Bobby, Joseph, Mike, Mindy, Audra and Eric Leonard The drilling crew…..
Upon landing in Kenya we learned the permit had not been acquired for the drilling and worse yet the paperwork had not even been filed! In Kenya it takes 2 – 3 weeks to obtain a permit to drill. So, it appeared that all hope was lost until a kind gentleman from the Ministry of Water showed up at the Kingdom Kids Rescue Centre to help! That was a blessing in disguise. He went further to help us and even had his car totaled in a wreck trying to help us get the permit. We finally did get verbal approval to drill. So on Wednesday we began the drilling in Namanga. The permit did come through later.
On our way to Namanga we heard it was extremely dry there and food was in great need so we stopped at a grocery store and bought tons of bread and milk to give out at the well site. Thank you Eric for your generous donation of grub for the hungry!
Eric handing out bread and milkAudra handing out bread and loving on the babies
Bread and milk for all
It was a long agonizing week as we waited and waited for water. Bobby and Eric busied themselves cutting a road all the way to the back of the property where the drill site was! Clearing acacia stumps and thorns to keep flat tires to a minimum was a tedious task.
Eric was such a trooper on the chainsaw. Go Eric!
At 150 meters when we were supposed to be in water there was still nothing but dust coming from the ground. Finally at 170 meters we hit some water but decided to go deeper to see if we couldn’t get a little more. We finally stopped drilling at 202 meters and were making no more water. The decision was made to come back in the morning and see if enough water was in the hole to case. So, the next morning after continual prayers all night long we returned to find approximately 5 gpm being made by the well! We were so encouraged and decided to case it and proceed with the finalization of this borehole.
Smiling faces as they learn we have water!
- The kids all love Audra!
Bobby and Eric celebrating the final drilling!
On Saturday evening we began our preparation for the upcoming celebration and the first service of the Hill Country Bible Church Namanga. At the well site we found a whole crew of Maasai ready and eager to help. We held a prayer vigil and some neighborhood girls serenaded us with Maasai praise songs. We quickly deemed them to be our choir for the next morning as they held their first “choir practice”! The next morning they all appeared bringing with them approximately 50 more local Maasai for the first service and well dedication.
Local children sing for the well dedication
During the church service I couldn’t help but once again be intrigued by the shoes the Maasai wore. Used tires cut into shoes. Those who had them were blessed while still others had no shoes at all!
Men’s dress shoes……..
- Women’s dress shoes…..
7 Maasai accepting Christ at the Tree Church
As we worshipped under the acacia tree aka “tree church” 7 local Maasai accepted Christ as their savior. It was a tremendous day! What a blessing. We also had over 30 people from Hill Country Bible Church Nairobi and Hill Country Bible Church Nyanza in attendance. The local counselor “governor” donated 2 goats for the occasion and the entire congregation feasted on roasted goat! What a celebration it was!
First tree church service – HCBC Namanga
That evening as we headed back to Nairobi I reflected on the day and was full of joy at what God had done. It was a long week but fruitful all the same. This was my first time to be in Kenya with Brio and the whole Well Aware gang and I was truly blessed as I pray they were. 17 people came with them to see the fulfillment of a borehole “water well” in Namanga, Kenya. Bobby and I enjoyed each and every one of them. What giving and loving hearts for others who are less fortunate. I was blown away! Thank you to the entire Well Aware Team! Without each and every one of you this well would not be in existence!
The Well Aware and Cultural Embrace Team!
Brio Yaipan – Founder, Well Aware
On Monday, Bobby and I had to head back to Rwanda. We had spent an entire week putting in a water well that meant so much to the people of Namanga. Within the next couple of weeks the submersible pump will go into the well and the generator will be added to run the pump. At that time our new pastor for HCBC Namanga, Mike Muge, will be permanently on site to continue development of the property and maintain the water well for all the local Maasai and their cattle and goats.
Mike Muge preaching the first service of HCBC Namanga
Since many of you have requested more photos here are some interesting ones I thought you might enjoy! Until we meet again in the blog…………… Bobby and Mindy
Eric Leonard having the time of his life?
This little guy I nicknamed “Little Man” because he was herding the family goats as he came in for bread and milk! He got into trouble several times for hanging out at the drilling rig instead of herding his goats! He couldn’t have been over 5 years old!
- One of the local Maasai girls pictured under the blue Namanga sky, with acacia thorns by her head.
- Maasai women gathering water for their families….
- Pond water or well water…..which would you drink?
Kids from Kingdom Kids Rescue Centre
Saddleback has contracted 50 wells this year for Kibuye. To date, 23 have been drilled and are fully functioning wells. We did come across a handpump the other day that had been robbed of it’s bolts and was therefore out of commission. It is amazing what they will steal here, but you know necessity is the mother of all invention. We are now trying to design safeguards around the well pumps to keep this from happening.
Kibuye as I mentioned in previous posts was an area badly hit by the genocide. The attrocities that occured there 16 years ago are still fresh in the minds of the people there. Perhaps that is why Saddleback has chosen this area as their primary relief and evangelism area for 2010. Next Tuesday, the election for a new President for Rwanda will take place. Please pray for God’s mercies on this election and pray for the people of Rwanda. (Update: The current president won the election so he continues on for 7 more years)
At the end of this week the current well count is 16 new water wells and 16 hand pump repairs. We cannot repair any more hand pumps nor can we install new ones at this time because our container of Afridev and Indian Mark 2 hand pumps is lost somewhere…..Please pray we get these soon!
Brio Yaipan (Founder Well Aware)
Next week we will be in Kenya for the drilling of the well in Namanga with our partners Well Aware (Brio) and the whole gang! We cannot wait to see them. Stay tuned for more news….
Blessings to all,
Bobby and Mindy
Monday started out with a bang! I traveled with Phillip out to a location close to Kigale to look at a hand pump that was not working. We found the women and children gathering water from this hand dug well. Dirty, nasty water does not even come close to what I saw! I was horrified because this water was coming directly downstream from a plastic manufacturing plant and chemical analysis on this water was incredible. Not just bacteria, choleria and typhoid, but also chemicals the analysis could not detect. I knew that this pump had to be repaired immediately. We arrived at the well and found a few issues with the pump and had to pull it. The repair was incredibly easy and took less than 10 minutes!
Phillip pulls pump
Lining up for water
As we repaired the well the people came and placed their jerrycans in line waiting for the water to come forth! They were so happy to see us and to see the well repaired.
There are always kids around….
- Cool dude!
On Tuesday Bobby woke up very sick. He slept most of the day running a very high temperature. We prayed he would be better soon because we had guests to take to Kibuye to watch the drilling process. On Wednesday he was remarkably better and we traveled on to Kibuye with John and Susan Baker to watch drilling there. It was a great time. We stayed until Thursday and had to travel back to Kigale to pick up Scott Emerson, the new country director for Burundi. They will travel to Burundi this next week to try and finalize paperwork for NGO there.
- So happy to get water
This week was a blast! Probably without a doubt the most productive week ever! Consider this: 4 wells drilled this week, 6 pump repairs and all done in just 4 days! God is so good. Each well here uses hand pumps and the wells usually provide water for around 200 – 400 people and their livestock and farming needs. It is difficult to get a hard and fast count of how many use each well because populations are not known and people still come from good distances to find the clean water. But, I can tell you driving by these wells throughout the day they never fail to have people there pumping water. Those pumps work 24/7 which is great!
Filming training videos with lots of help!
Gotta love the kids!
Scary site
Moving rig off the mountain
Tuesday we went to Kibuye. This borders the Congo and is on a lake. I could not believe the drill site when we arrived! The rig was jacked up where you could almost walk under it on the side of a mountain and it faced straight down about 5000 ft. Scary site, trust me! They drilled 2 wells on this mountain before moving the rig on Wednesday afternoon to another site. Getting the rig off that mountain was I assure you an act of faith and moment to moment prayer. As the rig rocked back and forth swaying from side to side with each bump it went over and with rocks cascading down the mountain side, watching the tires barely skim the edge only to loosen more rocks, I truly feared for the driver Kennedy and that drilling rig. Once you roll a rig it is all over and I knew we had to have divine intervention for this one. Not by the power of man, but by the power of God Himself! We all praised Jesus when the rig, compressor truck and support truck were back on the main road!
Moms and kids happy to be alive
Thursday's well was a gusher
Thursday we left Kibuye for another small town and drilled a well for another village. This one went right in the middle of a bunch of banana trees and the people here had been walking 5 km per day to find dirty water to drink. When we hit water the women all shouted and began singing. All the children were at the rig site instead of being in school. They joined in the celebration with the women.
Church
Memorial at the church
Bobby and Mindy
Well, our first full week in the field has been interesting. We have seen 4 wells drilled and 2 handpump repairs. To God be the glory! I find the people in Rwanda to be so friendly, helpful and surprisingly independent. After the 100 day genocide that took place here in 1994 these people are ready for a new way of life. There seems to be a large middle class here in Kigali, the capital city. The streets are paved and clean and quite nice for a change in Africa. The rural areas seem nice too with farms everywhere and food growing on just about every corner of earth exposed. 
It’s hard to imagine anyone being hungry here but I assure you the slums are still here. You see it in their faces, the look of hope and despair all at the same time. The cleanliness and the beauty here in Kigali is just a veneer. It is still very much Africa. Just yesterday everyone heard of the bombings in Kampala, Uganda. This is only a 6 hour drive from us and five minutes from our Kampala office.
Today, Bobby and Phillip went to southern Rwanda to repair a pump at a village. On the way they heard on the radio that a school was really suffering because their pump had been out for several days. It was on the way so they stopped and repaired the well with the help of about 200 students.
Later at the village when they arrived a 6 year old boy saw the repair truck and started saying, “bye, bye bad water”. Bobby didn’t understand this but Phillip informed him the children had been drinking the dirty water hauled from several miles away for the last week. The smiles were amazing once the water was pumping again.
Earlier in the week I found these boys waiting for the well to be drilled so they could have clean water. Just imagine sitting on the side of the road with your jerrycan waiting for clean water? This is reality in Africa.
Kibera Slums
There are 2.2 million orphans in Kenya. Most of these children live in abject poverty in the slums around the capital city of Nairobi. The Kibera Slum in one of the largest in the world with over a million inhabitants. In Kibera there is no running water, electricity or sewage system. To have only four meals in a week is a good week for most slum inhabitants. Over half of the population of Kenya lives on less than two dollars per day. AIDS is rampant in the slums of Kenya with many of the children infected, most having contracted it at birth from their mother. Many of these children succumb to everyday diseases that to children in the western world are but mere inconveniences.
typical street
We have started rescue homes to help get these children out of the slums. We provide an apartment that houses eight children, four boys and four girls. Each home has a full-time house mother that takes care of the children as a mother would in an other home. We feel that this is better than creating large orphanages because the children are in a normal family setting. The homes provide running water, three meals a day, medical treatment and schooling for these children. This allows them to have a fighting chance in life. We have in-country administrators that oversee the homes and insure that every aspect of daily life is taken care of in the best possible way. All of the personnel on the ground are Kenyans to insure that these children are still raised in the local culture.
Each home has a monthly budget of $1,400. This includes rent, utilities, clothing, school fees, uniforms, health care, food, etc… These homes are solely supported by regular monthly donors. If you would like to donate or be a regular supporter donate here. All funds go directly to the homes, and less than one percent is used in administration. It is truly a blessing to these children to be in a home and out of the slums.
This property is in a major migration corridor between Kenya and Tanzania for the nomadic Maasai Tribe. In March 2010 we will be drilling a water well on this property. This well will not only be used for agricultural irrigation but will also supply water for around 5000 local Maasai and their herds of cattle and goats. Daily life is very hard for these people. They are one of the last traditional tribes in Kenya and Tanzania. Women spend most of their day searching for water only to find dirty water that makes their children’s bellies hurt. Children herd cattle and goats all day looking for grass for their animals. The Maasai are also the largest land owners, but due to lack of water wells and groundwater they spend all their time searching for what they lack….food and water.
You say change cannot happen for these people…do they want change? Would you want your life to change if you could have abundant clean water, food growing in the fields, and schools for your children to learn to read and write? What if you suddenly had medical care, technical schools to learn a trade, and you knew that tomorrow you would have food for your family? The Maasai don’t have any of these assurances. Tomorrow they face the same challenges as today: to search for water and food for themselves and their livestock.
This property will also be used as a working farm that provides funds to reinvest in the community for many worthwhile projects. It will also stand as an example to local Maasai of the prosperity that can be gained by not only grazing the land but also by farming. All the Maasai need is an example of what can be accomplished with their land and the water to irrigate it. Hence the need for Kingdom Drilling to provide water wells for these people.
Update: Jan 28, 2011 Waterwell for Namanga Project is completed and the pumphouse is currently under construction, thanks to Sunset Canyon Baptist Church, Dripping Springs, Texas! The generator has been placed into service and water is running every day for the local Maasai. Thank you to all who have raised funds, wielded a chainsaw to clear brush and who have hung in there with us to see this project to it’s next stage. Phase 1 is almost finished and Phase 2 will begin with fencing the property and planting bananas.
Take the safari of a life-time as we drill a much needed well.
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My name is Rosemary. I live in Namanga, Kenya. I speak some English but mostly I speak the language of my people, the Maasai. I am one of 13 wives to my husband. I have 11 children and I have no idea how old I am. My day starts around 4 a.m. as I go in search of water for myself and my children for the day. I can carry 4 jerry cans full but I seldom find enough water to fill all 4 cans. I will walk for 4 – 10 hours per day to find water. Each day I go further and further for water and sometimes I find none at all. I come back home and wash what I can, hopefully feed my children one meal per day then I go to town to find tourists (mzungu) to sell the jewelry I have made. Then I can buy more food for tomorrow. I go back home, put my children down for the night and if my husband chooses me for the night I meet all of his needs. Then I make more jewelry to sell the next day and about midnight I go to bed. My desire is that one day I will be able to read and write English and for my children to be able to go to school. They spend all day herding the cattle and goats looking for food for the animals. One day I pray to have clean water so that my children and my own tummy doesn’t hurt anymore from drinking the dirty, contaminated water I find to bring home. That will be a great day.
Our very own Mindy Roberts met Rosemary in Kenya. In Mindy’s own words:
I met Rosemary in Oct 2009. She came to me hawking (selling) her jewelry because I am after all a mzungu. I asked Rosemary would she like for me to bring her clean water or to buy her jewelry. She dropped all her jewelry on the ground and stated, I would like clean water more than anything else. It was a great time to minister to her. Her husband is considering becoming a muslim so his wives can go get water but she is praying for this not to happen. She has heard of the terrifying life for muslim women.
WaterNow is committed to helping women like Rosemary. Every dollar you give goes directly to water projects that will provide clean, safe drinking water, and the promise of a better life to Rosemary and to people just like her.
Please contact WaterNow to find out about ways you can help.
Thanks,
Chris.
Phone: (512) 843-0035 x200
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