and this is why

my brother sent me this article from the new york times just days after i launched our water raffle.
tears rolled down my face the whole way through.

i was just now copying and pasting the really fabulous parts to put on here and ended up copying basically the whole article. so you should just go read it, especially if you've given towards training these mechanics.  chills, i tell you.

here's my even more paired down version.


"She was sitting in a small storefront office, a shop lined with shelves of hand pump parts, when a cellphone rang.  The call was from the village of Kotedar, where the main hand pump had broken.   A master mechanic took the call and asked some questions.   This was apparently going to be a big job — five mechanics piled onto two motorbikes, along with the 10-year-old son of one of the men.  They reached the village 20 minutes later.   As a throng of villagers watched, they took out huge wrenches.  They disassembled the pump and began pulling up heavy segments of pipe.  At the tenth segment they found a hole and patched it.  Two and a half hours after they arrived, the pump was reassembled and working.   They got on their bikes and rode off into the sunset. "

 Shanti Devi and Ram Sakhi fixing a handpump in the Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, India. 

and i love, love, LOVE this little bit about the women mechanics.

"it was at first hard to find women who wanted the job.  Even some who completed the training didn’t want to go out to villages and work in public, said Rajeev.  Now, however, wherever they go, village men accept them and women embrace them.  Seeing a mechanic in yellow hardhat and sari has opened up the spectrum of possibilities for village women."


can you believe what we've been able to be a part of today?   and reading this article reminds me why we're doing this raffle.   39 mechanics have been supported, the goal is 186.  you still have time to bid.


the adventure project's active pursuit of bringing heaven into the water crisis in India is providing an avenue for hope to creep into lives and sustain souls.  i know that sounds dramatic, but it's the truth, i believe it with all i am and i know some of ya'll do too.  thank you for standing with me.

And hope does not disappoint! Romans 5:5