Life Abundant

Happy Easter! Celebrating a risen King is reason indeed to be glad! Celebrating abundant LIFE! Out of the grave, out of death and despair, came Life and hope for eternity!

We have enjoyed celebrating Easter with our good friend, Laura, with us for a week from Iringa. When she arrived last Sunday, we were still very much finding our way through the practical and emotional hurdles of the accident. But this week has been good and despite still not knowing what is going to happen about Tim going to court, or when we will get our vehicle back, we are at peace knowing that all is settled with the victim's family. So please continue to pray this week that things could be settled quickly with the police in Bunda, without Tim going to court in Musoma. And pray that we could get our vehicle fixed and returned quickly.

So this week we were able to enjoy two big events that have been planned for many weeks: the SODIS Shake and the Water Walk! The first was on Thursday in a village on the Lake called Kayenze. I will let the girls tell more about it, but they did such a great job! Amisadai instructed everyone (in Swahili) how to treat the water (which was brought up from the lake in bucketfuls) to make it safe to drink. Louisa demonstrated and then they repeated it all with a couple of volunteers before we all went out for the great 100L shake! Everyone got a bottle and started filling and shaking! You can see all the action on the short video here.


The 100 Litre SODIS Shake with Amisadai and Louisa from Rachel Monger on Vimeo.

The girls also taught about "Spreading Germs" with a short skit and we did a visual exercise showing how extensively germs spread with flour on the hand of one person which spread from hand to hand ... to hand as we all shook hands greeting one another! It was such a great experience for the girls to teach a large crowd of over 50 adults and children in a second language! It was a great conclusion to all the hard work they have put into planning and organizing a fundraiser! Tim shared on life abundant with living water; water spiritual and physical, I chipped in with bits here and there, and afterwards our friend Jountwa did a short session on HIV and AIDS health teaching. So it was a really helpful and productive long morning of teaching, meeting new people and getting invitations which will lead to more work in this village and surrounding ones!

Teaching how to treat water with the SODIS method

The SODIS Shake!

On Saturday, we embarked on the 6km Water Walk. It was great to have about eighteen of us go together; we are so thankful for the support of folks from Mwanza International Community Church, including Dr. Makori, who is the doctor heading up the medical work on the islands that we are raising money for. We also had Megan, our new fellow Canadian friend from MICC, with us! I would recommend anyone to do a 6km (or longer) walk with a thought in mind for the women and children that walk this distance and much more in the scorching sun with 10 (or more) litres of water on their head. Even after living here and knowing almost first-hand the struggle of life without easy access to water, we were struck by the stark reality of the hardship and a reminder to ourselves not to complain! And while on our walk, we saw a family struggling to get water to their home, which just spurred us on in the Water Walk and what it supports!


The Water Walk from Rachel Monger on Vimeo.

So thank you so much to those of you who are helping to raise money for the health work on the islands and a vehicle! We are especially thrilled to see some other children get involved and interested, as for Amisadai and Louisa, this is so special and important! And it is not too late to help (details on the website here) ... there is still a Water Walk in the UK happening on May 2nd, and one of Amisadai's friends in Aldermaston has set herself the challenge to raise £100 in a month!

We will hopefully get more from the girls with their perspective of the events of this past week (and all the fun they have had with Laura!), but they have their own busy week ahead with the exciting start at the Isamilo International School on Tuesday ... and Louisa's 8th birthday on Thursday!