Mission to Kenya: The water that the Lord has made

The McGuire Water Purifier, produced by New Life International Inc., uses salt and a car battery to produce chlorine gas which can treat a 50-gallon drum of water in two minutes. Lye (sodium hydroxide) is a byproduct; since lye is needed for soap-making, LEAMIS would like to find a way to make one program support the other. But the ministry hasn't yet found a practical way to measure the concentration of a given batch of lye water in the field so that it can be added to a soap recipe. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Order this photo]

Think about that.

According to USA Today, bad water kills more people than all forms of violence, including war.

Water is on your mind when you go on a foreign mission trip. You've been told not to drink the local tap water, even at the hotel; not to rinse your toothbrush in it, not to eat produce washed in it. And yet, you're busy and active and may be sweaty. You learn to keep bottled water in your backpack and to buy another bottle whenever you have access to a store or kiosk. If you take medicine at bedtime, or first thing in the morning, you learn to make sure there's a little bit left in your bottle for that purpose.

Water is cheap, by our standards.

Water purification has become a major emphasis for LEAMIS International Ministries, the group with which I went to Kenya and for which I am a board member. LEAMIS installs a chlorination system manufactured by New Life International Inc., an Indiana-based non-profit. The briefcase-sized, U-shaped plastic tube is filled with salt water and hooked up to a car battery. It produces enough chlorine gas to treat a 50-gallon drum of water in two minutes.

LEAMIS combines the chlorination unit with a filtration system -- before being chlorinated, the water is filtered through a 50-gallon drum filled with gravel and a 50-gallon drum filled with sand. The top few inches of the sand become gummy with beneficial microorganisms, producing a "bio-sand" filter which screens out parasites. The filtration followed by the chlorination yields clear, drinkable water.

Several of my teammates installed the system at the church in Malaba and trained several of the church members in its operation. The church members had the idea of timing the chlorination process with a song. They chose "This Is The Day," playfully adapting the lyrics: "This is the water, this is the water that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made ...."

LEAMIS had already installed a chlorination unit at our other work site on this trip, at our host church in the Kibera slums outside Nairobi. But we were dismayed to see that the filtration system had been moved as a result of recent renovations to the church and had not yet been reconnected.

Both in Kibera and Malaba, LEAMIS associate missionary Bob Willems taught an alternative method for obtaining safe drinking water: SODIS, short for SOlar DISinfection. This system, developed in the 1990s by Swiss researchers, uses the power of sunlight to disinfect water. It assumes that you start with clear water and that all you need is to kill microorganisms, so it can't be used in every situation. But it's easy and inexpensive.

To use SODIS, you need a clear plastic bottle made of PET plastic. Such bottles, even in Third World countries, are stamped with a recycling logo and the letters "PET" or

"PETE." Other types of plastic are not safe to use for SODIS because they could leach chemicals into the water during the process.

Most of the bottled water we bought in Kenya, as well as many soft drinks, came in PET bottles. Only one bargain-basement brand of bottled water used a non-PET bottle. We saved our empty PET bottles throughout the trip for Bob to use during his training workshops.

Here's how SODIS works: a PET bottle is filled with clear water. The SODIS literature includes a special logo which can be used to check the water for clarity before disinfecting it. You simply look through the bottle at the logo; if you can see the faint sunburst lines in the SODIS logo, the water is clear enough to be treated by SODIS. The bottle is placed in full, direct sunlight for no less than six hours. The ultraviolet radiation and the heat generated by the sunlight kill any microorganisms in the water, leaving it safe to drink.

Water was actually a big part of the news during our stay in Kenya. The country has been in the midst of a drought, and the biggest political issue at the moment has to do with the Mau Forest, a critical watershed. Settlers -- some of them squatters, others victims of fraudulent deeds -- have been deforesting the area, to the extent that water supply and quality are being affected. The Kenyan government is preparing to evict the settlers, but there were disputes about issues such as whether the displaced people were victims or criminals, and whether or not they should be compensated for their lost homes.

This week, it was decided that all settlers with 10 acres or less would be compensated, regardless of the legitimacy of their claims. Given the election-related violence that gripped Kenya a year and a half ago, that may turn out to be the best way to peacefully and quickly solve the problem and begin the business of restoring the water supply.

A personal note

This was my first time to be a leader of a LEAMIS mission trip. I was scheduled to be a co-leader of our trip to Bolivia in 2007, but the team aspect of that trip never panned out and it ended up being just me and LEAMIS co-founder Debra Snellen.

This was the largest short-term mission team LEAMIS has ever sent anywhere -- 18 members -- and it went very smoothly, especially given its large size. There were the normal glitches and bumps, but no major problems or issues that we couldn't deal with. It was a great team, and I found it a privilege to serve with them. In addition to my co-leader (and LEAMIS' other co-founder) Gail Drake of Marion County, the team included Richard and Cindy Anderson of Nashville; June Burr of Mississippi; Barbara Campbell of Arrington; Sandy Hayostek of Monteagle; Jennifer Janeway of Monteagle; Kim Lachler of North Carolina; Wayne Lenhart of Kansas; Janie Lorfing of Texas; Jan Schilling of Smyrna; Frank Schroer of Marion County; Jay and Margaret Siegrist of Nashville; Megan Siegrist of Franklin; Taylor Siegrist of Vancouver, B.C., and Bob Willems of Tracy City.

The bulk of the cost of the trip was provided by the participants, by raising support from their friends and/or paying their costs out of pocket. LEAMIS encourages even participants who could affort the trip out-of-pocket to do some fund-raising, because it helps friends, family and fellow church members feel like they're a part of the effort. LEAMIS also does its own general fund-raising, and sometimes LEAMIS donors fund special projects like installing a water chlorinator. LEAMIS will hold its largest annual fund-raiser, the "Great Commission Walk," in September in Nashville.

Thanks to all of the Times-Gazette readers who respond so positively to my mission trip stories each year. I sometimes worry that I'm being self-indulgent, but the many comments I receive throughout the year seem to indicate that people enjoy the stories. Bedford County has many individuals and churches who are active in short-term missions, and we're delighted to give them coverage here in the newspaper. I hope my first-person accounts help bring attention to short-term missions in general.

--See additional photos in Sunday's Times-Gazette.

On the web

• New Life Water Purification: waterfortheworld.com
• SODIS: www.sodis.ch