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