Mission Waco volunteers offer pure water, living water

Updated: 4/13/07

Mission Waco volunteers
offer pure water, living water

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—Sixteen Mission Waco volunteers recently provided food, medical care and a source of clean water for a village in Haiti and—just as important to the mission trip’s sponsors—gained a new perspective on ministry among some of the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere.

“Our mission is two-fold. We want to provide holistic, relationship-based programs that empower the poor and the marginalized. We also want to mobilize middle-class Americans to become more compassionately involved in ministry among the poor,” said Mission Waco Executive Director Jimmy Dorrell.

Waco physician Rafael Perez worked with local health-care providers and Mission Waco to provide a clinic in Ferrier, Haiti, where medical professionals treated more than 100 patients in three and a half days.

“These exposure trips are always high impact, and certainly this one was transformative for those who went,” including a half-dozen college students from Baylor University, Texas Tech and at least one school in Alabama, he noted.

Mission Waco makes annual treks to Haiti, and it also offers mission exposure trips to Mexico City and to India, where volunteers work among a largely unchurched people group.

The recent Mission Waco team served in Ferrier, a village where Dorrell and his wife, Janet, lived in the mid-1980s and worked closely with Texans Ed and Mary Brentham of Belton. They used the same drilling rig Brentham secured more than 20 years ago to drill a new water source for the village.

“Clean water is one of the most precious commodities for this nation that often resorts to bacteria-infested river water to drink,” Dorrell said.

But in the near future, Christian workers in the area should find it easier to provide additional water sources. Within the next month, new drilling equipment should arrive in Haiti, thanks largely to grants from Woman’s Missionary Union and its Pure Water Pure Love initiative, he noted.

Waco physician Rafael Perez worked with local health-care providers and Harry Porter, a pharmacist who serves with the Medical Ambassadors International missions organization, to provide a clinic where they treated more than 100 patients in three and a half days. They also delivered more than $20,000 worth of donated medicine and served beans and rice to more than 600 people.

Volunteers also led classes at Berraca Baptist Church on nutrition, basic hygiene and how adherence to biblical standards of sexual behavior could virtually eliminate the risks of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

“Haiti is second only to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the high infection rate of HIV/AIDS,” Dorrell noted.