A young African mother, holding a plastic bucket in hand, set off this morning on a 5-minutes walk from her little makeshift home to the Redeemer House, with the hope of fetching water.
On arrival, she was told the water system had developed a fault and was being fixed, and would not be ready until probably the next day. Her countenance changed all of a sudden. The joy with which she came, singing all the way, dissipated. Hope was gone. She didn’t know what to do. There was no other place within a short distance to go fetch water. Being poor, buying sachets of water for her household chores was obviously out of the question. She left with sadness written all over her face.
Undoubtedly, lack of clean water would bring along in its trail various forms of water-related stresses for this young mother and her family; not to mention water related diseases and possible deaths over the long term. The family may have to do without cooking of meals, washing of clothes and utensils today. The stress increases when one has to go to town, school or work, without showering in this 100 degrees-plus weather, with high humidity.
The same goes for food – the types of stress the poor deal with when there is no food on the table or in the stomach is unimaginable. A case in point is that of another young mother and her little child of six who came to our free feeding program last month. Both were hungry and desperate for food. As two disposable bowls of cooked food were handed over to them, the mother set one side and ferociously started eating the other with the child, completely oblivious to onlookers. In this part of the world, like elsewhere, hunger and inability to obtain food can create a vicious cycle of stress for many.
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Children line up to fetch free clean water from our ministry faucet
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The situation leads to child labor, child trafficking, juvenile delinquency, child prostitution, child sales, and various other heart-rending conditions. In Ghana, many parents are reported to have sold their children for less than $5 each, in order to put food on the table! Reports reach us from various other poor communities about very young school girls selling their bodies in prostitution for as low as $1 per swing!
In the light of the above and others, we at Redeemer MINISTRIES have come to learn the hard way that Food + Water = Transformation.
“The little food and water we regularly give out to the needy go a long way to help transform individuals and whole communities. Our water project at Amrahia in a rural section of Accra, and our monthly feeding programs deep inside rural areas, bring about hope, change and inspiration to many; even if it’s for a day!”–Pastor William Agbeti
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| Some children waiting to be served with free meals at one of our feeding programs. |
Without these little efforts, the situation could be much worse, with a spill out that could easily affect individuals, families and communities all the way in the US, for instance, through illegal immigration, refugee crisis and human trafficking.
Therefore, anytime you donate towards the provision of food and water to the poor rural folks in Ghana, know that you may be doing it for yourselves – for your own good.
