when drought hits, the effects can be catastrophic—for the farmers and their entire communities.
People crippled with waterborne disease often spend most of their money and time dealing with it. Work, education and other activities that might help them prosper must be put on hold. Considering all these factors, it’s no wonder that the places with least access to safe water are also among the poorest.
Sulem Hire 9, carries the jerry can holding water to her home which is four kilometers away from the borehole. Photo by Mulugeta Ayene, UNICEF
Plentiful—Yet Scarce
There’s enough water on earth to fill 326 million cubic miles (or 1.36 billion cubic kilometers).[6] In fact, 71 percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water.[7] So why is water still so scarce for so many people?
To start with, 96.5 percent of the earth’s surface water is contained in the oceans.
To start with, 96.5 percent of the earth’s surface water is contained in the oceans.[8] And of course, its salt content makes it useless for drinking. Desalination can make saltwater drinkable, but the high cost of that process has put it out of reach for most of the world—so far.
Of the earth’s freshwater, 68.7 percent is locked away in ice caps, glaciers and permanent snow. Another 30.1 percent is in the ground.[9] That leaves only a tiny fraction available as usable surface water, which comprises 78 percent of the water we use. The source of that surface water is the oceans. When water evaporates from the ocean surface, it leaves its salt content behind, and some of it then reaches the earth as precipitation—mainly, rainfall. That water then flows through our rivers and streams and collects in lakes and ponds. We depend on that runoff for most of our water needs.
But geographic and atmospheric conditions can prevent the rain from reaching some places. About 40 percent of the earth’s land mass is considered arid or semi-arid. And together, those areas receive only about 2 percent of the earth’s water runoff.[10] As a result, people who live in those regions often face chronic water shortages and a constant struggle to find adequate water. They typically rely on wells that tap the water in the ground. But when those wells fail, disaster follows quickly.
Through the generous donations of Gospel for Asia (GFA) supporters around the world, the well project began. But it was risky; the land was notoriously dry. Few local people believed a well was even feasible. The team drilled deeper and deeper into the hard rock terrain with no results. The effort seemed futile. And then, at last—they struck water.
But the team didn’t stop. They drilled even deeper so the villagers would be assured of water through the dry months. And now, they have clean water year-round for drinking, cooking and bathing.
“We never thought a well would be drilled in our village,” Nidhar confides. “But the true need of this village was met by Gospel for Asia (GFA). We are truly thankful for it.”
Twin Hazards: Drought and Flooding
Even places accustomed to adequate rainfall can be vulnerable to drought, which may come without warning. Its impact usually depends on the preparations people have made beforehand. Most of the developed world has systems and infrastructure in place to mitigate a drought’s worst effects. In 2018, Washington state and areas of the American Southwest experienced a severe drought, which caused hardship but no large-scale human catastrophe. But it’s a different story when drought strikes poor areas that are already struggling. People die of dehydration. Crops fail and famine follows. Economies are devastated.
Drought is a terrible affliction, but the opposite problem can also occur, and sometimes in the very same places—too much water at once.
People die of dehydration. Crops fail and famine follows.
Economies are devastated.
Many communities in arid regions are physically unprepared for floods, which often come suddenly. And a lack of groundcover in the desert can make the flooding even more destructive. Floodwaters often mingle with raw sewage, which can cause skin rashes, tetanus, gastrointestinal illnesses and wound infections in people exposed to it. The standing water left behind by floods also breeds mosquitoes, which transmit vector-borne diseases such as dengue, malaria and West Nile fever. In some places, rodents proliferate after flooding. These creatures carry microbes such as leptospira bacteria, which are then released in the rodents’ urine. As a result, leptospirosis can reach epidemic levels after a flood. Left untreated, it can cause respiratory distress, liver failure and death.
Dying of Thirst: The Global Water Crisis – The Crucial Quest for Access to Clean Water: Part 2 | Part 3
This Special Report article originally appeared on gfa.org.
[2]Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines.Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. 2017. Accessed December 26, 2018.
[3]Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines.Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. 2017. Accessed December 26, 2018.
[4]Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines.Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. 2017. Accessed December 26, 2018.
[5]The United Nations world water development report 2018: nature-based solutions for water; facts and figures. UNESCO Digital Library, p. 2. 2018.
[6] Lutgens, Frederick K., Tarbuck, Edward J. The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Prentice Hall. 2004, p. 94.
Last updated on: October 26, 2019 at 9:57 pm By GFA Staff Writer
Wills Point, Texas – Gospel for Asia (GFA) Special Report – Discussing the plight of widows worldwide as they face tragedy, discrimination, and suffering.
Accounts of the humiliations, insults and indignations suffered by widows worldwide would make anyone cringe.
Gulika, a widow in Asia, experienced helplessness after the people in her village turned their backs on her after her husband’s death.
A woman in Nigeria was harassed by her brother-in-law asking for documents of her house before her husband’s body even left for the funeral home—and then insisted she had to leave.
Another Nigerian woman’s husband lay in a hospital bed when her sister-in-law demanded a huge amount of money from their bank account. When the wife refused, her in-law swore she would regret it.
“Three days after, my husband died, his family descended on me, took his cars away and emptied the house.”
In connection with last year’s International Widows Day, CNN spotlighted the cases of seven widows, ranging from a woman in Nepal to a widow in India to the spouse of a U.S. serviceman killed 12 years ago in Iraq. Their stories varied, but they faced the same plight: difficulties with grief and loneliness, forms of ostracism, financial struggles and hopelessness.
Santu Kamari Maharjan of Nepal struggled greatly because she was a widow, until Women for Human Rights helped her and 14 other women start an agriculture business. (photo credit Womankind Worldwide via CNN.com)
The widow in Nepal, Santu Kamari Maharjan, then 55, had lost her husband to kidney failure years before. With young children to support, she had to work in people’s fields to clothe and feed them. (She had to sell her own field to pay for her husband’s medical treatment.) Her sisters-in-law would taunt her. As difficult as that was, then a serious earthquake in 2015 left her with no income—until the nonprofit Women for Human Rights helped her and 14 other women to build a bamboo shelter to start an agriculture business.
Grace Njeri Mwichigi, whose husband died in tribal violence in Kenya in 2007. (photo credit Matt Maxwell via CNN.com)
Grace Njeri Mwichigi became a widow after her husband was killed during tribal clashes in Kenya in 2007. The following months brought stress, confusion and fear, with much of the neglect and humiliation coming from family members. Purita Carlos of the Philippines lost her husband to lung cancer, which meant her fourth-grade son had to stop attending school while they stayed in Manila so she could learn how to earn a living.
“Being a widow is not easy, It is very sad, and the pain of missing your husband is always there. I don’t want to go through the same experience again. That is why I would not ever remarry. It is enough that I have my son.”
– Purita Carlos in an interview with CNN [1]
In other media coverage, headlines alone give an indication of the situation facing so many widows:
Agonies of widows hit by
harsh Nigerian traditions [3]
Stories of survival: Widows of
India’s farmer suicides [4]
USA: Social Security underpays
thousands of widows and widowers [4]
Kenya: Where becoming a widow is
the worst thing that can happen to you [6]
Widows Are at the Bottom of the Pile
Of the estimated 285 million widows in the developing world, more than 115 million live in abject poverty. [7] Eighty six million have suffered physical abuse, according to Cherie Blair, president of the UK-based Loomba Foundation, established in 1997 to empower widows and educate their children. In addition, 1.5 million children whose mothers have been widowed will die before they turn 5 years old. Considering the average widow has three children and six other family members, the wider impact affects more than a billion people, about one-seventh of the world’s population.
As president of the Loomba Foundation, Cherie Blair is on a mission to empower widows and educate their children. (Photo credit foreignoffice on Flickr)
“Their plight is one of the most important, yet under-reported, human-rights issues facing the world today,” says Blair. “Much has been made, and rightly so, of gender inequality, but widows have truly been at the bottom of the pile—visible and invisible—for too long. For many women, becoming a widow does not just mean the heartache of losing a husband, but often losing everything else as well.” [8]
Gospel for Asia reported on one widow named Gulika and her plight. [9] While Gulika didn’t live an extravagant lifestyle, her husband, Manan, earned an adequate income working as a tailor. That all changed the day Manan hurried across some railroad tracks, unaware of the train just around the bend.
The sorrow of losing her husband was compounded by the reaction of others in her village in Asia. Believing Gulika was cursed, many feared that even passing by her on the street could bring them bad luck. Not surprisingly, Gulika fell into emotional despair. Still, she had to uphold her duties as a daughter-in-law, including retrieving water for the family. The nearest source was an old well a third of a mile walk from home.
Like this woman, Gulika walked long distances to gather water for her in-laws.
Collecting water was a grueling chore, and not just because of the lengthy walk. Women and girls feared going out alone because of the potential danger of men taking advantage of their vulnerability. Some days, Gulika faced harassment from her neighbors, and she didn’t always come home with enough water.
Gulika’s story has a happy ending: A Gospel for Asia-supported pastor arranged for a new water well to be drilled in front of her home.
Widows Do Not Often See Relief from Their Suffering
Too often, however, widows don’t see relief from their suffering. So many women in various parts of the world have lost their husbands that the term “island of widows” has been applied to locations in Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and India.
Some of these women’s husbands have died from unknown chronic kidney disease (CKDu). First diagnosed among sugarcane workers in Chichigalapa, Nicaragua, it more recently spread to a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh, India. In a village of less than 3,000 people, at least 126 women have become widows by CKDu ailments, which have stricken farmers, coconut grove workers and fishermen. [10]
There are other concentrations of widows linked to a variety of causes. The city of Vrindavan in northern India, known as a holy city because of its numerous temples, has been labeled “the city of widows.” That’s because an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 widows live in the area, almost one-fourth or one-third of the city’s population of 63,000. [11]
A “tiger widow” with her three children; a man works in a forest where tiger attacks happen often.
The Sunderbans, a cluster of islands stretching from India to Bangladesh, contain several villages that are home to “Tiger Widows,” women whose spouses have been killed by tigers.
“They think we are evil,” said one woman who lost her husband to a wild animal. “People blame us for the death of our husbands.” [12]
Widows Worldwide Face Tragedy, Discrimination: Part 2 | Part 3
Numerous studies have shown that the simple step of properly handwashing markedly reduces the risk of disease and infection. Unfortunately, many in developing nations around the globe do not know of this life-saving fact.
For this reason, the Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) established October 15 as Global Handwashing Day. The theme for 2018 is “Clean hands – a recipe for health.” It particularly applies to this year’s emphasis on making handwashing a part of preparing to make or partake of every meal.
When the first Global Handwashing Day was introduced in 2008, the campaign focused on reducing child mortality rates by introducing behavioral changes, including handwashing. It was estimated that the simple act of washing one’s hands adequately with soap could reduce childhood mortality from respiratory disease by 25 percent and from diarrheal diseases by 50 percent.In fact, “Research shows that children living in households exposed to handwashing promotion and soap had half the diarrheal rates of children living in control neighborhoods.”
The World Health Organization recognizes World Hand Hygiene Day each May 5.
The need for each of these days is far greater than we might imagine. It is difficult for us to imagine not washing our hands. It’s just what we do. It was only about 150 years ago that washing one’s hands was not so common anywhere in the world.
It was not until 1846 that anyone recognized the value or virtue of washing one’s hands with soap. Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who held a medical degree with a specialty in midwifery, became concerned about the prevalence of puerperal fever in maternity clinics.
Despite the abundance of incorrect theories of the day, Semmelweis theorized a common link between fetal and maternal childbirth deaths and similar fatal infections in people who had undergone surgery by doctors carrying infectious substances on their hands and surgical instruments.
Semmelweis’ hypothesis-proving experiments, in which his system of hand and instrument washing were used, reduced the puerperal fever mortality rate in his facilities from 12.24 percent to 2.38 percent. Twenty years later, his findings had still not become readily accepted.
Educating people with regard to the dangers of infection caused by dirty hands has dramatically reduced birthing and surgical mortality rates. And washing hands with soap and water has become as much a part of life in developed nations as waking up in the morning. So much so that the occurrence of bacterial disease is minimal in developed countries compared to those that are still emerging.
The task before us now is to educate the people who are living in remote villages and slums who have yet to understand the need for washing one’s hands. Gospel for Asia (GFA), its partners, NGOs, businesses and governments are working together to teach the necessity for handwashing as a matter of good health and hygiene. Together, we can:
Teach people to wash their hands with soap at critical times, especially before eating, cooking or feeding others.
Model good handwashing behavior and remind them to always wash their hands before eating.
Help them to make handwashing part of their family-meal practice.
Help them to establish places to wash your hands in the household, in your community, in schools, workplaces and in health facilities.
Promote effective handwashing behavior change.
Watch this short video (3:47) featuring Dr. Daniel Johnson to learn more about how some of our field partners teach proper handwashing.
This video is shown in thousands of rural villages and urban slums every year to prevent unnecessary disease and infection and improve the health and well-being of the poor and downtrodden.
Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing what people can actually do to help resolve the global water crisis.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:9
We learn about the importance of working together when we’re children. As early as kindergarten, careful teachers share lessons about helping others. Moms and dads often start those lessons even younger. If everyone helps out around the house, chores get done more quickly with less of a burden on one person.
The core messages are responsibility and finding strength in numbers. The most daunting and insurmountable obstacles aren’t so intimidating after all, not when everyone shares the load.
For one person reading sad stories about the global water crisis, it might seem impossible to solve. How much of a difference can one person really make? Alone, it would feel like moving a beach, one tiny grain of sand at a time. But together, people can be heroes who move mountains.
A Well Saves Lives, but a Maintained Well Saves Generations
Without a well to tap deep into clean groundwater, villages throughout rural Asia have two difficult options: They can collect contaminated surface water, or they can travel great distances to buy expensive water elsewhere.
According to Global Citizen, parts of Asia are peppered with wells that are in various stages of completion or disrepair. It’s a feeling of abandonment, says a village chief in Cameroon. A well that’s never finished doesn’t help a soul. One that’s broken is nothing but a sad reminder of hope and money that’s been lost. Imagine walking past a non-working well that once poured clean water only to collect stagnant water that’s contaminated.
Some of GFA’s most important work is supporting the installation of water wells knowns as Jesus Wells. One Jesus Well provides a village of hundreds with clean, pure water for decades. A Jesus Well is different than many of the local wells that can be found and does more. Local workers have the manpower, tools and supplies to finish the job while keeping the costs low. Then, instead of leaving the village to its fate, a nearby church that’s committed to sharing God’s love has trained people on hand to maintain and repair the well and keep it working.
Now, the people who rely on Jesus Wells have the comfort of knowing if there’s a problem, it will be solved by someone they know and trust.
Where Wells Aren’t Possible, Water Filters Make Pure Water Accessible
Wells aren’t a universal solution to the clean water crisis. In some areas, there’s enough surface water; it’s just too dangerous to drink. Gospel for Asia (GFA) also supports the distribution of BioSand water filters in Asia, which makes clean water available just a few steps from home.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says contaminants in drinking water fall into four categories: physical, chemical, biological and radiological. The first three are quite common throughout rural Asia’s dangerous water sources.
Contaminants range from discarded trash to dumped waste chemicals to viruses, parasites and human waste solids. The water looks dirty because it is dirty.
One BioSand water filter can remove well over 90 percent of the worst contaminants for a household. It doesn’t need purification chemicals, electricity, moving parts or special inserts to replace. They’re not like the water filter you might have in your fridge at home that needs a new cartridge once a month. Using inexpensive materials and good common sense, local workers build these filters and set them up near the homes of local villagers. As with Jesus Wells, if there’s a problem, someone close to home knows how to fix it.
Using concrete for the housing, a BioSand water filter has fine layers of gravel and sand inside. Once it’s primed, which can take a few days or slightly longer, it naturally destroys some pathogens and traps others, working for years with almost no maintenance. Unhealthy water goes in, clean water comes out.
Asian women admire the ocean but may not have clean drinking water at home due to the global water crisis.
The Clean Water Crisis Also Needs Community Involvement
When the pastor of a local church commits to helping maintain a well or build water filters, that’s a blessing. When entire villages commit to saving Asia’s precious water, that’s a transformation.
Wells are, indeed, necessary for certain parts of Asia. As in some places in rural America, there’s not always a utility board to pipe in clean, treated water, nor another source to collect it. But a big part of the global water crisis is contamination. And a big part of that is the open defecation problem, which is preventable.
Open Defecation and Its Part in the Global Water Crisis
It’s hard to change habits that have been in place throughout history. Open defecation was once the only option, so of course it seems natural to those who practice it. But as populations grew, pathogen levels increased, and science discovered the connection between disease and exposure to human waste, the need for change became obvious and urgent.
Programs such as UNICEF’s Community Led Total Sanitation engage with the community at different levels to put them in the driver’s seat. Families, clinics, schools and churches working together can end open defecation and normalize the use of toilets in places where it seems strange. And that takes one more layer off the global water crisis.
A change of habit can only happen within; it can’t be brought in and handed over like a present. But without the resources, it can’t happen at all. That’s where Gospel for Asia (GFA) comes in.
Another prong in the effort to save Asia’s water is toilets or latrines. There’s a great deal of resistance because latrines are a foreign concept. But with the funding to install a sanitary latrine, the education to know why it matters, and a network of support throughout the community, change can happen. It’s already happening one latrine at a time.
Women and girls face fewer risks with a latrine near the home. Open defecation means venturing out to a field after dark or before sunrise, where women are at risk of attack. For people with weakened immunities, latrines reduce the likelihood of picking up an additional disease that can kill.
Which brings us full circle.
Latrines contain waste, which means Asia’s water can grow cleaner and healthier with fewer pollutants being added.
Working to End the Global Water Crisis
Not all heroes wear a cape. Some are ordinary people like the workers who install wells, ministers who look after their flock, and folks just like you. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”
One person can create positive change. But imagine how much easier and widespread positive change can be when a family, a village, a country and the whole world pitch in to help. That’s how God intended his children to be.
Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Gospel for Asia (GFA) believes in combining efforts to share the love of God with the neediest people in the world. Sometimes, the work isn’t very glamorous. But it’s necessary.
Clean water is the most basic human need. Working together, we move one more step closer to ending the global water crisis.
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Much of Asia’s Water Has an Extreme Level of Contamination
As one of the most densely populated countries in the world, the water crisis in Asia affects hundreds of millions of people. One of the primary reasons behind the contamination is a lack of sanitation facilities. The situation is improving, but it’s still a crisis.
Although World Bank statistics show that the practice of open defecation has steadily declined in the 21st Century, there are still places where half the population still has no sanitary toilets. With open defecation, surface and ground water sources take on harmful pathogens and parasites that cause illnesses and even death. Water.org says 500 of Asia’s children die every day from diarrhea that comes from contaminated water.
The problem isn’t just a lack of understanding about contamination, it’s more a lack of access to basic human needs. Water is essential for survival, and clean water is scarce. Thankfully, some Asian nations, such as India, have an educational campaign to curb open defecation and encourage people to use toilets. But when no facilities exist, there’s no other choice.
Young girls in Asia are expected to fetch clean drinking water for their families, often at the expense of being in school
Fetching Drinking Water is Considered Part of Domestic Life in Asia
Water for drinking, cooking and bathing must come from somewhere. In the Western world, it comes from a tap. In rural Asia, carrying water is an integral part of domesticity. It’s also a full-time job. Child labor in Asia is unlawful in most situations, but laboring for the family’s survival is different. When the family is in need of clean drinking water, education can and often does go by the wayside.
A clean source, such as a well that’s deep enough to go beneath ground water contamination, is often miles away. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day. The trip to and from a source can consume the better part of it.
Carrying Water is Difficult, Demanding Work
Under ideal circumstances, it takes an average adult about 30 minutes to walk a mile at a normal pace. Asia’s girls don’t labor under ideal circumstances.
The paths they take aren’t usually paved. Their footwear isn’t a pair of cross trainers. The containers they carry to their destination are significantly heavier on the return trip. One gallon of water weighs nearly 4 kilograms (or more than 8 pounds).
Time that might be spent on a girl’s studies is used, instead, for physical labor that helps sustain life. It’s no wonder so many of Asia’s precious girls quit school before they graduate. When clean water isn’t a given, fetching it becomes part of their everyday life.
In many parts of the world, children get up on a weekday morning, have breakfast and head out to another day at school. There’s ample water at home for brushing their teeth, for making oatmeal and to carry in a bottle with their backpack.
GFA’s clean water initiatives strive to change that reality. A BioSand water filter gives a family a way to filter dirty water into clean water at home. One Jesus Well can provide an entire village with abundant clean water for as many as 300 families per day, for decades.
With clean, healthy and safe water available near the home, children can be children. Girls can focus on their studies as much as their male peers.
Something as simple as water can have the very literal effects of saving lives and giving children, especially girls, the hope of a better future.
For more on the global clean water crisis, go here.
Last updated on: October 27, 2019 at 2:37 pm By Karen Mains
This unfortunate widow lost her husband to a tiger attack in Asia.
Wills Point, Texas – GFA (Gospel for Asia) – Use Mother’s Day to Honor Remarkable Moms & Educate Needy Girls
I have this gnawing intuition that Mother’s Day might be utilized as a day to contribute positively and substantively to the plight of women worldwide.
Originally, in fact, Mother’s Day was organized for just such a purpose. Started in 1908 by Anna Jarvis to honor her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, the daughter wanted to continue the work her mother had started.
I have this gnawing intuition that Mother’s Day might be utilized as a day to contribute positively and substantively to the plight of women worldwide.
Ann Reeves Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. She had also created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues and to teach local woman how to properly care for their children. In 1868, Ann Reeves Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” where mothers gathered intentionally with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe, the abolitionist and suffragette, wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” which asked mothers to unite together in promoting world peace. Anna Jarvis, the daughter, was appalled by the eventual commercialization of her original idea of Mother’s Day, which Woodrow Wilson proclaimed a national holiday in 1914 by presidential proclamation.
In May of 1968, Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., hosted a march on Mother’s Day in support of underprivileged women and children. Incredibly, she did this one month after her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, was assassinated in April of that year.
I think we can safely assess that the original intents for Mother’s Day were to honor our individual mothers in some way but to also leverage the day into meaningful altruistic enterprises.
Certainly, there must be a portion of that $23,000,600,000 that retailers wouldn’t mind sharing in order to prevent the swelling demographic of 100,000,000 or so missing women. I wonder if we could possibly redirect our attention (or at least part of it) on this day to honor the remarkable mothers of the world, those who despite untold and unbelievable circumstances have survived.
I get frustrated when I am inconvenienced if the electricity in my house goes out after a storm (and which the electric company soon fixes even if I don’t make a phone call of complaint). I do not have to plod across enemy lines in war-torn territory while balancing a small bundle of possessions on my head, cradling a nursing infant in my arms and dragging two other frightened and weary children by my side. I do not have to cook inside a hut where the smoke fills my lungs and brings on chronic pulmonary distress. These are inconveniences.
I think we can safely assess that the original intents for Mother’s Day were to honor our individual mothers in some way but to also leverage the day into meaningful altruistic enterprises.
Let’s see if we can’t discover ways to honor the truly remarkable moms and mothers of the world—those who scrape gardens out of depleted soil, spend hours a day hauling water, eat whatever meal remains after the men have left the table, find ways to keep clean and to organize their living spaces, put up with abusive mothers-in-law (with whom many are forced to live with), find the energy despite their own disabilities to raise children with love, insist that their daughters as well as their sons attend school to receive at least a modicum of education, and find ways to supplement their subsistence incomes.
There are an estimated 350,000 Protestant churches in the United States. (I know because our ministry used to send direct mail to most of them.) According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), there are some 17,156 Catholic parishes in the U.S. Most of these Christian centers have charities and mission outreaches they support. What if these congregations could find a way to honor remarkable moms in need. I can’t help dreaming of the impact a coordinated effortto sustain the mothers of the world—those who are now mothers, those who will be mothers, those who have lost their children and have outlived all or some of their offspring.
A loving mother in India poses for the camera with her newborn baby.
Certainly, these churches understand those rolling commands spoken by the prophet Isaiah centuries ago. He speaks for the Old Testament YAHWEH who expresses displeasure with the Israelites’ pseudo-religion:
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide from your own flesh?”
—Isaiah 58: 6,7
The irony of the missing-women quandary—enabled by entrenched cultural attitudes and systemic discrimination against the female sex—is that many places in the world with a skewed sex ratio are now experiencing such high female shortages that there are no longer enough women to mate in marriage with the existing male population. Think about that 1:06 sex ratio (l:06 men to every one woman); multiply it into the millions. Can you imagine what that means?
The Wall Street Journal focused an article on this topic that dealt with South Korea:
“A cultural preference for male children has cost Asia dearly . . .
“Not just a human-rights catastrophe, it is also a looming demographic disaster. With Asian birthrates already plummeting, that means millions of women will never be mothers, and the economic and social impact on some of the world’s largest countries is incalculable.
“For decades, South Korea was Exhibit A in this depressing trend. By 1990, as medical advances made prenatal sex selection routine, the ratio of male-to-female babies soared in South Korea to the world’s highest, at 116.5 males for every 100 females.”
Projections made by the Population Council, a New York City-based research center, indicate that there will be an increase to 150 million missing women by 2035.
The world is just sensing the demographic wave that was set into motion years ago. This means that in China, in 2035, there will be as many as 186 single men for every 100 women. By 2060, in India, the sex ratio could curve even higher: 191 men for each 100 women.
The governments of both countries have established means and laws to correct this extraordinary deviation, and some progress is being felt. Fetal ultrasound imaging has been restricted and legislation aimed at gender equality has been enacted. China even offers financial incentives to couples with daughters and announced it was abandoning its one-child policy. But demographers warn that even if both countries brought their sex ratios to normal, the damage has been done. Hundreds of millions of Asian men in their 50s will still be unmarried in 2070. In India, the result is projected to be around 15 percent.
I would suggest we find ways to emphasize the education of girls (our future mothers) in all the countries of the world and particularly in those that are high on the missing-women list.
South Korea, once the Exhibit A in the “depressing trend,” is now—partly because of the political insistence of a growing body of educated women—beginning to reduce its sex ratio through a variety of intentional national policies. By 2005, the ratio had become 110 males for every 100 female babies. Five years later, the ratio became 107, finally normalizing at the natural level of 105.
So, if I, a one-woman bandwagon, were going to organize some sort of national solidarity movement with the remarkable mothers of the world who are surviving circumstances that would have sent me screaming into the bush like a banshee, I would suggest we find ways to emphasize the education of girls (our future mothers) in all the countries of the world and particularly in those that are high on the missing-women list.
Why education when other immediate needs are so great? Education first because it changes the whole trajectory of one child’s life, and when women are educated, it ensures economic advantages for the whole nation.
The World Bank maintains, “The power of girls’ education on national economic growth is undeniable: a 1 percentage point increase in female education raises the average gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.3 percentage points and raises annual GDP growth rates by 0.2 percentage points.”
The World Bank stresses that girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe in school. One research study in Haiti indicated that “one in three Haitian women (ages 15–49) has experienced physical and/or sexual violence, and that of women who received money for sex before turning 18 years old, 27 percent reported schools to be the most common location for solicitation.”
The World Bank maintains, “The power of girls’ education on national economic growth is undeniable…”
The fact sheet on girls’ education provided by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) explains:
Some 31 million girls of primary school age are not in school, 17 million of which are expected to never enter school.
Some 34 million female adolescents are missing secondary schools, which often offer vocational skills that are essential for procuring future jobs.
Two-thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female.
I love this beautiful story from the archives of Gospel for Asia’s field reports:
One day a cook at a Bridge of Hope center noticed an elderly woman begging on the street. Some 75,000 children from the lowest levels of poverty in Asia are each being sponsored for $35 per month so they can receive education in the Bridge of Hope centers, one meal a day, school supplies and periodic medical checkups.
The cook was distressed because the older woman had a child in tow: a little girl, filthy and ragged. Often adult beggars use children as bait to receive monies, then pocket the funds and do nothing for the child.
“Why are you exploiting this child?” the cook challenged, and to his surprise, the older woman broke into tears and wept.
She wasn’t a professional beggar but the grandmother of the little girl, Daya, who had been abandoned by both her mother and father. Without income and desperate, the grandmother had begun begging at bus stops, train stations and on the streets. With a change of heart, the cook invited the grandmother to enroll Daya in the Gospel for Asia-supported Bridge of Hope center, which was a building wedged between a railway station and a slum, consequently available to children without a future.
A young Southern Indian holds an orphan child, depictive of so many abandoned girls like little Daya, who need a remarkable mom.
The little girl was enrolled in the learning center but was so filthy that other parents complained, and the Bridge of Hope staff did an intensive scrub session to relieve the child of dirt and germs and the same filthy clothes she wore unwashed each day. They introduced her to soap and taught her to use it when she washed. Indeed, Daya’s future hung in the balance. If rejected from the Bridge of Hope center, she would return to the streets as one of the hundreds of thousands of child beggars in Asia. At some point, she would likely join the 20 to 30 million other boys and girls who are exploited as child laborers. Or worse yet, she would be entrapped in prostitution.
So cleaned up and scrubbed, little Daya, 8 years of age, was enrolled in the Bridge of Hope learning center and the same cook who had challenged her grandmother begging on the streets now provides the child (and the other children in the center between the railroad and the slum) one nourishing and well-balanced meal per day.
More than six years later, Daya knows how to use a bar of soup. She wears the beautiful dress the other girls wear: a school uniform. She is doing well at school and wants to become—no surprise—a teacher herself.
This Mother’s Day, you might want to consider inviting your extended family to help sponsor a future, potentially remarkable mom for $35 a month—that’s $420 a year—well within the range of the accumulated income of a American nuclear family. Or perhaps your civic group or your whole church would like to create a “solidarity unit,” a united front of some kind and take on 10 little girls, dirty and hungry, some without even an aging grandmother to look out for them. Think of this as a preventive strike: Sponsor them now before they become part of that tragic 100-million-missing-woman statistic. I’m no mathematician, but 10 multiplied by $420 is $4,200—well within the donor capacities of a church, or a civic group or a neighborhood association or a women’s club.
The millions of children in Asia who are caught in bonded labor are not just numbers or statistics—they are real children.
My sister is 10 years old. Every morning at 7 she goes to the bonded labor man, and every night at 9 she comes home. He treats her badly. He hits her if he thinks she is working slowly, or if she talks to the other children, he yells at her. He comes looking for her if she is sick and cannot go to work. I feel this is very difficult for her. I don’t care about school or playing. I don’t care about any of that. All I want is to bring my sister home from the bonded labor man. For 600 rupees I can bring her home—that is our only chance to get her back. We don’t have 600 rupees…we will never have 600 rupees [the equivalent of U.S. $14].
The GFA website explains: “The millions of children in Asia who are caught in bonded labor are not just numbers or statistics—they are real children. Though nameless and faceless on the streets where they live, each one was created with love and is known by God.
“It is doubtful they’ve ever held a toothbrush or a bar of soap; they’ve probably never eaten an ice-cream cone or cradled a doll. The child laborers of Asia toil in fireworks, carpet and match factories; quarries and coal mines; rice fields, tea plantations and pastures; and even brothels. Because they are exposed to dust, toxic fumes, pesticides and disease, their health is compromised; their bodies are crippled from carrying heavy weights.”
What if our Mother’s Day expenditures had something to do on a grand scale with little Dayas all over the world, who with a helping hand, could become remarkable moms instead of missing mothers?
I have a granddaughter who is 10 years old. Four mornings a week, I pick up Eliana and her brother, Nehemiah, to drive them to school. This is to help their mother who was married to my son who passed away. She is raising three children alone and has a full-time job. Our son, her husband and their father, died five years ago at age 41 of blastic mantel cell lymphoma.
According to the studies on children raised without fathers, they are vulnerable. So we live close, are on-call when babysitters fall through and try to do lots of one-on-ones. I am certain my granddaughter Eliana, age 10, will never have to worry about entering bonded labor or be forced to go begging on the streets. But for so many young girls in Asia, this will be their fate … unless we intervene.
What if our Mother’s Day expenditures had something to do on a grand scale with little Dayas all over the world, who with a helping hand, could become remarkable moms instead of missing mothers?
Last updated on: February 1, 2023 at 4:33 am By Karen Mains
Gospel for Asia (GFA), Wills Point, Texas, Special Report 4/4 on a Christ-like response to the global clean water crisis.
What Scripture Has to Say About Water
It is intriguing, in light of the fact that 71 percent of our Earth is covered by water, that Scripture has a great deal to say on the topic. One commentator suggests that water is mentioned 722 times in the Bible. This total is less than the mentions of God, Jesus, heaven or love, but more than faith, hope, prayer or worship. In Genesis it says: “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters The name of the first is Pishon … The name of the second river is the Gihon … The name of the third river is the Tigris … And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
For those of us with a Sunday School background, the stories dealing with water are memorable: Moses parting the Red Sea as the children of Israel fled the pursuing chariots of the Egyptians. Moses striking the rock at Horeb so that water flowed in the wilderness to satisfy the thirst of the people and of their flocks.
Refugees waiting to get water and satisfy their thirst in a camp in Dadaab, Somalia.
Wells are central stages for story-telling dramas: Abraham’s servant finds a bride for Isaac after praying near a well, “Oh, Lord God of my master, Abraham, give me success today and show kindness to my master.” Jesus declares His spiritual authority to a Samaritan woman by a well. “Will you give me a drink?” He asks, to begin a dialogue with her, and then eventually He declares, “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, NIV).
Rivers are forded, oases with pools satisfy weary nomads and their families, and always, over and over, water is used as an example of God’s blessing. “And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones. And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail” (Isaiah 58:11, NASB).
Water is used as an example of the sacramental, where the holy mixes mysteriously with the physical. People flock to John the Baptist in the wilderness to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11, NIV).
The heavens open after Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove, and a voice is heard declaring, “You are My beloved Son; in you I am well-pleased” (Luke 3:22, NKJV).
Water is a symbol of cleansing, not only in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense. Jesus walks on the water. He teaches by the shores of the seas. Some of His disciples are fishermen who gained their livelihood from waters’ depths. In the last chapters of Revelation, which many theologians feel is a prophetic picture of Eden being restored again, these words bring the water theme to a close. Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible, the first verse: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
A Christ-like Response to the Global Clean Water Crisis
It is a comfort, to know the fragility of our water sources around the globe is taken into account. Because of community involvement and the compassion of pastors from Believers Eastern Church and other affiliate organizations, Dr. K.P. Yohannan spearheaded the “Jesus Well” project among some of the neediest regions in India, even small villages across Asia, spanning multiple Asian nations. In 2016 alone, Gospel for Asia was able to help provide 6,822 wells. That is 6,822 sources of clean, fresh drinking water. Gospel for Asia (GFA) supporters around the world have allowed the rate of installation of Jesus Wells to continue and to remain consistent, with tens of thousands of wells drilled and constructed in the past several years. Now, the Jesus Well project is one of the largest clean water initiatives in the world.
A Jesus Well is being drilled next to a church building. This is the first well dug in the village.
Here, there are no broken wells laying waste and abandoned because well-meaning but neglectful charities dug wells that villagers could not maintain or repair. Jesus Wells are maintained in good repair by Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported local pastors. In fact, wherever possible, the wells are dug near local churches, not simply so that they will be maintained, but so that the beneficiaries will recognize that our love for them is genuine, because everyone is able to drink freely—no matter their income or social background.
Digging a Jesus Well supports the local economy, because local labor and materials are used to drill the wells. This keeps costs low, often even seven times lower than wells installed by other organizations.
Though simple in construction, BioSand water filters are easy to use and provide water that is 98 percent pure.
In regions where water might be available, but it’s just not safe to drink, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers provide BioSand water filters. These simple structures—locally built from concrete, sand and rocks—filter the water to remove impurities, providing water for drinking and cooking that is 98 percent pure. In 2016, Gospel for Asia (GFA) provided 14,886 BioSand water filters for families and individuals.
Gospel for Asia published a story in 2016 that shared the paradox faced by four villages in one region of South Asia. These communities faced severe water shortage during the hot, summer months, but in the rainy monsoon season their water sources were contaminated by chemicals. Their situation was an echo back to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem: “Not a drop to drink.” Local congregations in the region were concerned about the people and their need for clean water, and in 2014, Gospel for Asia (GFA) helped drill four Jesus Wells to provide safe, pure water for these villages. By God’s grace, there are now more than 5,000 people who benefit from these wells!
A woman pumps water from a Jesus Well.
A Jesus Well Transformed Salil’s Family
Salil (pictured) lives in a northeastern region of Asia with his wife and three children.
The situation drove them even deeper into poverty as their illnesses kept them from work, and their meager income was not adequate to provide for the medicines they needed—let alone their other essential needs. Salil did everything he could think of to provide for his family, but nothing he did was adequate.
How appropriate: “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward” (Matthew 10:42, NIV). Those who receive are blessed, and those who give are blessed. The accompanying video will give you a feel for just what that means.
So, our Blue Planet spins in space, obedient to its determined orbit. Its surface is covered by 71 percent water. So far, there has been no confirmed verification of liquid water existing on any other planet in our solar system. As yet, not a single drop of water has been detected anywhere in interstellar space, and scientists have determined that only a planet of the right mass, the right chemical composition and the right location can support liquid water. Let us remember that it is good. It is very good.
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Give Towards Clean Water Projects
You can provide life-saving water to people in Asia suffering from the global clean water crisis through Jesus Wells and BioSand water filters, and help support ongoing maintenance of these clean water projects.
To start with, 96.5 percent of the earth’s surface water is contained in the oceans.
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