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By Leanna Summers January 29, 2008
Compassion's partnership with Healing Waters International in the Dominican Republic quenches a community's thirst for safe water.
In the town of Consuelo, Dominican Republic, residents living just beyond plush resorts and pristine beaches struggle to maintain their health and hope.
Thousands used to work at the sugarcane factory, but the industry collapsed in the 1980s, and the unemployment rate now rises to 60 percent. To find jobs people often live and work at hotels hours away from their families.
Here, nothing is easy. Even clean water, the most basic necessity, comes at a price too many can't afford. In Consuelo there are two choices: Buy expensive bottled water or drink cheaper city water contaminated with parasites, chemicals and sewage — and get sick.
Juana Calderon, a mother whose middle child attends a Compassion-assisted program, knows what it's like to live with sickness. Her family used to drink and bathe in the dirty water and constantly suffered from diarrhea and other health problems.
Juana says, "The people who live here in Consuelo know that sometimes little worms come in the water. Sometimes you cannot even wash yourself with that water." Parasites had even wormed their way into her daughter Esteffani's eyes.
Waking to her children's cries, Juana used to stumble to their sides, helping them to their scrap-metal outhouse — and worry. "What if they get too dehydrated? How will we pay for a doctor?"
She knew the water was destroying their health, but 5 gallons of bottled water cost 35 pesos (about a dollar). Juana's husband, Bartholomeo, a motorcycle-taxi driver, made only about $200 a month.
They used the money for necessary expenses like food, transportation, medicine and school fees, and simply couldn't afford to buy the 10 gallons of bottled water they needed each week.
Then in 2003 Compassion and Healing Waters International partnered to bring clean, affordable water to Consuelo. Healing Waters, a nonprofit based in Golden, Colo., has an effective church-based vision: Purify city water and empower pastors to sell it cheaply.
To clean the water, Healing Waters installed a purification system in the Biblica Cristiana Church of Consuelo, Compassion's partner church. The pure water costs customers a fraction of the going rate — 10 pesos for 5 gallons. Day after day customers line up to fill 5-gallon containers they buy from the church or bring their own to be sanitized. For Juana, the clean water has given her new hope.
She says, "Now I have peace of mind. I know my children are not going to get sick because of the water." Pastor Leonardo Clemente uses proceeds from water sales to maintain the water system and develop his community.
Children in Compassion-assisted programs receive clean water at the student center and he donates water to the Red Cross and a home for the elderly. He also oversees a trade school across the street from the church where people in the community can develop job skills in computers and sewing.
Pastor Clemente is also quenching the needs of those thirsting for spiritual hope, people like Juana. She says, "We have people who have come to Christ through the ministries we have here.
"I particularly can share my testimony about this fact. I saw that this was a church that cared and got interested in the lives of the people. … There's no preference for one person or another. Everybody is taken care of the same way."
Clean water has made the church a powerful hub of renewed health and hope in the community.
"I give thanks to God that Compassion and Healing Waters are here in Consuelo and that they are able to help my family and so many others who are in need," Juana says.
Walking to her kitchen counter, a pitted wooden plank, she smiles — then pours a glass of water and takes a long, clean drink.
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