Sickness!

Jeff writes:

I am reluctant to keep mentioning our water situation, but I learned today of yet another person, who became ill after drinking bad water.

Our college is using a small tank truck to haul water that has been taken from local sources most of which are not safe to drink. A good Melanesian friend of ours told Sue and I that he is being treated for dysentery after drinking bad water. This is serious as both typhoid and cholera are water-born pathogens found in our streams.

Please pray for our management team. They need to find a way to keep us supplied with water, and at the same time to ensure that people boil their drinking water. With 100 students and their families returning in the next two weeks, the problem will only compound. So far our management team has been silent about their plans, so pray that they will be more forthcoming. They need to rally the troops to meet this crisis.

Also we are in a bit of a blame game as to whom caused our current problem. Please pray that we will stop doing this and to unite to find a common solution.

Finally, please pray for the pumps that supply Waghi River water, which we were using to flush our toilets and wash our clothes. Because the river is so low both pumps have been disabled as a result of sucking up an old tee shirt and gravel into their mechanisms. Without those pumps we are forced to use precious drinking water for these purposes.

Still no rain in sight, but by God's grace this too can change in an instant.

We really appreciate your prayers. Blessings to you all.