For hundreds of years the villagers of Castulo have been forced to obtain their drinking water from small streams that run throughout their village. With no other clean water source within a reasonable distance, the unclean stream waters have caused many health issues, malnutrition among the children being the biggest issue. One afternoon, while we were working on building a new church in Castulo, Rocky Beene came upon a small girl washing her corn in a puddle along the road in the village. She asked the small girl why she didn’t wash her corn at home or at a different water source. The small girl said this was the best water she could find. After hearing this Rocky knew we had to do something to bring the people of this village clean water!
The plan was made to provide clean water directly to the villager’s homes where they would then be able to use Eco Filters to make the water sanitary to drink. Faith In Action, (FIA) started this difficult task as part of the church building project. We started by building two subterranean concrete tanks one on either side of the church which sits at the highest elevation in the village. These tanks are then fed by rain water through the industrial sized gutter system that was installed on the church building itself. After the tanks are filled the water is then gravity fed to two other subterranean tanks at different locations within the village. From there the water has been piped throughout the village to the villager’s homes! We also dammed up a local spring several hundred yards away and then piped it to one of the tanks, In this way even if there is a drought the villagers will still have a good water source from the spring water!
The church building was finished in February of 2016 and the water project was recently finished also! We also installed over 50 Pila’s (Wash Basins) in the villagers homes. Our final step will be to gather Eco Filters for each of the villager’s homes! It is amazing to see how this is already impacting the villagers! We get to help give them clean water and share with them the life giving water who is Jesus Christ!
A special thanks to Journey Church and all the teams and individuals who supported this project with their prayers, finances and their time! We could not have done this without you!