Texans on Mission volunteer Curt Neal drinks newly filtered water to show others it is safe. Andrew Wischmeyer of Proclaim Cuba is at right.
'You can only imagine the excitement ...'
A group from Crosspoint Church in McKinney recently traveled with Proclaim Cuba to minister in that Caribbean country. They took with them water filters provided by Texans on Mission.
“I wanted to personally thank you for the donation of the filters,” Curt Neal, a member of the team, wrote to Mitch Chapman, director of TXM Water Impact. “You can only imagine the excitement from our Cuban pastors as we turned dark murky water into clear and very drinkable water, which I personally demonstrated.”
The team took about 20 bucket filters and 10 tap filters to churches in central Cuba, the project report said. “We gave several bucket filters to these rural churches. The tap filters were given to the churches that had running tap water.”
The water is “notoriously undrinkable throughout Cuba and especially in rural areas,” the report said. And it is expected that the filters will improve the water for more than 250 people.
Andrew Wischmeyer, director of development for Proclaim Cuba, said the water problems are related to “drought, an aging infrastructure, bacteria in the cisterns.”
One of the pastors expressed his thanks for the filters in a video. “The water filters will be a blessing for all of us, and in our churches they are very, very useful,” said Pastor Alamino.
He spoke of the darkness of the tap water and how, when his own grandchildren came to America, a hospital discovered lead in their blood. A team tested their water supply in North Carolina, which proved to be free of lead. It was determined they had contracted the lead in Cuba.
“Our pipes are very old, so there’s a lot of heavy metals in it and a lot of people keep getting sick in their kidneys because of the poor quality of water,” the pastor said. Despite efforts by the government to improve the water, it remains “very dirty with very poor quality.”
Neal said the “filters supplied are capable of supplying 100,000 gallons of clean drinking water when properly maintained.”
Wischmeyer noted: “We all know clean water is vital to sustain our physical lives. When we offer clean water in Cuban communities through the Sawyer filters, provided by Texans on Mission, it opens the door for the churches to share about the hope of ‘living water’ offered by Christ, which sustains our spiritual lives and gives hope to all of us in this life and the life to come. Keep the water flowing!”
