Put Feet to Their Faith - blood:water mission - Water Walk

How far do you walk each day to have access to clean, safe water? 50 steps? More, less? If you are like me - and I have a feeling most of you are, you measure the distance between you and safe water by steps, not miles. This, however; is not the case for so many of people who live in Africa. As the blood:water mission says, "Every day, thousands of young Africans must hike miles a day just for access to water. Furthermore, children whose daily chore is to collect water, are often left with no time to attend school. On top of the heavy loads and certain risk of illness from drinking contaminated water, it is estimated that over 40 billion work and school hours are lost every year in Africa to the act of fetching clean drinking water." 

What would your life, and the life of the children and families in your church, be like if you had to walk at least a mile each way each and every day to have access to water? What if this water was not really clean and safe? How would this impact your life? It is very difficult for us to really identify with or even begin to understand the huge impact it makes on lives for people to have to walk to "fetch water", but you can do something which will impact the lives of the children and families in your church and help them begin to understand what it would be like if they had to walk a mile each day to get water. Plan a "water walk" for the children and families in your church so they can literally, "walk a mile in their shoes". As blood:water mission says, "By joining in solidarity with people in Africa, walking the distance to your nearest natural water source (like a pond or stream) and bringing water back, you can walk for water so someone in Africa doesn't have to.  However small this gesture may be, for many it has been a galvanizing and implicating experience, bringing our understanding of our neighbor one mile closer and our love, perhaps, one mile stronger."


"Your Walk Can Change Theirs" . . . this is true! Plan a water walk and involve the children and families in your ministry in this opportunity to experience, in this small way, what many of the lives of their "neighbors" in Africa are like each and every day. Use this opportunity and experience to raise money for the blood:water mission - sell bottles of water, sell - design your own bumper stickers and have families design their own bummer stickers, take photos of families and sell the photos, have families design their own posters showing their experience and then auction them off - send all the money you raise to the blood:water mission and most importantly, take time to pray for the people in Africa so they will not only receive clean, safe drinking water, but will learn about the Living Water Jesus offers!