We have reached the last day in the village. I still can't believe how fast this week has gone by! This is an exciting day because we will finish the well! Praise God!
Our kiddos are waiting, as usual, for us when we arrive. There is alot of downtime today and we plan to only entertain the kids for as long as we are there this morning.
Adrian (our head driller) gets out this rope and tells everyone that he needs us. He explains that this rope will be attached to the small PVC at the bottom of the well. It CANNOT touch the ground because it has to be completely clean. So here we are stretched out down the main road 160 ft, holding the rope above our heads. I am very excited to help out with the well, I've been wanting to all week.
Once he has the rope measured out, they role it up. This is because we will be lowering the pipe down the well 10 ft at a time in order to attach each PVC together.
Ileana and Rosa (sisters)
DeAnna with some of the boys
Here you can see each side of the rope attached to the PVC. The pipe got heavier and heavier as each piece was attached. By the end it was VERY heavy!
Since I can no longer help at the well and it will be a while until they actually start pumping, I join Lauren and Theresa with the kids. I learn that Katarin has injured her elbow, probably dislocated. We were told that she was taken to the hospital, but after she returned 30 minutes later with a bag of Pepsi, and her arm is still bent at the elbow, we realize that she probably have to live with this until it is no longer tolerable. It breaks my heart. Lauren and Karen tried swinging her by her arms to hopefully pop it back in but it was too painful for her.
Emily, a new face, came to visit and the kids gravitated to her!
Some while later, we were told they were going to pump soon, so we all walked back up to the site. I took a couple of pictures of some pretty flowers. The white one is called 'A Thousand Flowers' and the red one is a poinsettia.
Once the head of the pump is on, it takes about 200 pumps to get water. After 300 Adrian realizes something is wrong. They have to take off the head and pull all the rod out...anyway it takes about 30 minutes.
The first pump of clean water! It was a very exciting moment!! I realized that I would have been really disappointed if we weren't able to finish the well in the week we were here. It would have been finished eventually by Living Water, but it brought a sense of completeness to the mission.
We all sign the underside of the head of the pump. Then we get ready for the dedication.
Sweet Juan Carlo
Estebana spoke at the dedication and brought me to tears. Just hearing her talk about her gratefulness for the clean water that will better her family's life was something I will always remember. I pray this village and more will be blessed for generations by this well.
Josh giving it a pump
Theresa gave the rest of the Bibles to the pastor David and he gave them out to the women.
Now that the well was complete, it was time for lunch. The women of the village always cook lunch for the team to show their appreciation. Living Water always tells them to make soup so that we know that its been heated enough to boil any germs away. Gotta love hot soup on a hot day.. So we walk down to where they have a long table set up, with a beautiful tablecloth on it. We sit down and, thankfully, they have plastic cups with bottles of Pepsi on the table. Then they serve us these GIANT bowls of soup. And I mean like dog size GIANT! The meat was good, the broth was really good, everything else was not that great. As we ate, the women watched us. After we were done I gave each woman a hug and thanked them for the wonderful soup.
My sexy man.
After lunch it was time to say goodbye to our wonderful kids. I was dreading this part. When we told them were were leaving, they all thought they would see us tomorrow. We had to tell them we were going back to the United States and they were kinda quiet after that, confused and a little sad. We said goodbye to each by name, and hugs to many.
My heart hurt most for these boys. Such sweethearts who will always be in my heart.
After leaving we had to drive to one of the wells that was just completed so Adrian could check on it. It happened to be near Dante's (the boy with the great smile from church) home. We were all glad to see Dante once again!
We got back to the compound later than we expected, so I was very disappointed to know that we wouldn't be going zip lining like we had hoped. My first real adventure on my first trip out of the country...I was bummed. We spent the rest of the day fellowshipping and packing. Dinner was pizza, which was a surprise! Jorge stuck around for awhile and talked with us...for the first time this week. I was glad to get to know him a little bit before we left. Many of us had been disappointed to not be able to get to know Jorge and his family, like we thought we would. He had some cool stories. Then we got to bed a little early because we were leaving at 6am for the airport. I am super excited to see my boys tomorrow. After hearing about the shooting in Connecticut, I couldn't wait to hold my children and tell them how much I love them.
