MISSION WORLD

That’s what my mother used to say to me when I asked for something silly, self-indulgent or unattainable. I imagine that’s the essense of the response to the request for clean water by the inmates of a thrird-world prison too. Although it’s not silly, or self-indulgent, it is sometimes unattainable.

We attended a conference last week, learning how to install the McGuire Water Purification system and how it can be used in short term missions. It is fairly simple to install, but requires a fair level of commitment from the end users to keep it in operation.

In most of the places we go on our missions and indeed, most of the world, pure water is in short supply and high demand. In fact, most deaths in the world today are due to water-borne pathogens. That fact makes this purifier a great way to minister to people and introduce them to the gospel.

A case in point is the project we will do in February - installing a system in Esteli prison in Nicaragua. There are 650 people in this prison. Check out some of the conditions in these pictures. In Nicaragua, the prison system spends about $1 a day per prisoner to house, feed and guard them. The federal government simply will not do anymore because anyone with any resources at all has paid their bribes and avoided prison. When at all possible, the prisoner’s families come each day to bring them food, clothes and clean water. If they have no family, they only have what is provided which is less than…uh….sanitary. (Of course if they had family, they would pay to get them out!)

Speaking of hell…(we were, weren’t we?)….because we are willing to do this, the warden will give us full and complete access to the prison to preach, teach and share our faith with the men there. You can read about how this project came about in the previous post.

What we plan to do is plumb the kitchen with purified water and build a water bottle fill station. This way, the drinking water and water used to make juice and drinks will be sanitary as will food washed during preparation. Our plumber will survey the rest of the system to determine what repairs are needed and we will return perhaps in July or later to make repairs to the rest of the system supplying the restrooms and “dorms”.

We will buy the supplies and supervise, and the inmates will supply the labor. We’re going to need about $2500 to complete this phase of the project. Someone has donated the purifier to us, and everyone installing the system and ministering will be paying their own way.

If you can help out with this project, or would like to go with us, give me a call or email me. Donations are tax deductible.

Terry Steiden
502-836-9201
tsteiden@insightbb.com

BTW - I don’t believe people in Hell want ice water. I think they just want OUT. That’s not up to us, but we have an opportunity and obligation to tell people how to avoid it in the first place.

We are well into planning our February Medical Mission to Nicaragua. We had originally planned on going to Honduras, but the fares for flights were really high, so we’re going instead to a town called Riva near the Costa Rican border. You can read all about the plans here. You can see Rivas HERE, Look at Rivas weather HERE and see a map HERE.

We’ve already applied for and been approved to get the medicines we need, about 7 people have signed on from Forest Park and we’ve made at least one trip already to pick up supplies.

In the process of all the planning I got a call about another mission opportunity which you can read about below. Consider these opportunities and send in your $100 deposit soon - it’s going to be a blessed time .

Please take just a few minutes to read this story – it might be important to you.

A friend of mine named Mark Hogg…yeah, it really is…is involved in several types of mission work in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and in Romania. One of the projects he does as a mission is install water purification systems.

Believe it or not, poor quality water is responsible for most of the death in the world today via water-borne pathogens. The system he installs actually purifies existing water sources. You can read all about it here if you like.

Anyway, a full time missionary from Costa Rica contacted him recently about the need for a water purification system in a prison in which he ministers in Esteli, Nicaragua. Here is the email I got from Mark:

Hope all is well with you.
Need to chat with you and Ronnie. Got a bit of a problem and need some serious help.
There is a Nicaraguan prison 2 hours north of Managua.
600 people drinking some really nasty water.
Big problems.

You think your church would be interested in EDGE training some people in the water and tank plumbing set up and send some folks down there? Perhaps couple it with one of your other trips. We don’t have the manpower right now.

HUGE ministry opportunities down there at the prison - open to anything while you are installing the system.
Vernon Hodge is on the board of a ministry down there that brought in a REC in the prison.
I met with a guy in Costa Rica last week we’ve been working with who goes there about 1x/month.
The ministry is Food for the Hungry and is world wide.
He is getting panicked for the water needs there.

Our water conference would be a perfect place for some of your folk to learn how to do the water purification ministry.
More on that and a 12 page document we wrote for water ministry www.edgeoutreach.com

Thanks for your time.
Let me know what you think.
I don’t have Ronnie’s email - could you forward this to him.

Blessings,
Mark Hogg
EDGE OUTREACH

It just happened that I got this email the night of our men’s dinner at church and I was scheduled to speak about our recent mission to Honduras as well as international missions in general.

I mentioned the opportunity at the dinner with no particular plan for actually doing it. I was just gauging interest. 4 men expressed a great desire to work on the project. Well,… I guess I would make 5. My son, Dallas, was so convicted to go, that even though he will be living in Flint, Michigan by then, he made arrangements to take off from a job he hasn’t started yet to go.

First priority for me, however, is our medical clinic in February. Logistically, it’s already pretty daunting – we have to get everyone’s license, get medicines donated, collected, inventoried and packed, get tickets, etc., so adding another component like this would be really challenging.

We had planned on going to Honduras this year instead of Nicaragua to do our clinic. We even had the cities already identified. Here’s the info sheet I did for the trip: http://home.insightbb.com/~tsteiden/PDFS/2-17-07.pdf

So, to do the water project we would have to drive 4 hours to cross the border into Nicaragua (after completing the week of clinics), drive another 5 or 6 hours to pick up the rest of the team in Managua, then drive another 3 to 4 hours to Esteli to do the project. Of course, some of us would have to go back to Tegicigalpa to go home from Honduras and the rest leave from Managua once we completed the project.

As we started lining up flights to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, however, the cost of tickets came in $200 higher than the same tickets we had just bought in September! We tried every way to get cheaper flights, but we could not find them.

We then decided to see what flights to Nicaragua would cost. They turned out to be almost $100 less than we had ever paid before. Well, I might be dumb, but I’m not stupid – we’re going to Nicaragua. That cleans up some logistics considerably.

To make things even easier, we’re going to a town called “Rivas” which is south of Managua, just across the border from Costa Rica which is where the missionary from Costa Rica will be coming from as he heads to the project in Esteli.

All that was really left to do was make arrangements for transportation, lodging, food, etc. for that week, so, I sent an email to everyone involved letting them know I would get back to them once I got more info. I got this email in reply from someone I have never met:

Dear Terry —
I am a missionary in Nicaragua (also) and am on the NPMI (prison ministry) Board. I would be glad to take care of your transportation and lodging for the water project. I went with Scott to the prison in Esteli last week, just in case I could be of service to you. So I now know the players there. I can translate for you, or arrange translation. I can also set you up with lodging if you can let me know how many are coming and for what time period. In fact, someone who works with me (his name is Gabriel) checked out lodging possibilities for you this past weekend, and he has connections with someone who owns a house that they rent out by the month, but for only U$50!! It’s a nice place (I will go and make sure before you come down), has a kitchen, and if you need someone to cook for you, we can arrange that. [Rafael, the head of all the prison doctors] suggested a place for you to stay while we were visiting, but Gabriel told me it’s “not adequate for Northamericans.” So he went this weekend to find some alternatives for you.]
Let me know if you’d like me to take further action, make reservations, etc. I want to go to the prison with some wood for their carpentry shop before I go on vacation (Nov. 14-Dec. 13), so if you can get back to me within the next week or so, I can get everything set up for you now.
Thanks for being in touch.

Que Dios les bendiga.
Cheryl Avery

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I asked you to read this story because sprinkled throughout, it appears to me that God is directing people, resources and events to accomplish this work. Why? I don’t know - but I intend to find out by being available and I want you to have the same opportunity. A great man of God once told me “if you want to find God, go to where he’s working and just hang around – he’ll find you”.

The trip will cost you about $1250. I’ll have to have a $100 deposit by 11/26, the balance of the flight money ($750) by 1/5 and the rest by 2/8. This will take care of all your expenses except a meal or 2 out.

If you are already going on the medical trip with us (2/17 to 2/24) and just want to stay on for the water project, just add another $400 or so.

The trip will be from Saturday, 2/24 to Saturday, 3/3

Email me to let me know that you want to go, or to put you on the email list for this project if you aren’t ready to commit yet. I’ll keep you up to date with the planning.

If you’d like to contribute, I’ll be glad to talk to you about that too – we’ll have to buy some equipment and supplies.

If you’ve gotten this far and want to know more, here’s the rest of the story up to today. Things are moving quickly.

The Costa Rican missionary has been to the prison in Esteli to do a water survey. It revealed that the water used in the kitchen is in good shape, but water being pumped out to other areas (for drinking and washing) is highly contaminated.

This is probably due to the fact that the water lines run through areas where they are exposed to sewage in ditches as well as contamination from sewage saturated ground water. (There is no freeze danger, so water lines can be run above ground, on the ground or just below the surface – they don’t have to be below the freeze line).

When power goes down (as it is does a regular basis), the pumps shut down, pressure is lost on the pipes and the contaminated water can seep in.

Therefore, we need only treat the drinking water at the building(s) where it will be used, not the whole system. (I guess it is not feasible to replace the whole piping system).

I am scheduled to attend a training seminar on November 8, 9 and 10 to learn how to construct and install the system and a team in Nicaragua is photographing the site so we can get an idea of how the system needs to be constructed when we arrive. You can see some pictures of what the system looks like here.

I’ll get back to those of you who contact me. Feel free to pass this on to anyone else you think might be interested

Terry Steiden
502-836-9201
tsteiden@insightbb.com