Persecution Project
Thursday, September 27, 2007 |
A Wilderness Called Jach - African Leadership with Persecution Project
Since 2003, millions of Christians and Moslems have fled their burning villages in western Sudan’s Darfur region. Tens of thousands continued walking for weeks through the bush to avoid—or escape—deadly refugee camps. South, across the Bahr el Arab.
To Jach. To safety.
No Janjaweed terrorists. No government bombers or helicopter gunships. No fear of night raids, murder, rape, abduction.
They arrived to find that there also was no food. No safe water. No doctors or medicine. No grass to shelter their fragmented, traumatized families.
Hundreds of miles from anything, except swarming flies and mosquitoes.
There was only sickness, hunger, dehydration and disease. Blistering dry seasons. Dirt packed hard as concrete or biting and blinding in howling windstorms.
Jach.
PPF first arrived in February 2005 to find more than 25,000 Darfuri refugees. Today, there are more than 50,000 and more arrive constantly. Tall black men in long white gowns, white caps and turbans sit in scant shelters or roam aimlessly in search of anything. Women clutch babies and children. If they eat at all, they eat the crumbs off the desert’s table.
“They hand-dig wells that yield muddy water that the people drink and cook with,” explained Dr. Samuel Ani. “Infectious diarrheas are rampant among children, women and even adult men.”
PPF rushed in emergency relief supplies, by plane and even by donkey, camel and bicycle. Even more than food, however, these families need safe drinking water.
In December 2005, after the rains stopped, we brought in a drilling rig and started to dig desperately needed borehole wells. Our first attempts failed, as did the attempts of seven other ngo's, including UNICEF. The situation seemed so hopeless that the UN’s World Food Program declared Jach to be an area with no water table and discouraged groups from sending help.
But we tried again, and finally, we found water! By April, we had completed four wells.
Each well, designed to serve 500 people a day, is in use around the clock, serving 3,000 people everyday . . . as well as about 20,000 cows, goats, camels and donkeys!
PPF was able to complete two more borehole wells before the equipment broke down, and the rainy season began, making it impossible to continue. But we will begin digging again as soon as the rains stop and the trails and dirt airstrip dry out.
Water wells save not only physical lives but spiritual lives as well. Because we provide them with safe water, the huge Moslem population is amazingly receptive to the gospel. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful. This is especially true in southwestern Sudan—but first, the fields need more water.
Because Jach is so remote, it costs about US $15,000 to bring in the crew, equipment and materials needed to dig a single borehole well.
There is no end in sight to the genocide in Darfur. Every month, 6,000 more people die of starvation, dehydration and disease. The need for safe water is urgent.
You have the power to help save thousands of innocent lives.
