The Miracle Justine Needed
The Miracle Justine Needed
We recently returned to Nikmero to visit with Justine.
You may remember her from the video we shared back in 2015 when we called on you to give generously for a water system for her community. It had been a few years since her community had received access to a clean water system and we were eager to know how things were going.
She quickly reminded us that when we first met her, there was just one thing she said she needed: a miracle.
Having to fetch water at the swamp meant closing her shop for 3 hours a day (21 hours a week) and losing nearly 50% of her customers. She sacrificed hours and income and time spent with her family: for dirty water. Hours spent walking miles in dangerous conditions only to retrieve dirty water that made her family sick. Justine was in desperate need of a closer water source so she could regain that time to spend on her shop and her roles as mother, wife, and daughter.
Nothing short of a miracle would’ve given her hope for a brighter future.
But you helped change everything for her. Your support has helped buy this time back for Justine.
“Now since the tap stand is very near, I just leave my shop open and go to the tap to get water because it’s just built opposite my shop! I am just here now enjoying the clean water as we no longer get sick of flu or cough.”
Having a tap stand close by has allowed Justine to experience the freedom she was so desperately in need of! When that fresh, clean, safer water started flowing just across the street from her shop, her life changed.
“We live in peace now! When I see this clean water that I am pouring into this glass for drinking and how pure it is, I see it as a miracle we never knew would reach our village!”
This is why, together with you, we’re passionate about sustainability. Working alongside communities through long-term investment in technology and relationship, to see a water system running like the first day it was built, clean water still flowing, and incredible stories of resilient women like Justine!
The gift of water you have given so generously provides the brightest future. Or in Justine’s words “the miracle we never knew”.