Installing filters with friends

2 weeks ago we a team that was made up of a bunch of our old friends – people that knew us way before we were married, who attended our wedding, who have stuck with us throughout this whole time of us being here – and they came to work alongside us! It was fabulous to have them here and get to show them our life and have them walk through our days, instead of just trying explain it all in pictures. It was a very special week for us. 2 members of the team were Tristan’s parents as well so my kids LOVED having the grandparents around for a bit! Sigel translated all week and did a really great job.

They came to install water filters with us – something that they had raised money for as a church and sent down last year – and then we asked them to come down to help us install them! (No we weren’t really trying to trick them, but it did work to our favor lol). This was the first team we’ve ever had that was soley focused on filters the entire week – which we learned was a lot of work J. The problem with that is that there is a lot of communication and prep work with the communities in terms of having a community meeting, collecting the family’s symbolic fee for the filter, putting the lists and maps of where the homes are located, etc. so the logistics of the week were pretty insane – but the good thing is that we installed 75 filters!!!! Can you believe it! That is over 700 individuals that now have free, clean, drinking water for at least the next 10 years!!!!! We also passed out de-parasite medicine to any of the families that wanted it so that they could start fresh.  By the end of the week this team was a well-oiled, water filter installing machine. The last day they were here we the morning go back to the homes of some of the filters that we installed in order to check the calibration of the filter and insure that they are working correctly – we found some problems with some of them going too fast or too slow, so we’re in the works of creating a better way to track the filters and recheck the filters to make sure that they are working properly. It’s a big task but we feel so strongly about excellency  - and really, what good does a water filter do for a family if it’s not working correctly! So, that’s what we’ll focus on next week  - ensuring that all of those filters are working well!