Day 4 - Monday

After a somewhat slow start with water filter distribution, we truly hit our stride today.  Although I used the descriptor "slower", we nevertheless have installed roughly two-thirds of the filters we brought.  We are working at Batay Peligro.  It is a large batay and it is on the low end of the poverty scale for batays (yes, there are relative differences in batay poverty).  What has significantly helped our filter distribution effort is the placement of "Health Promoters" at the batays.  These folks are batay residents who are affiliated with Good Samaritan Hospital.  Our first stop is with the promoter who will develop a list of residents with locations for filter installation.  The list becomes a "living" document since it grows in length as word circulates about the filters.

Today, our team included in addition to myself, Chris and Olivia Carroll plus two staff members from the mission.  I took the first visit while Chris observed.  After completing the filter pitch, I requested Alex (our interpreter) to tell the resident that I would like to pray for her.  She wasted no time telling Alex that she wanted to invite Jesus into her heart! After praying with her, I walked out of her residence with Chris saying, " Talk about a baptism under fire!"  The story gets better: Chris had the identical experience with his first visit!

We continued installing and praying with the residents until we depleted the number of filters transported for today.  There are some pictures of our day provided below (the first three).  Note Olivia interacting with the children: she was great!  We intend to pick up at Batay Peligro tomorrow morning. Glenn just interrupted me as I am writing this blog to offer a word of support concerning the great day we had today.  We agreed that our filter installation rate could be much  faster than what we have established.  However, our experience today has confirmed that taking the time to pray with these folks is much more important than a filter per hour metric.

Mike K.

(Edited 6/1/2015 @ 9:21 pm CST to add additional pictures of construction team)