March 22, 2015
MARSHALL, Texas (3/20/15) - The selling of bottled water in the United States is a billion dollar business. By one estimate, approximately 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per year in the United States. This is a staggering number to grasp when most Americans can simply turn the faucet on in their homes and receive clean drinking water.
Globally, 1.2 billion people do not have access to pure water. According to research from the World Health Organization, every minute a child dies from a water-related disease. A small student team from East Texas Baptist University went to Belize over Spring Break to help a village have pure water again.
"Eight 'ETBUers' traveled outside Punta Gorda in the Toledo district of Belize to a small village," said ETBU Director of the Great Commission Center Dr. Lisa Seeley. "This district is one of the poorest areas in Belize. The village of 168 people has no electricity and only three hand pump wells in which all were contaminated."
"Clean water is so important especially in third world countries because they get bacteria, E. coli and disease from drinking or using contaminated water," shared ETBU Lady Tiger soccer player Sasha Kotowych of Atascocita, Texas, who went on her first ever mission trip.
"Pink eye and diarrhea are rampant because of a lack of a clean water supply," added Morgan Walters, an education major from Longview, Texas. "When you bathe, drink and use the same water for everything disease spreads rapidly."
The ETBU team served alongside Hope Springs Water and the Belize Training Center. Hope Springs Waters is a ministry based in Athens, Texas with the mission to provide safe water, sanitation, and public health education in developing countries. Missionaries Bob and Rhonda Farley are leaders at the Belize Training Center which can house groups who come to Belize to minister. The Farley's also disciple new believers and train local church leaders in evangelism and ministry.
"I am a new Christian and had never been on a mission trip before. I love helping people so I knew I would love teaching the children and working on the water wells," Kotowych said explaining what prompted her go abroad during her spring break instead of staying home.
"Bob and Rhonda are two amazing individuals," shared Kotowych, who was impressed by their servanthood to the ETBU group. "Bob has a great vision and philosophy of missions. He makes sure that everything he starts or helps with will one day be able to be run by the people of Belize. He will continue to walk beside them but they won?t? have to rely on him anymore."
The team of Dr. Seeley, Coleman Sulak, ETBU Mabee Residential Center Director; students Kotowych, Walters, Kayla Cradit of Richmond, Natalie Davis of Highland Village, Emily Schieffer of Fort Worth, and Katelyn Surber of Big Sandy worked very hard during their few days in country.
"The well team refurbished the well in front of the school over two days while the wash team taught sanitation and hygiene to the 74 children in the school," Seeley reported. "This was an amazing trip which offered multiple opportunities for our students to experience third world culture while sharing their faith with people from a number of different cultures in Belize like Kekchi, Spanish, and various expat families." (Expat families are families temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship.)
The team did learning activities with the school children like hand washing songs and applied glitter lotion on some of the student's hands. The team instructed the children with the glitter lotion to shake hands with a fellow student to demonstrate how germs pass from one to another. Then to finish the lesson students were encouraged to wash their hands with clean water from the refurbished well.
On the Sunday the ETBU group was in Belize they worshipped with a local congregation. "We attended a Kekchi Indian church in which they sang for over an hour before one of their ministers preached in Kekchi and English for us," Seeley said. "The service was full with men sitting on the right and the women and children sitting on the left."
"I grew spiritually on this trip seeing how grateful everyone was in Belize. The people were so willing to serve and they thanked us for everything when we should have been the ones thanking them," testified Kotowych.
"We came not just for clean water but to share that God can make our lives clean again, too," said Walters. "The children listened attentively as we shared about germs and the importance of washing hands with clean water. The teaching about personal hygiene was then followed by the opportunity to share that Jesus loves them."
Before the team headed back to campus they did take time to enjoy the beauty of Belize as well as swim in the deep blue waters of the Caribbean.
"I hope that we can continue our partnership with Hope Springs Waters and the Belize Training Center and send teams every spring break," concluded Dr. Seeley.
(Note: ETBU also had 39 students participating in servant evangelism at Beach Reach on South Padre Island, Texas during Spring break.)