Clean Water Flowing Now
in New Territory

by Wil Howie

“You find the high ground in the community, build a church and give people clean water,” says the Rev. Roldan Rios, pastor of the New Life Presbyterian Church in Orange Walk, Belize, about their strategy for evangelizing and planting new churches in this flat but beautiful land of northern Belize often hit by hurricanes.

This past February an eight person team from First Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama and Living Waters for the World traveled to Orange Walk to install a water purification system at the church and school in this hot, dusty town of 10,000 people. Also, for the first time ever in conjunction with an installation (our twelfth), we taught our new Bible-based health and hygiene education program – “Celebrating Living Waters!” to 160 school children and over 70 adults.

Celebration was indeed in the air Sunday night at worship, and Monday morning with all the school children, as we dedicated the new unit to the glory of God and to God’s children in this part of the world. Clean water is now flowing.

With our partners, we also met with the staff of the Northern Regional Hospital in Orange Walk, traveled to the remote village of Indian Church – where a new church is being planted – and made plans for the next several trips necessary to install units at each of these locations.

Jesus Christ is living water for our bodies and souls!

School children in Orange Walk present a drama showing clean water and bad contaminants as part of the health education component in the new water purification installation there.

Video to Get RCC Award

Water for Our Souls, the video produced and circulated around the Synod for the Living Waters for the World project, will receive an award in the DeRose- Hinkhouse competition of the Religion Communicators Council. Council. The award will be presented at the 2003 RCC National Convention April 24 in Indianapolis. Videographers were Stephen Hill and Brad Van Demark of BlueSky Filmworks in Nashville.