Providing clean water is life-giving work, biologist says

Posted: 9/29/07

Providing clean water is
life-giving work, biologist says

By Melissa Browning

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

ATLANTA (ABP)—When Darrell Smith explains the development work he does in Macedonia, he often tells the story from Luke’s Gospel of Jesus cleansing the lepers.

“Jesus healed them simply because they asked,” said Smith, a mission worker with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “They did not have to listen to a sermon. They were not required to do anything in order to receive healing. In fact, Jesus knew that 90 percent would never say thank you or give him a second thought. But he healed them anyway.”

This is how the native Texan sees his own work of providing clean water, working with farmers and participating in disaster-response relief work.

For Smith, providing clean water is the most life-giving part of his work. He started to sense his own calling when the Berlin Wall fell. At the time, Smith was working as a biologist for the U.S. government, and he began to feel a spiritual burden for Eastern Europe. Now living with his family in Mace-donia, Smith uses his doctorate in ecology to make contacts within the scientific community there.

And he is able to work with the Macedonian government in what he calls “creation care.”

Smith says Macedonia faces many environmental challenges, but he has been able to improve the water quality of a dying lake, help clean a polluted river and establish new nature preserves in the region.

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It isn’t only about clean water. The environmental work provides a chance for Smith to share his faith—a faith that motivates his work.

For instance, he recently was sitting in a restaurant with a local village leader and a civil engineer. The engineer’s firm had just completed a design plan for a village sewage system, which primarily was paid for by CBF. As they were discussing the plan, the engineer turned to Smith and said: “I know you’re a Christian and have helped us a great deal on this project.”

Smith said he was thrilled to realize a door had opened for the three friends to talk about their faiths.

“What an opportunity it was for us to build bridges through our mutual compassion for the villagers, who had been living with contaminated drinking water and sewage flowing in the street for so many years,” Smith said.

That conversation and others like it especially are important, Smith said, because it was only a few years ago that Christian Serbs had tried to exterminate the Albanians of Kosovo.

Clean water not only gives health to families who need it, but in Macedonia, it builds peace, he stressed. It is a reminder of reconciliation.