We walked, we sweat, we met the goal!

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On the hottest, muggiest weekend of the year, over 100 people brought their buckets to worship, laced up their walking shoes, and carried water a couple miles. They walked to raise awareness and funds for a water project at Mahove, one of the village congregations of Tungamalenga Parish, our partners in Tanzania.




The short walk to Hagemeister Park was a popular choice for families and younger children. Lots of walkers, Pastor Diane included, tried to carry their water on their heads and found it hard to balance. How do our friends in Tanzania make that look so easy?


Inside, the Walk for Water vocal ensemble sang at every worship service. It was a song one of our traveling groups sang with the Tungamalenga Choir in Tanzania three years ago.


Walk together children, don't you get weary

Sing together children, don't you get weary

Shout together children, don't you get weary

There's a great camp meeting in the promised land.


Walk and never tire, walk and never tire....




Margaret and Ron Anderson supplied the water at Hagemeister Park. Here, Margaret fills Kristen Holien's water jug.



Some really brave souls took the long walk, a mile north on Johnnycake Ridge Road, through a shaded path to the Lebanon Hills Campground. Doing the heavy work, Steve Lokensgard and Chris Catlin used lengths of wood carried on their shoulders to suspend two buckets of water between them. That's about 90 pounds of water they're carrying.




The walkers returned from each walk drenched in sweat. Bill and Cris Ireland helped collect the water in rain barrels, to use on the church garden plots.


Inside, donors were generous. We met the fundaising goal of $15,000!


Within the next few weeks, we are expecting to receive the final work plan, timeline, and cost estimate for the Mahove project. If you haven't contributed to the project yet, a little cushion never hurts. If at the end of the project, we have funds left over, any donations for water will be shared with St Paul Partners, a group that has drilled over 100 wells in the Iringa area. St Paul Partners members have been very helpful as we planned this project and continue to advise us as we move forward.


Thanks be to God for a wonderful weekend!











Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 19, 2011 at 1:05 PM

    Great photos courtesy of Lyn MacLean and Trip Sullivan! Thanks guys!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 20, 2011 at 6:11 AM

    Looks like a great event and what a wonderful idea to "walk a mile" in these brothers and sisters shoes!
    Yes we have many things to be thankful for, clean/safe water is amung the most basic and important.

    Be blessed with your mission projects.

    Bo Skillman

    ReplyDelete

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