Wallers Christmas Newsletter

Read about what is going on in Bolivia and Ethiopia in the Wallers Christmas 2011 newsletter.

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Dear Friends,

I am back from Bolivia where Colin and Ronnie trained. We have a had great drilling course already out here in Donkey Flats, and it rained in West Texas the day after the course was over! Doesn’t get any better than that. Praise God! It was a great two and half months in Bolivia but it is good to be home in Texas with my sweet family.

Here is a brief update on Bolivia where our guys are knocking a home run, 125 plus wells already this year. Also some pics of the recent course and of the great young people headed out with WFA to serve the poorest of the poor. I am humbled at young people giving up everything to give their lives and fortunes to serve the poor. Thanks for praying for Water For All and making all of this possible! Also I got word from Kenya the folks are drilling and just got word from Uganda this morning Bosco and crew are back drilling there. Keep us in your prayers! We need them! Pray God will guide us and open ways for these young people to serve. We have another course in just a few weeks!

Sincerely,

Terry

2011 October Newsletter

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Check out what is happening in Bolivia with the Wallers. Sept 2011 Newsletter from Bolivia

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Thought I would share a picture and note that just came in from Russell who trained with us at one of our courses. He sent a great picture (well just being finished not clean yet). Russell is an amazing guy with lots of adopted kids from Africa and still finds time to go to Kenya to teach the poor to drill wells. God’s people are amazing. Thanks for praying for projects and for our courses too.

Terry

Russell wrote

“Terry,

I wanted to touch base with you to let you know I just returned from a second drilling trip to Kenya. Together with the Kenyan men I trained during my trip in December, we just completed the fifth well using your method (during my five day visit, we installed your pumps in two of the wells they had already drilled (by your method), finished drilling and cased a fourth well, and drilled/cased an entire fifth well. I will get the geographic coordinates and some information for you in a subsequent email, but they are all just south of Kitale, Kenya, which is about 3 hours north of Kisumu, in Western Kenya. The Kenyan drillers are very excited about your method, as am I, and I am optimistically hoping that they might be able to drill about one well per week, if I can get enough funding to pay their salary and day wages for some street boys we are employing.

I’ll send coordinates and depth information soon.

Russ

Russell J. Qualls, Ph.D., P.E.”

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

As you know we are learning to drill in Uganda. After Rick’s last well at “Thirsty” village, now name changed to “ Where Water Flows” he took some time to build some complete drilling outfits and find better material for rock bits etc. and found a better cheaper source of bentonite. Well Rick is out now drilling in a new village. First he couldn’t keep fluid in the hole (a must for our drilling method). Apparently he hit a cave in the surface 15 or 20 foot laterite rock layer. He thought he was defeated but overcame by adding toilet paper to the drilling mud and managed to stabilize the hole and got through the rock and drilled down to 24 meters or so in several meters of really good sand. (Remember that if you ever need to clog a hole). Then he cased with some less expensive casing (we always look for ways to make wells truly affordable to the poorest of the poor. So we test the limits of locally available materials. After developing the well some the sand and water zone was so good it collapsed his casing! He tried to pull the casing and lost a section down the hole. Looked like defeat again. I have been where Rick is and it is incredibly frustrating. So frustrating I can’t describe it. Rick decided to redrill the same hole and see if just maybe he could drill right through the casing and save the hole. Below is what happened. Do keep praying for us and for Rick and Sherry! The work they are doing figuring out low cost drilling in Uganda is incredibly important and I admire them so much for having the patience and fortitude to do this grindy gritty work so that the poor might be able to drill their own wells in Uganda. Some one has to do this and Rick and Sherry have stepped up to the plate. Enjoy below. God is good!

Terry

Water For All/Agua Para Todos

For info on Water For All’s international work visit www.waterforallinternational.org or email terry@southlandbaptist.org

Hey Terry,

Thought I’d catch you up on the work today . . . After being so incredibly discouraged after the casing collapsed yesterday, today was a better day – by far! I know you said that you didn’t think we could drill through the busted pipes . . . but we actually did. The guys wanted to try, even though I told them it could really be a waste of time. We started drilling, using a reaming bit, and just like they always seem to do, they refused to start slowly and get the flow going: instead they rammed the bit into the mud and getting the pipes completely clogged.

I allowed them their mistake and chafed at the time lost, but used it as a (another) teaching experience. Anyway, we finally got the drill working like it is supposed to and blew through most of the sand and mud that had clogged the hole. By about 4:30 today, we had also broken up almost all the old collapsed filter and got to the place where we were only 1/2 meter from the place we cased originally. At that point, the drill was getting stuck pretty regularly, so I called it a day and we cased the well AGAIN, at 24.5 meters. As we finished the casing, water was actually pushing out the top of the case. Does this mean I’ve hit my first artesian???

The villagers were so excited that they planned to work tonight under the moonlight (supposed to be a full moon) to get all the backwashing done. So, tomorrow, we’ll swab and condition, then set our pump. I expect this one to produce plenty of water.

Thanks for praying!

Blessings!

Rick Gregory

An Apprentice in Living for Eternity

Water For All – Uganda http://rickandsherryinafrica.org

For a more updates on Ethiopia and Uganda (complete with pictures) check out the 2011 Ethiopia and Uganda Trip.

For an update on the progress in Bolivia see the 2011 April 3 Report on Bolivia Wells.

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Dear Friends,

A dry front just hit here in Bolivia bringing no rain. A lot of dust but no rain. Great clouds of dust that are filling my room here as I write. People here are beginning to wonder what they will do if it doesn´t rain soon. The window for planting rice this season is closed now. Ponds are dried up, cattle are thirsty, fields sit idle and parched waiting for rain.

Teo just told me about a talking to Daniel. ” How will we eat this year? ”

Teo´s reply was “you can use the pond from the new well and windmill to irrigate and plant corn and plant a garden too.”

Each new well represents a new kind of security for families and their neighbors. For families with a well, they and their neighbors know they can make it through a drought, that at least their cattle (savings accounts) won’t die of thirst. That they can at least plant enough to survive and bring in some income till the rains come.

We have three clubs working today as I write. I think probably over 150 wells here in Bolivia will be drilled in our clubs. With Joe and Rob´s 24 wells in Ethiopia plus others that have reported to us, the wells drilled this year by us or those we have trained will be around 400! Wow we have surpassed the magic 1 per day mark. Just think everyday as you go through your day, you can think, today somewhere in the world a poor family has a brand new family water well. They don´t have to worry about hauling water anymore, and the fear of ruin by drought is lessened enormously. And a lot of folks we have trained don´t report back to us. So really it is a lot more than that. Pray we can keep the ball rolling and train more and more folks and start more WFA programs or train others to. The March course is filling fast. We have several new folks interested in long term service possibly, to train to go start new programs in new countries. Rick and Sherry head to Uganda in January. James is coming on with us in April to go to Kenya eventually. In each country we hope to start well drilling movements where the poor take charge of their water crisis and many thousands of wells get drilled. So pray for us. Pray especially we get our own training farm in Texas worked out. We are still working on leasing a place. Do pray about that with us. The opportunities are just tremendous for training more folks if we can get our own place to multiply training.

We watched a group of families yesterday complete a well, develop it, find the water was salty, pull the casing and decide to go deeper. It was quite an operation and to see all the women and men working together was just a treat. They went one hundred feet but need to go to 200 feet in the area where they were drilling. They were all super grateful for the WFA program that equips them and teaches them to drill. On their behalf I want to say thank you to all of you!

Below are fotos of a well club in action this year and a well just coming in. (Don´t worry the water will clear up just fine. Friends and neighbors drilling deep wells and making and installing their own sturdy reliable high volume WFA pumps. We really do actually equip families to take charge and solve their own water problem. It really does work. It still tickles me everytime I see it and I know it could be used in so many other places.

Thanks for praying for us! We do live on your prayers.

Sincerely,

Terry

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Dear Friends,

I just arrived San Julian and as always it is good to be to back “home”. Even though the Texas Rangers lost the world series, arriving here has put me in a great mood and I just had to share with you. I can´t quite believe what all the guys have gotten done in the couple of months I have been gone. They have a big old metal plate in the shop with 134 written on it in chalk. That is 134 wells done so far this year and we have two new clubs currently working and Teo is going with a new club tomorrow to buy their material for a third. See below photos of some of the new wells. Three new babies, 134 wells, a hot dog and coffee supper greeted me. I just love this place. I am catching up on all the gossip. Joe will arrive tomorrow to San Julian and we will go out and check out some of the family fish ponds. Cayo says the revival was wonderful and several new families in the church. Felipe who was baptized just as we left last time is doing well and just needs to get screws and pins removed from his arm and legs (he was in a terrible wreck a few months ago). Neli, Trinidad, and Ruti all have brand new babies. They are just a bit older than Sara´s new baby. So in addition to the revival, the congregation is also growing biologically too! It is still dry and so we will still be drilling. The drilling club out at Cordillera is inviting us for a big bbq celebration and asking us to preach and share the gospel, so we will. This is a great job. The wells you see are brand new and were all made by familie that WFA equips and empowers to drill themselves. The wells below are a few of the new deep wells safely sealed with bentonite bringing water from deep confined aquifers.

We teach the families to make their own heavy duty pumps that last years and years. The familes all know how to make and maintain them and as the families actually own them, they will take good care of them and the pumps are designed with low cost parts that are easy to obtain and replace when they wear. I have read reports from Africa where in some areas as many as 80 percent of hand pumps on community wells are broken at any given time with no one using them. That doesn´t happen with family wells. The families all make their own sytle of pump jacks from hard bolivian wood. They look like heck but work like a wonder pumping 5 plus gallons per minute continually. The wells change their lives and each well helps insure the entire area from devestation by drought. Families now have a chance to go on and prosper with gardens, cattle, chickens and pigs. Thanks so much for making all this possible by your prayers and support of WFA. You all are great! We do live on your prayers!

Sincerely,

Terry Waller

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells

Dear Friends,

I am home from Bolivia and wanted to share some parting pictures and thoughts. Sometimes I get tired and wonder if doing this WFA stuff is really worth doing. I am in my 50s now and the only thing I know how to do is bang a hole in the ground. Seems silly sometimes. Then I go to Bolivia for a couple of months and remember why we are doing all this stuff. I absolutely have the best job in the world. It was a wonderful time and just incredibly fruitful. 70 wells since May in Bolivia. Wow. That is 70 families with good deep family homestead water wells from confined aquifers. Their water problems are over. I bet we do over 100 wells in Bolivia this year.

Our WFA crew, Teo, Sergio, Elias and Chelo are busy as can be training very poor families to drill these water wells. It is incredibly hard work, with vehicle breakdowns, bad weather (we froze for part of the trip), tool failures, constant stress, and the demand just grows and grows it seems. When I left, 4 water clubs were working at the same time. We go out with families and help them drill their first two wells and then the families continue drilling on their own. Our guys work till sometimes late at night helping families learn to drill. The wells are deep, usually in the 100-200 feet deep range. And each well can fail up to the very end. It is nerve racking and hard work every time.

It is very dry in Bolivia and the families were all relieved to have a well. Ponds are drying up and families don’t know what they will do to water their livestock. We had one crew drill 45 meters in one day and another crew working till 2 am. We stuck Rick and Sergio out with families who were working in freezing rainy weather. All drilling deep wells of 50- 60 meters deep. The families Rick and Sergio were working with were all hauling water to their little farms and desperate for water. I don’t know how they do it. To get to share the poor’s physical and spiritual sufferings and be able to offer something substantive that helps their struggle is a joy. Thank you all for allowing us to do this kind of work. Now the families have their own wells.

What a joy it is to get to be involved and teach families to solve permanently their own water problem. A family well can make all the difference. Don Leandro, a friend who got a well years ago and one of our little windmills, came by one day to finally change out a bolt on his plastic pump (10 years) and said he had sent two kids to college on his well and little windmill, raising a little herd of cattle. He was super thankful. That is the power of empowering families to help themselves with the right tools that they can afford. Leandro is ready to retire now. He is fixed up and in good shape. Rewarding to see how he is doing.

All the families that get a personal well have new possibilities for prosperity. One of the clubs was in a community of Guarani indigenous folks. They have always been so poor and it was a joy to get to work with them. We will be helping families do well clubs while the dry season lasts and then help families get windmills. All the families that have them are thrilled with their windmills and the combination of well and windmill provides a path out of poverty for these families. What a great trip.

We are acutely aware that all of you who pray for us and support WFA make all of this possible. Being able to focus on the needs of the poor and develop good “poor user friendly” tools through the years has made a lot of difference to a lot of folks and it is you all who have made it possible. Thank you so much!

WFA is also growing and multiplying our impact in other areas. We are poised to start new programs in several countries. We trained Bolivar from our partner ministry (SIFAT) who is drilling in a very remote part of Bolivia We trained Rick Gregory who we hope to send along with his wife, Sherry, to Uganda and also started a partnership with some latino missionary volunteers in Bolivia to send as Bible story tellers out with some of the water clubs. They pull the rope and help families drill and offer to tell Bible Stories at night. Hard working kids. We hope to figure out how to work more with them. We are also working on sending Allan to Pakistan to help a good group start a WFA type program there.

We have a packed overflowing course in a couple of weeks here in Texas. We are working on getting our own training farm in Paint Rock to offer more courses and also be able to offer thorough training for our own people and to be able to continue research and development of better tools and technology for the poor (We just developed a new rock bit for example). The demand for courses just keeps growing too. For the upcoming course in Septmeber we have:

1. Jean-Pierre Yumpia – Congo

2. Russ Qualls – hydrology professor Idaho – 11 kids 4 adopted Ethiopians

3. Johnathan Bridges – Joe’s missionary friend from Ethiopia – here on furlough

4. Adam Abramson – from Israel

5. Tyozenda Gberikon – Retired Nigerian Army Officer

6. Nguket Nuvala – Cameroon – lives in Dallas has something to do w/ UT will be returning soon to his country.

7. Matt Mbanga – Zimbabwe returning soon to his country.

8. A nurse from Sudan.

Other cool things. We we had Jon and Parker Woodroof (Parker is in above picture pulling the rope) and Parker’s friend Ben with us for a visit in Bolivia and also and earlier Malcolm and his family visited. Parker may do something in Central America. Jon and his family are wonderful WFA supporters and encouragers. They have been to the course and are practicing drilling in their back yard in Tennessee. No telling where they will end up drilling. Malcolm too is a good friend and has worked a bunch in Africa and might do something in Uganda too.

Baptisms.

Our little church is doing great and the day we left baptized three new believers. Sometimes I worry that our little church hasn’t become a big mega church. One day a neighbor we have known a long time who is crippled and struggling wondered into our little services and we prayed with him and he accepted Christ. He said he had been down and discouraged and contemplated suicide. Just being there is the most important things sometimes.

I flew out Sunday night but on that Sunday morning it was wonderful to be at Felipe’s baptism along with Teodora, an elderly Quechua lady, and also Lucia, a young mother who recently accepted Christ and who is praying for her husband.

What a joy to see the little congregation be a touch stone for eternal things and see those the world thinks not much of, come into a small but caring family of believers where they are loved and valued. Felipe’s baptism, going down into the water on crutches, depending on others to be layed down in the water, was one of the most moving things I have ever witnessed. What a picture of all of us really. Crippled and sick, and dying and surrendering and then being raised with Christ. What a picture, What a wonderful faith we have! I couldn’t help but cry like a baby at the Baptism. His determination to be baptized was amazing. Praise God that he loves us and that there is faith, hope, and love even for the poorest of the poor. Praise God!

Please pray for Cayo and Neli and for Amalia and all our church folks that they be salt and light for all the folks in our neighborhood like Felipe and Lucia and Teodora. Spiritual needs are everywhere. Rob is in Seminary this semester preparing to minister to those needs and will be headed back to Ethiopia to be with Joe in January for more drilling. We have our place bought out close to the villages. And we are excited about partner offers with other missions that want us to train their people. The world is hurting out there and the needs so great, both spiritually and physically. Pray we can help as many as possible and make good partnerships to share the Gospel in both word and deed.

Thank you all so much for supporting and praying for WFA.

These are our big prayer requests:

For Jeremy and Sara as they get ready to have their first baby! They have been such a blessing and are looking to go with another group to the Middle East in January. We will miss them terribly but know God has them right where he wants them! I believe Jeremy will be teaching in a school and Sara teaching English. From when they first married they have felt a strong call to the Arabic Middle East. We wish them well but will miss them. They will be with us till January though so we will get to see the baby! Pray we can replace them!

For Teo and Sergio and Elias and Chelo as they continue train families to drill wells in Bolivia. I bet in Bolivia WFA clubs will make more than 100 wells this year. Paul reports over one hundred wells in Nicragua this year in WFA type clubs done by a group there. Pray we can continue to help people have abundant water and move out of grinding poverty. WE need to expand in Bolivia, pray we can find a way to expand more and reach more families. I read today in the Bolivian paper that hundreds of villages are without water due to the prolonged dry season. Pray we can increase our ministry in Bolivia and that we have the resources to do it.

For Cayo and Neli and Amalia and the church in San Julian and for new believers, Felipe, Teodora, and Lucia.

For the upcoming WFA course in San Angelo at the Duncan Ranch.

For Rick and Sherry as they prepare to go to Uganda to help us start a WFA program with our partners Global Care. Rick and Sherry are our age and have committed the rest of their lives to helping the poor and dispossessed. Sherry is a nurse and Rick has studied Animal Science and has a masters in rural development. Great folks and they are super excited about serving with WFA. They have served in Uganda and Sudan. Rick was with me the whole time in Bolivia and says he learned a ton. He was amazed at the constant stream of families coming by to find our how to start a water club. He was a trooper and worked hard.

For Ethiopia and Joe and Rob, Rob in seminary, and Joe as he visits us here and heads back to Ethiopia later in the Fall. (Joe came home for Cheryl’s funeral and so we are having him out to the course to help us). Ethiopia is in rainy season now. Drilling will start back soon though. Pray for Rob and Joe as they continue to learn Oromo and work with families and drill more and more wells with them. We have our own little place now out in the country and tons of work to do. Rob and Joe both are amazing. Pray for them.

For Pakistan and for Allan De Laurel. We have a deal in the works to possibly send Allan to help a partner get started in Pakistan. This could be dangerous if it happens but we will be partnering with a group that has a long term presence and knows what to do. Allan has served with us in Bolivia and did test drilling in Nicaragua and in Dominican Republic for us. The suffering in Pakistan is great right now. God loves the Pakistanis.

For Bolivar our SIFAT partner who is drilling in Xiamas. Xiamas is way out in the middle of no where in Bolivia but people need water. Our partner, SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) has a boarding home for kids that live in logging camps and out in areas with no schools. We trained their man Bolivar in Bolivia about a year ago and he is now drilling in Xiamas. We had him with us recently for two weeks for further training. Bolivar is an Ecuadorian and we hope to someday start a program there too one day, maybe with SIFAT. Bolivar is a great Christian guy, doing great work.

Teofilo, Bolivar, Cayo, Rick, myself, Chelo, Amalia and Bebo invited to a “churazco” (bbq) by a water club to celebrate their completions of 8 new wells. A great time of fellowship, singing and sharing the Gospel. These are the type of folks helped by your prayers and generosity. I just love them all.

Water club just finishing a well. One of 70 plus so far this year. The bible story telling volunteers pulled the rope till 2 am helping them.

For WFA and our efforts to get our own well drilling training camp, and farm. Pray God would provide the way and means if it is his will. We feel this will help us share with many more and help us train and recruit those who feel called to serve the poorest of the poor with WFA. The need around the world is huge and staggering. We have several big mission agency groups wanting to train their people. We may just have enough funds via some special gifts and pledges to buy a great property in nearby Paint Rock Texas on the Concho River. If you know anyone who would like to help us train a lot more people to help the poorest of the poor do share with them what we are doing. Jeremy and I have drilled test wells and the place looks great for what we need. We are super excited but still need to raise more funds.

For Dave, a WFA course grad who recently drilled in the Gambia and would like us to partner with him there somehow. What we need is more committed folks like Rick and Sherry. Pray we can find them and train them for missions like the Gambia.

Once we get a training farm we will need folks ready to be trained and sacrifice and go live incarnationally with the poorest of the poor for years at a time and be salt and light, working and living side by side out in the middle of no where. If you know anyone like that. Tell them about us. We have dozens of requests from all over the world to start WFA type ministries. What we will need once we get a training facility are lots more Joes and Robs and Rick and Sherys. Pray God hooks us up with just the right folks to train and send as WFA volunteers for the poor.

For James, who we hope will be our new intern starting with us in April and who is a Kenyan MK and would like to start a WFA type program someday in Kenya. We are looking forward to James coming on with us. Be praying now for James.

For the First Baptist Arlington group who trained with us last course. They are practicing and getting ready to drill in Africa. They minister in Niger and Sierra Leon.

And finally please pray for and Lucia, Teodora and Felipe.

One final little thought. As you are reading this our gang in Bolivia is probably teaching a family to drill as you read this. Chelo, the young man above in the yellow shirt works with us and had a car wreck while I was there. He wasn’t hurt but could have been hurt so easily. We really do count on your prayers for the entire WFA gang that God watch over them while they work. Do keep us in your prayers! Chelo is Amalia’s son and grew up with us in San Julian. He is like another son to me and it was scary!

Thanks so much for making all this happen! WFA isn’t on any budget anywhere and we work via your prayers and support and the offerings of partner churches. Thanks so much to all of you!

Terry

Below are a few of the of the 70 plus wells drilled since May,

Well this isn’t a well, but a “lagarto” in a pond that we passed everyday. I tried to rope him everyday but never could! I guess I am not a gator whisperer. I am just glad we didn’t decide to baptize in that pond. He was 8 feet long.

Ok. This isn’t a well either, but I liked the picture. This is Ben who visited with Parker, holding “Bebo” Yoli’s son, who Amalia is raising.

Thanks again for praying for us!

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.” C.S. Lewis

Water For All/Agua Para Todos

For info on Water For All’s international work visit, www.waterforallinternational.org or email terry@southlandbaptist.org

Tags: Bolivia, Missions, Water Wells