Thank God it is True! Our goal to bring the first water to the village of Imisigio is an overwhelming success! We dug down almost 800 feet, an incredible depth and we were Blessed with so much water! So many lives will be positively impacted because of what we have done together.

I want to share with you the joyous sounds and sights, so please read this blog further:

Dear friends and supporters,

I saw you all in US weeks ago and you’re sure to be wondering what has been happening. I hoped to arrive in Kenya and start drilling the borehole immediately, but, surprise… more delays!

But now….Our nine months of water labor are over. As of Sunday, March 11, we have successfully drilled the Imisigyio bore hole. You’ll be thrilled to know we got a lot of water! It was a great experience all around. The community was well organized and fully cooperated in the drilling process. They provided watchmen, goats to slaughter for meat for the workers and community helpers, like me and my team. We spent four days under the trees waiting, filming, chatting, interviewing the community, observing the drilling process, most of us experiencing it from beginning to end for the first time. Many came to see if this huge loud piece of machinery would bring forth the miracle of water from deep in the earth – women collecting firewood, children herding goats and sheep, older boys herding cattle, borehole committee members eager to prove to their doubting neighbors that their faith was not in vain, curious community members who had seen the drill passing on the narrow, hilly, rocky roads.

The drilling days went like this. The drillers started on Thursday, did some drilling, and had a few holdups. Friday was a full day of drilling. We had arrived at the site later in the morning than planned since our Suzuki was acting up in the morning. The battery was low. We tried pushing it to start it, but even with the hills of Loitokitok, it was hard to start. We tightened the terminals, added water to the battery and went on our way, but in the afternoon when we tried to start the car at the drilling site, the car wouldn’t start at all. The driller had a truck which he kindly offered to us to take us back to Loitokitok for the night where we were staying in a guesthouse. We left around 5 to beat the darkness – not a great idea to travel at night on some of these roads which are rocky, remote, with patchy phone network, few other vehicles and a reputation for bandits – and to talk to the mechanic who would travel with us in the morning to repair the car.

I thought the drillers had quit for the day when we left, but back in Loitokitok after showering off the grime of the day, I got a call from the driller, Mr. Kante, “We got a lot of water at 178 meters” he said. First I thought, “Wow! Thank God!” And then I thought, “but I wasn’t there to film it.” The documenter’s attempt to control reality! I had had visions of filming the first GUSH!!!! of water. Of course, I quickly thought, “who cares, as long as there’s water! There’ll be plenty of water to film tomorrow.”

We were all HAPPY when we ate our dinner that night and drank a celebratory beer with the Ministry of Water supervisor, Mr. Mugucia, who was part of the team we were traveling with. The next morning, we were eager to get to the site. As soon as we arrived, the driller and Mr. Mugucia consulted and agreed to continue drilling to see if there would be higher volume at lower depths. The volume increased at about 200 meters, but they continued drilling to see if the rock formation would change and produce an even higher volume of water. We drilled to 220, but since the formation wasn’t showing signs of changing, they decided to stop at that depth. Each meter drilled increases the price of the bore hole, and there’s no reason to keep mounting the bill.

After drilling was completed, they put the permanent casing inside the hole according to the casing design that Mr. Mugucia had developed from observing the rock layers as the drilling progressed. After casing, they cleaned the sediment out of the hole and packed gravel between the casing and the sides of the hole. Finally, they capped the hole to prevent accumulation of sediment or pollutants until the time we’re ready to start pumping water. The last step of the drilling, the 24 hour test pumping, is scheduled for next week and will give us the exact water volume and water composition of our borehole. These results will help us know which kind of pump and which capacity of generator we’ll need.

AMREF has agreed to help us with the generator. This is fantastic news. They pay for 75% of the machine and the remaining 25% is paid by us. AMREF will send a team to train the community to use and maintain the machine. It’s really a great service to the community. Meanwhile, we’ll be shopping for a contractor to build the water tank which is being paid for by the money that the Kajiado County Council gave to the project. God is good and I love that we are leveraging support from this project from the local government and local NGO’s. It’s a model I hope we can continue to use for subsequent bore hole projects. It excites me! No reason to be the Lone Ranger on these things, especially since our greater goal is community development.

Finally, I’d like to say how grateful I am to every single one of you for your prayers, friendship, financial support, faith and encouragement. There is no way this would have happened without you. It’s just continuous proof of the amazing way in which God works. God uses all of us to love and support each other as we do the good work of caring for each other, both for those who live close and for those who live far away, like all our friends here in Kenya. The community of Imisigyio are so thankful and praying for you all, too! I will keep you posted as the next stages are completed. So, keep those prayers coming. And if any of you is so inspired, adopt a bore hole! Plenty more bore holes need to be drilled, so as those thousands accumulate in your bank account, think of investing in Kenyan wells!

Love and thanks again to all of you,

Joyce

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.