How Many Cows

In the past I have apologized for long lapses of radio silence, but this is ridiculous… so sorry for abandoning this blog for so long. 

Although I stopped writing, I have not stopped working 🙂

I will just be talking about 2022 in this blog (I can’t believe I missed an entire year… oops)

2022 started with programs in Kenya and Uganda.

In Kenya, one of the organizations we partner with is a small Virginia-based non-profit called “Serving in Jesus’ Name.” The primary program of Serving in Jesus’ Name is to collect supplies here in the US and send a container to Kenya, annually, for distribution to Schools and Children’s Homes (orphanages). We partner with them so the Schools and Children’s Homes can also receive Rainwater Catchment Systems and Latrines. The infrastructure is more expensive in Kenya so it is great that we can share that cost and responsibility with another organization (yay for teamwork!).

On this particular trip to Kenya, I invited my old teammate, Cyrus, to join me in checking on the projects and meeting with recipients. Cyrus, a Kenyan, is one of Hydromissions’ original Field Trainers. Cyrus now has a full-time job in maintenance for the Canadian Consulate, but joins me when needed for short projects. After we finished a week checking on the schools and their projects, we stopped by to see a well that Cyrus drilled for Hydromissions in 2016. The well is still serving the community with safe drinking water!

Next stop in 2022 was Uganda! I began working in Uganda in 2012, establishing our Field Trainer, Washington, in a role where he started as a water well drilling trainer and now manages multiple water and sanitation projects per month in Uganda. Without National teammates, Hydromissions would not be nearly as effective with our programs. In Uganda, Washington and I spent a few weeks visiting about 20 of Hydromissions former projects to check on how they were holding up. We were happy to find good reports from the recipients and although we had a few repairs, it wasn’t too bad considering some of our projects were 10 years.

After I finished working in East Africa, I went back to the US to catch up on the admin side of the organization tasks. (at this point, you are all thinking “well, she skipped the ‘admin’ part of updating us on this blog…” and you’re right 😉 ). When I am in the US, I keep busy managing our year-round programs (Nepal, India, Uganda, Kenya and Panama), speaking at schools, churches and rotary clubs. Researching and planning for new program locations (soil data, logistics, seasonal rains, etc), fundraising, training and meetings with partner organizations.

In the beginning of July, I was back aboard an international flight to Nicaragua. My teammate, Don, and I travelled to Nicaragua to train a new team for well drilling. These types of trips are difficult because there are a lot of unknowns. Manual well drilling is not completely predictable and even though we research, ask questions and research some more, we never really know if we will succeed in reaching water. We did reach water in Nicaragua though! The team we trained was thrilled and we were thrilled and now they have drilled many many wells on their own after we left 🙂

Next stop in 2022 was Panama!

Man, it was so good to be back there! Due to covid, I hadn’t been in Panama since 2019 (Panama was actually my first cancellation in March of 2020 when we had to make a quick decision to cancel without really knowing if we were acting premature … turns out we were not, but it was still hard to cancel an already planned and purchased trip). That 2.5 year break was the longest lapse since the program started in 2014. Most years since 2014, I would go to Panama twice per year and spent 2-3 months at a time. Having been away so long was really difficult, but Simon, our field trainer in Panama, worked to keep providing water to communities.

My last project for 2022 was a trip back to Guatemala. Hydromissions contracted a local man to hand-dig a water well for our ministry partners, Operation Jabez, in San Antonio. The soil was too rocky for our tools, but I traveled there to oversee the well and teach various groups how to build their own manual hand pumps out of material I found in town.

Guatemala, specifically San Antonio, is where it all began for me in 2008. My first international trip, followed by my first water project in 2009. San Antonio will always be so special to me so I am always happy to return and try to support their growing water and sanitation needs.

And that ends my 2022 summary.

Surely I missed some details, but I am pretty sure I recalled all the countries I worked in 😉

My next post will start to update you all on what I have been up to in 2023 (Uganda, Panama and more!)

If you would also like to check out Hydromissions on Social Media – we are starting to be more consistent with updating on those platforms… and by “we”, I mean my sweet friends, Brittany and Melissa, are updating you all on those platforms while I try to at least be mindful enough to send them content while I am working abroad.