16 New Wells in Ethiopia and More Good News

Here are some highlights from Curt’s current notes that I’m sure you’d like to hear:

New Water Wells in Ethiopia

In the last two months Curt and the Ethiopian team have completed a total of 17 wells with 16 of them being good, producing wells.  This means 60,000 lives will not have to face the sickness and death caused by contaminated water sources (diarrhea, cholera, etc).

Eleven of the wells were drilled with the “new” replacement rig that was shipped in last year (another used Schramm T-64).  It was often tough to reach each of the rural well sites and the drilling was also difficult at times as Curt described technical challenges for the young drillers he trains, such as caving broken rock, very tight sticky clays and also hard rock formations.  Even though it took longer for the drilling the team was thankful for few breakdowns or set backs– the regular flat tires and misc vehicle issues that one encounters traversing the rough back “roads” of the countryside.  Most importantly they were thankful to have success with 16 wells and continue in the progress of providing safe water to these village communities.

Solomon, Nigusse and Samuel will do pump installations and possibly a bit of drilling while Curt has a short visit with family during the holidays.  Please keep them in your prayers as they continue in the work and travel with the equipment.  The work is dangerous and they truly rely upon God’s protection.

Great News

Healing Hands International recently announced that Curt and his wife, Mary, have agreed to come “on board” with them as field directors in their water well drilling  program. This will mean that they are able to be in areas like Ethiopia, Haiti and Sudan drilling wells eleven months out of the year and TOGETHER!  Many of you know that Curt and Mary have often spent 6 months of the year apart as Curt traveled around drilling for Healing Hands and other partners in Haiti and Ethiopia.  We are all very thankful that they will be together again in this service.  They will both be heading to Ethiopia sometime early in the new year.

In His service,

Lisa Dunn for Curt King

Drilling through Rock

Mary will Return with Curt to the Field

 

Counting Blessings

Reflections

As I sit here tonight in our little 20’ house in the Church of Christ Compound in southern Ethiopia, I am counting my blessings.  Through the generosity of many, our friends, the Dotson’s, made this shipping container into a very livable little box!  My wife bought me a Bose portable speaker system and loaded up her ipod with music, everything from Gaither Homecoming (ok I admit it, I am almost a Gaither groupie) to MC Hammer to Hawaiian to Andrea Bocelli.  Tonight I am filled with both good memories of the past, and great anticipation for our future.

Curt & Mary on the Field

Lord willing, this will be my last stint here without Mary.  Healing Hands International has generously offered to take us on full-time!  For 7 long years I have been gone from Mary and the family up to 6 months annually.  We are thrilled about being together again on the field, and  we hope to be able to provide clean water to many more communities in more countries than before!

Wells and Rigs

I’ve been in East Africa since the last week of October.  We finished 6 more wells in another part of the south, and last week moved our entire operation (including my house) about 200 km to Senteria. After 7 years, there was a lot to move.  Then we drove to Addis Ababa and picked up a rebuilt drilling machine generously donated by Ojard Drilling.  It took us 10 hours to get it back here, and we’ve spent the last few days adapting it for our use, and checking sites.  Lord willing, tomorrow we will drive another 130 km south to an area where we have about 40 wells to drill.  As we have time, we will rebuild the other rig.  After about 350 wells and a few thousand miles over some very difficult terrain, it sorely needs some tender care.

Haiti

Often, my thoughts turn to Haiti and the incredible suffering going on there, even as I am writing.  I just can’t imagine the fear of sickness and death that so many must have.  Thankfully, that is one of the places we will also be drilling, as our schedule allows.

So, as I enjoy the incredible blessings around me tonight, may I never forget those struggling around me, not only in Haiti, but here in East Africa, and in Seattle when I am back there.  There is a sobering passage in the Bible, “…to whom much is given, much will be required…” Let’s use whatever we have been blessed with to help lift those around us.  It’s not always money, it’s not always clean water, sometimes it’s just making eye contact and smiling, and letting the
Lord fill in the rest…

Curt King
Senteria, southern Ethiopia
November 18, 2010

East to Africa

October 23, 2010

Dear friends and family,

It’s been a while, and now it’s time to get back overseas, to work. It has taken more time than expected to get my paperwork in order and for the rains to let up in East Africa.  But it’s all systems go for tomorrow afternoon, when I leave Seattle for Ethiopia.

I plan to be back in Seattle on December 16th, for our son Kevin’s graduation from law school, which will be a big family celebration culminating with a party at Disneyland!  The grandkids are big enough now to enjoy it, along with our kids and us, who have never grown up enough to not have a lot of fun together there!

We are in the final stages of an agreement with Healing Hands International, so that Mary and I may be full-time in our work together.  It will be wonderful to be traveling and working together, with the difficulty of spending less time with our family.  It seems the more time we all spend around each other, the more we want to.  I am truly blessed to have such amazing kids and grandkids, all of them.

As I wing my way east, it is also difficult to be flying away from Haiti, which once again is in a severe crisis mode, with what appears to be the beginning of a cholera disaster.  Please remember those who are suffering, and those who are working so hard to try to help.  And lets all remember to do what we can to make the world around us, the places we touch and relate to every day, a little better.  With God’s help, we can be an encouragement to someone.

My brother Ed recently suffered a stroke which leaves his severely disabled.  As I talked with him the other day, I told him as the elder brother, we are all looking to him for guidance, as we are all aging, and any one of us could be next.  He thought a minute and then said, from his rest home bed, “ well, every morning when I wake up I say, “”this is the day the Lord has made.  I will be glad and rejoice in it….Even if it hurts!””

 

.curt king.
October 23, 2010
Shilshole Bay Marina,
Seattle, WA

MAKING THINGS WORK

(Lisa Dunn for the team…)

CURT AND THE NEW RIG

Curt, Snaider and volunteer, Bill Moxon, spent Friday making adjustments to the rig to attach the external compressor, allowing the rig to drill without any needed imported items (foam or mud).  Those items were available for the previous 13 wells drilled with this rig but the reality of availability had to be considered now.

Saturday the guys started their first rounds of wells, and I’m excited to report that they hit water at 150 feet at the first site. The team and locals were very thankful.  Today they  drilled an additional 15 feet at that site, checked the water quality and put in the casing. Snaider will follow-up with the hand-pump.  We’ve been praying the water is good as the village is near a salty lake outside the city of Port-au-Prince, near Thomazeau. Once again we are thankful: it is good, sweet drinking water and is producing at a good rate.

We have visited some of the well sites (tent camps 1 and 2) and the people there are continuing to use the wells there.  There were groups of people pumping buckets of water the entire length of our visits to those camps (primarily children).  Thank you for helping to make those wells possible. Your partnership is vital to this work.

LEARNING FROM THE HAITANS

As we have been driving through town to pick up PVC and other parts we have seen the Haitian people continue on with life in spite of the terrible hardships they have encountered, especially since the quake.  They continue to press on and make things work. They are recycling the rebar, metal sheeting and anything else useful found in ruins and rubble.  They have set up store fronts in front of their condemned businesses.  Those in the tent camps that we checked on were gracious, thankful for the water wells, asking us to sit down if they had a bucket or chair.  They were open and honest of the living conditions but not complaining, just making things work as best as they could.

Life goes on amidst destruction and ruins – Making Things Work

What a lesson.  In a small way we simply adapted and made things work with the rig this week but how are we really doing that when it really matters in our everyday lives?  Not complaining or giving up, just “making things work.”

-Lisa Dunn (for Curt & Crew), June 21, 2010, Port-au-Prince, Haiti