October 20 - Mike Mears

Monday October 20, 2008
By Mike Mears

We travelled to Zondondo today to Ba Be Mandla’s Parish who visited St. Alban’s, Spirit Lake in 1999, to deliver and demonstrate our first Chlorinator Producing Unit (CPU). The village we visited was in a very remote rural area of Lubombo in Western Swaziland. Traveling up the rough dirt path we could hear the singing coming from inside this rustic, tiny village chapel. We were overtaken by our emotions as we listened to the closing verse of their morning worship in Siswati.

Our demonstration was received with very close attention by four young adults who the priest selected from the congregation. They took notes and learned how the CPU works by having a “hands on” training session. They even danced to shake the bottle of salt solution just like they were shown. The gratitude they had for the gift we had given was overwhelming, and I was fighting back tears.

After this demonstration we traveled to the Lomohasha region to St. Thomas Parish which was a church whose roof was built with assistance from the Diocese of Iowa. Here we demonstrated the chlorinators to another group of interested parishioners from the village. This area is only a stones throw away from the country of Mozambique. This area is so drought stricken that the water given for demonstration was very minimal. The Archdeacon from that region said, “I had heard before that clear water does not mean clean water, but now I understand what that means.” Their thankfulness was again something we will never forget.