Final Day and Mixed Emotions.

Thank you for your patience, as we didn't post an offering on Thursday night. This was a night of reflection for us, as we went to Las Penitas, and ate dinner at the Hotel Suyapa Beach. The food was excellent, and we had a chance to unwind after our week of hard work so far. The sunset was also amazing.

Sunset over the Pacific from our restaurant.

Friday was our last day with the people of Nicaragua. Our well was still not clean enough to shock and dedicate, but is producing good water and just needs some time. Though not being able to dedicate a well while on this trip, the important part is the well is set up properly so the people of Tolodar have better opportunities for health and prosperity in this very poor country. It looks like our water table is 114' down, which means the aquifer is healthy and will supply water for many years to come.

Everyone in the village helped in some way.

Jader, our site foreman,
checks the water table depth.

In lieu of returning to Tolodar to sit and watch them flush the well, on Friday, we visited a site which has seen many challenges over the years. In 1998, hurricane Mitch flooded the mountain upon which these people lived, and 3,000 of the 4,500 residents perished in the landslide. The government set aside some land for them to live on in the sugar cane fields, but it is 7km from the town, and just as far from the nearest road. Malnutrition ran rampant, so upon visiting, Jim and Tedde helped sponsor the town for a Living Water International well, and brought in Orphan Network to provide natal care and feeding programs. We were blessed to see both in action upon our visit, and meet Dick and Beth Anderson who were instrumental in bringing healthy opportunity to this village.

Once a week, this nurse would come to educate
young mothers and potential mothers.

As part of the feeding program, a new stove and nutrition
training became part of the gifts brought to this village.

Tedde's favorite thing was handing out Famous Amos
cookies as the children left the feeding program.

 Our group will split up from here. Five of us are in Managua at the Hex Hotel, while Jim and Tedde stayed with their friends Dick and Beth. Three of us enjoy a 7:15am flight (5:30am shuttle), while Fred and Janet will spend a couple days in Granada to unwind and process their experiences.

This has been an amazing journey so far, and there is much potential for even more grace to be spread through the Living Water program. We will head home tomorrow, but part of our hearts will remain in Nicaragua.

Stay tuned for upcoming news and presentations at church. The trip may be ending, but the journey has just begun.

The PCBarrington Living Water Team.

Striking Water is Like Striking Gold!

Well, at least it's a kind of muddy brown, if not literal gold. But in value for the people of Tolodar #2, it is better than gold!

What an amazing journey, and this is how it went:

Starting with daily devotions, Tedde shared Galatians 5:22-23, the Fruits of the Spirit. She shared the passage, and Pastor Joe sang a song about the Fruits of the Spirit as well. We each picked one of the fruits to cultivate this day, and it seemed like 'Joy" was the most popular. How prophetic it was!

We made our way to the village, stopping once to catch a picture of the sign for the town. Once on site, the now familiar drill rig and class areas seemed comfortable to us. We got to work, and the drilling crew impressed everyone with their now honed skills. They made their way past the 145' mark where we left off, and continued to drill until past 200'. As they got deeper, the dirt piled up and the samples were checked for quality. The magic depth would be 180'-195' from which to pull the water!

Welcome to Tololar #2!

The larger drill bit which took us to 200'!

While our drill team was working, we once again had lessons to help the women of the village make the best use of the new, clean water supply, and also some general tips on hygiene and care of the pump. We also did a great amount of review, and were duly impressed by the amount of information they retained. We also enjoyed a Bible story about the lost sheep, which went over very well with this group of farmers and herders. To close the women's portion of the day, they made crosses in prayer and all posed for a group photo - their community to ours.

We repeated the lessons with the children after school let out in the afternoon. They also remembered the "poopa" and how to take care of food. They loved the lessons from Bambino Benito and his diarrhea problem, and enjoyed posing for their own photo to share with you.

Hello from the women of Tololar #2!

Hello from the children!

The afternoon brought some changes in the drilling, bringing a new skill to our already highly qualified drill team! After using the machine to drill to 200', the team now used pure hand power to lower 4" PVC piping into the hole. Each of the 20-foot sections had to be hoisted into place, glued to the previous piece, then lowered carefully until the top was in position. This was repeated 11 times, and the weight of the connected piping was at the edge of the ability to be held securely by hand. Then, bottom was struck, the end cut to the proper height, and a flushing system attached. The well was flushed with several hundred gallons of bleach shock solution, and prepared for the next step.

Did we actually hit water?! Using compressed air, we pumped out all the water used to drill and shock the system, which really made people Joyful! The initial water was ours, but then after a couple blasts of compressed air, more water from the aquifer started to flow. Yes, the well will be a success - though there are still a few more steps required to make it a sealed, clean water well. Our excitement was quelled when we found that this is where we would leave the well for the night, returning tomorrow to finish the next steps.

Slits were cut every 1", in the upper 15' of the PVC pipe to draw water into the well.

Each section was placed, glued and lowered by hand power only.

The belching water is fresh from the aquifer, with the golden brown mud remaining from the drilling process.

 Another late night, and busy day tomorrow! Good night from our team.
The PCB Living Water Team

A Tale of Muddy Water and Diarreah.

Now that we have your attention...

Our second day of drilling and education brought many joys and surprises, as we figured it would, though it started with comforting words of faith with Jim leading our devotions this morning with a passage from Philippians. Jim talked about encouragement in Christ, and we shared a little of how we felt affected by our first days' work. This was a solid time of prayer and sharing upon which to build our day.

The people of Tololar greeted us warmly this morning, and with an air of recognition from yesterday. Our drilling equipment was where we left it, and the truck with our education supplies was already there. The wind was a little less, so we didn't have the pervasive dust devils pelting our faces as we did before, though that also meant the weather felt hotter. We made sure we stayed hydrated with our own clean water before the pump would provide the village with their own.

A panoramic view of our work site. The drilling is left of center, and the teaching about 50 yards away towards the right.

 The drilling continued where we left off with one huge exception! We changed to a 7-1/2" drill bit. This meant that we had to open the first 120' we drilled yesterday, then continue drilling with the larger material removal the rest of the way. We made it to 145', and the plan is to make it to 190' tomorrow morning. This larger diameter also meant greater material removal. The cleaning out of the settling pits took a lot more attention today.

The shaft is 4" diameter, and the hole is not 7-1/2" around.

Cleaning out the settling pits. Definitely one of the dirtiest jobs on site!

Our hygiene education team picked up where we left off, with the exception of some personnel changes. Linda and Fred moved from education to try their hand at drilling, while Tedde and Eric joined as teachers. We learned about what causes the most trouble with bad hygiene - diarrhea and dehydration. Tedde had a LOT of fun creating Bottle Bambino Benito and making him sick with dark water, and then a leaky side demonstrating that water leaving the body is a bad and dangerous thing. More importantly, we learned how to take care of ourselves by re-hydrating with a solution of water, salt and sugar so we stay healthy. What a treat to watch Tedde get both the mom' and children's classes clamoring to squeeze the water out of poor Benito. It seemed to be a great lesson, and one which can go a long way to preserving the health of someone after they get parasites, and before they can get the clean water.

One of our boys gets squirted by Benito's water.

We also learned more about keeping clean, and how to wash and brush with clean water. Janet showed us how to properly brush our teeth on one HUGE set of chompers! Even those of us with good hygiene learned a thing or two from the demonstration. As a craft, we made paper bag super teeth, which the kids very much enjoyed playing with, walking up to you and saying 'Hola!'.

Hola Chompers!

While the education team cleaned up, we continued to watch the drilling team make headway. The going was slow because of the extra diameter, but also due to hitting some very tough clay layers. It was a harder work day all around, and our crew was ready to head home after the heat of the day.

The Living Water compound. Our home for the week.

Good night from our weary but encouraged group.
The PCB Living Water Team

Hygiene and Drilling

Today, we got to work! We began our day with music and devotions. Music was led by Douglas, Roger and Marcio, singing some classic Contemporary Christian praise music - in both English and Spanish. We also had a devotion, led by Pastor Joe, who shared about Jesus feeding the 5,000, and how we are compelled to participate in God's work in the world.

Douglas, Roger and Marcio praise the Lord in song.

We packed up our things and loaded the truck for heading to our work site, about 30 minutes away. Our travels were mostly on nicely and recently paved roads, but then came the inevitable gravel road leading to our drill site at Tololar #2. This is a small village in the sugar cane fields beneath Volcano San Cristobal, which last erupted just three years ago, causing no damage but helping the residents remain vigilant.

Tololar #2 resides beneath a volcano, in sugar cane land.

Driving to Tololar, we pass the sugar cane,

and have a clear view of Volcan San Cristobal

 Our tasks were twofold today. One team taught over 30 adult women about hygiene in the morning, and 50 children in the afternoon. They learned about germs, and how disease gets transferred from animal, to feces, to us. They enjoyed some graphic, and as it seemed, quite effective teaching techniques using playdough food, fake "poopa", and one enormous fly to spread some germs!

Let's get dirty! This was the battle cry of the drilling team. We drilled into the earth with a 4" diameter drill bit and piping. The village has an existing open (non-sanitary) well, and we needed to go deeper than this to another aquafer. As it turned out, we went to 120 feet! Far more than expected by our group, but seemingly in line with our professionals. Of course, they made it easy for us gringo's to get some battle scars, of sorts.

Grimy Gringo's showing off their mud.

Tuesday is another day, and we will be mixing up our teams with two of the drillers swapping places with two of the teachers. This should be... interesting! Stay tuned!

Happy Frolicking!
The PCB Living Water Team.

Welcome to León, Nicaragua!

The 2-1/2 hour ride was colorful
with just about every kind of
vehicle on the roads with us.

We have arrived safely at our volunteer house in León. Not too much of an adventure, but still a long day. We left our Houston hotel at 6:30 in the morning, and arrived at our home for the week around 3:30 in the afternoon. Upon pulling up to the front gate, we realized it was more of a compound than a house! After the appropriate horn signal, an armed guard opened the steel gate so we could enter.

Douglas sharing some of what
we will be doing this week.

Our hosts for the week showed us the compound and gave us an introductory talk. We learned about our daily schedule, and how much of the day was left up to Jesus' schedule. Some of us will be working the drilling team, others the education team, and a few of us chose to try some of each.

Douglas is our main host. He lives in the compound with his wife and young son, and is very passionate about Living Water International.Our hygiene education host, Hacknier, is quite pregnant so will be guiding us from the compound while Johanna will translate for us. We will meet Johanna on Monday.

After a wonderful spaghetti and meat ball dinner, prepared by two of our cooks, Claudia and Evania, we finished settling in and are getting ready for a much needed night's sleep.

Good night!
The PCB Living Water Team.

On Our Way!

Five of us, Pastor Joe, Fred, Janet, Linda and Eric, left Chicago's O'Hare International Airport this evening to begin our journey to León, Nicaragua. We traveled to Houston where, after some initial, and all too common mis-steps, we finally arrived at our hotel.

There are a few fun things that us suburban Chicago types will have to get used to when traveling across cultures. One thing is that, when in Texas, they make announcements about picking up your firearms at the airport! ...and we all neglected to carry this trip. ;-)

Our trip went wonderfully smoothly for the most part. Our flight was completely full, but we all made it on board and departed on time. The flight was smooth, and our neighbors very polite (this can be a rarity on full flights) and the flight attendants were great.

Just when we thought all was well, we went to catch our shuttle to the hotel. I called to find out about picking it up. The hotel clerk said '20 minutes' and took my number so he could call when the van was there. So in walking out to see if anyone was there, a La Quinta van was waiting. I asked, and he said he was FULL! In calling the hotel again, the clerk said "No problem, the driver will be right back." It's a 15 minute drive, so that added another 30 minutes to our wait. While we stood there, to be sure we got on the next shuttle, it was somewhat entertaining to watch the shuttle driver antics. At one point, SIX Parking Spot vans were parked across the lanes, just blocking traffic. In good mission trip creative thinking form, it was at least part of the discussion to see about offering one of their drivers a few bucks to take us to our hotel. Yep, we're all on the same page!

These are supposed to be airport shuttle pick up lanes, not a Parking Spot bus depot.

In any case, after waiting 50 minutes for our shuttle, we are all checked in to our rooms and getting rested. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we will meet downstairs at 6:00 am for a quick snack before our 6:30 am shuttle. We want to ensure that we all get on this one since we have to catch a morning flight to Managua, and then on to León! Our group of five will meet up with Jim and Tedde at the airport to complete our team of seven. The excitement and anticipation is building, and it sounds like everyone is ready to go.

A map of Central America, and pin showing the location of León.

In looking at our weather forecast, it looks like we're also in for some warm weather, especially for those of us coming from the Midwest and our single digits. The forecast? 99F - 100F each of our work days!

Stay tuned, and please keep us in your prayers that we stay safe and healthy with the high heat.

Faithfully,
The PCB Living Water Team.