The Challenge
“If we can clean up the water here, we can eliminate half this patient load.”
In 2006, this insight led friends Arnie LeMay, Jim Burris, and Sister Larraine Lauter to begin exploring water solutions of all kinds. Complex and simple,tried and untried, community and household scale — all in hopes of bringing clean water to a marginal neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
- Year after year on their medical mission trips, they’d found themselves treating the same illnesses, caused mostly by ingesting unsanitary water.
- They’d felt helpless. Instead of addressing the problem, they were merely treating symptoms.
Seek and You Shall Find
“What we need is something we can put into the hands of mothers — something affordable, simple, reliable.”
A chance encounter at a 2007 mission conference led to the Sawyer PointONE water flitration system. The friends knew immediately that their technology problem was solved.
- But they also knew that technology is never a solution in itself. And so they returned to their partners in Tegucigalpa, approaching the leaders and congregation of El Templo Divina Misericordia (Temple of Divine Mercy).
- With the help and wisdom of the community there, Water With Blessings was born.
The Solution
“State of the art technology deserves a state of the heart program.”
The idea was simple: put state of the art water filters into the hands of mothers and train them to provide clean water, not just for their own families, but for others in the community as well. Passionate about health for their children, dedicated, determined, and generous in spirit, these “Water Women” became our “state of the heart” solution.
- And before we knew it, the mothers began asking us to send them forth as water missioners,
- ultimately bringing Water With Blessings to remote villages that would never have seen a visiting mission team.
A Global Community
“Mother culture is the same in every corner of the planet!”
In 2011, we began to empower, equip, and entrust Mission Partners — short and long-term missioners who share our concern and our principles — to carry Water With Blessings around the world. In doing so, we’ve found that the solution that works for God’s thirsty children in Honduras also works in Haiti… in Malawi… in Nepal… and everywhere in between.
- Thanks to the power of these partnerships and the success of our “state of the heart” program,
- Water With Blessings is now a global community of more than 100,000 mothers in 45+ countries — and growing!
in many other ways to support our life-saving mission.