Lee Adcock, of Shelbyville, goes inside one of the wells dug by a Shelbyville mission team in Kenya. The team will begin digging its sixth well next week. (Submitted photo) [Click to enlarge]

What started out as a mission trip by a couple of men from Fair Haven Baptist Church has turned into a Bedford County community effort to provide the people of Nairobi and Homa Bay, Kenya, with clean water.

"We have bottled water and throw half of it away, and they drink out of a dirty pond," said Charles Williams, the pastor at Fair Haven Baptist. "We are so blessed here and we don't recognize it."

Next week, Williams will make his first trip to Kenya as a mission team member, along with Pat Marsh and returning team member Lee Adcock, both of Shelbyville.

Since 2005, a team, mostly comprised of FHB members has made several trips to Kenya to dig water wells, and to help build a Christian school and a church. But, as awareness of the trip grew in Bedford County, so did the physical and financial support of the local community.

Marsh, who learned of the project at a Rotary Club meeting earlier this year, is joining the team for the first time.

"We want this to be a community project, not a FHB project," said Williams. "The fact that Pat is going this year has reinforced that this is a community project."

Because of the community's financial support of the project, this year's team has proper equipment, like the air compressor that cost more than $5,400 to be shipped.

Wilbert Nelson, who has been one of the primary organizers of this project since it began four years ago, said the team has put in five wells so far, four of which are pumping clean water.

"They walk five to 10 miles to get two buckets of water that they carry back home on their heads to drink and cook with," said Nelson. The wells are all within a 10-mile radius of Fair Haven Community Church, which was built by the team a few years ago.

While working on the fifth well, the team hit rock at about 50 feet, but a geologist informed them that water was just 10 feet deeper. That's when the idea to ship an air compressor came about.

Lee Adcock Construction donated the equipment and money raised from the Bedford County community allowed for the equipment to be shipped.

As the team prepares to begin digging the sixth well this summer, they're expecting the work to move along much smoother and quicker as a result of the equipment.

The goal of the Shelbyville team is to dig nine wells. While Nelson is unable to make the trip this year, he's looking forward to devoting more of his time to the project in the upcoming years.

"This water has changed their lives," he said. "You ought to see their faces when they see clean water ... This project is in my heart."

To become involved with this mission trip, contact Nelson at the Southern Christian Broadcasting Network, 680-9444.