Thursday took us to a small town called Mbuguni to distribute two water filters. This is the same town where we visited a school on Tuesday and played soccer with the school children. God directed us to this school and though it was not our original plan, we decided to donate a water filter to the school. We made plans to return on Thursday at ten in the morning and meet with the parents of the school children to teach them about the water filter. We arrived at noon, in line with "Africa time," and gathered the families in the classroom. They were skeptical at first as we described how this plastic cylinder could remove the "bad things" from their water and make their water clean so that they would not become ill. Many of them were afraid to drink water because it typically made them ill. They get most of the water by drinking Chai which they know to be safe as it is boiled. They did understand that boiling water removes the bad things but they explain that boiling the water is expensive. We had them get water from their source which is essentially a drainage ditch fed by diverting water from a local river. The water is dirty appearing which is evident in the above picture. We passed the dirty water through the filter and it came out crystal clear. This amazed them but was even more dramatic when we drank water from the bottle that they had collected from their sources. Visitors never drink their water. Soon, many of them were drinking from the bottle. They were asking for more, however, there were some holdouts. One man, who had refused to drink the water because he said that the water made his stomach sick, said that the water was not dirty enough. We asked him to get dirt from outside to make it dirtier. He did and the filter made it clear, after this he took the bottle and drank. From there the questions began. The questions seemed to be planted by God as they were excellent and covered every possible angle, many we did not even consider. They asked if the filter was only for one religious group. We explained that though we are Christians and do not hide that fact, the filter is for everyone no matter what they believe. Also, the local "mayor" was there who asked very good questions and gave his full support of our effort. We continued answering questions and truly felt as though we had developed a true relationship with the community, a relationship that will continue to be developed and will no doubt bring more people to Jesus.
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