Aldea Las Cruces, San Carlos Sija, Guatemala 2012

Huerto de Getsemani is distributing so much water they had to purchase a special truck to haul it all over their mountainous community. Agua Viva educator Doris McAfee and Keisha McAfee taught 13 local adults eager and ready to learn. Doris McAfee and Nancy Allen did a stupendous job training and teaching these adults to continue the education program after we left. Our new friends proved to be particularly handy. We had a great install team headed up by Didier and Franklin (the pastor’s son). The install went very smooth and was practically finished by Tuesday evening when we experienced our “first big problem”. The system became air-locked. As we slowly discovered that the problem was air in the water supply piping, the water team came to our first realization that possibly, water would NOT be ready for the celebration! This would have been a tragedy and many prayers were said in a matter of a few minutes. After several hours of debate, the system was partially disassembled and the water flow was reversed. This pushed the air out of the piping and suddenly a large surge of water blasted the water team with water (particularly Ron Stier). Success!! The celebration went forward as planned and the Water was dedicated to God. This trip was a real learning experience for the Water Team. We learned a great deal about the bottling operation, the covenants, and the way “real” people rural areas live and how they work together for good.