Dick Moeller, Joyce's husband, is making trips to Africa for Water to Thrive, a new Texas nonprofit that partners with A Glimmer of Hope, to bring water wells to Ethiopian villages.
This is the note he wrote from his most recent trip with his daughter Meredith. Just had to share it....
"It is Wed morning with a little down time before we head to Kellum this afternoon.
As you might expect.....our emotions have run the complete spectrum.....joy, fatih, trust, love, concern, overwhelmed, thankfulness, helplessness, respect, honor, blessed......and on and on.
Our celebration at the 3 completed wells was totally overwhelming. Such joy, hope and thankfulness with blessings shared all around. Truly remarkable......beyond words really.
On Sunday afternoon, we headed east out of Addis to visit several Glimmer water points and schools and then on to two communities in need of access to fresh water.
Monday was travel to Axum (Tigray region) in the morning, then visits to 3 completed wells, one in progress and one stop at a water collection site in need of fresh water. The attached "amateur" pictures are from that portion of the trip. Adi_Nefas was the first completed well visit, and Seyabo was the second. We were totally exhausted by the end of the day and emotionally drained. It was an easy sleep!
Tuesday morning we traveled back to Addis. We visited the Glimmer office and then two afternoon meetings with John Halvorson at LWF and Zerihun Desta, Development Director for Mekan Yesus. Both started a little tense, but in the end they were good meetings. At least we are communicating openly and have a path of cooperation. Time will tell how well it will work. I felt good about the outcome of the meetings. More when I return.
We had dinner last evening with some of the Glimmer team to get to know them better. A very enjoyable evening. My respect continues to grow for the Tameru and the whole Glimmer team. They have their values truly aligned with the people they serve. So great to see it in action.
We are off to Kellum later today and should be back in Addis Saturday afternoon. Tameru has a relationship with the Mekane Yesus church in that area as some of Glimmer's early projects were done in cooperation with them. We will meet them on Friday after visiting potential new fresh water points on Thursday.
Blessings to you from the people of Adi-Nefas, Seyabo and Ketema"
Dick and Meredith
For $3,500, Water to Thrive provides a first water well for 400 Ethiopians.
That's $7 per person (2 lattes or 2 bottles of water at your local airport)
100% of contributions go to changing lives. They have proven partners with local management. Go to www.watertothrive.org learn more.
