Kenya, July 2019
Thanks for joining us in transforming the lives of thousands of people and children in Kenya! With your generous donations RipplAffect raised money for 410 Water Filtration Systems on another Kenya Mission Trip, this time in collaboration with ElmHurst SDA Church that John Piroski is pastoring.
Here is the Mission Trip report by Hannah Piroski, one of the RipplAffect volunteers:
For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Hannah and I was so blessed to go on my second mission trip, first time in Kenya, and first mission trip with my dad this past July. I have to truthfully say that it was the best experience of my life! It was absolutely amazing, and I want to go back so badly!
So one of the main things that we were able to provide for the people there were water filters that were provided by donors in collaboration with RipplAffect. All the filters came to us in parts that were disassembled in little bags, so as a group we spent most of our first day in Kenya just putting all the filters together. Let me just say, it was a tedious process. There was a team working on drilling holes into the buckets that were bought in Kenya. From there, the buckets would be brought to the tent where the rest of us were actually putting the filters together. We created sort of an assembly line where some would be actually twirling the little pieces of the filter together and making sure they were all tight and in order. Then they would give those filters to the rest of us, which would take them and actually attach them to the buckets and place the needed stickers on the buckets. That was basically the first real bonding experience we had on the trip. Not only do I have to say I got to know these people in our group a lot better from the time we spent putting filters together in a tent, but some of the local church members from around the area just showed up and ended up helping us a lot! It was so nice of them and that was also where we got to first meet some of the people there as well.
So the first place that we actually got to distribute some of the water filters was a nearby elementary school called the Muthumo Primary School in Machakos County. Once we got there we were given a quick tour of the school and then we gave a presentation on how to use the filters, and how to make them last to their full capacity of 10+ years to all the people that were present. We were able to give a filter to each of the teachers, each of the families represented in the school, a couple of local officers and officials, as well as to leave a couple filters directly for the school to use on a daily basis. Visiting that humble school and making friends with all of the happy children that were there was one of the first instances were it actually hit me to see how fortunate I am. Because I don’t want to cry in front of all of you, I’m just going to say that I felt soblessed! Those people did so much more for me than I did for them.
The rest of the filters were distributed to a couple of different places and people. We gave some to another nearby school, the one where we held VBS at. This one was Adventist sponsored and it had an elementary and high school. We also gave some to an orphanage we visited. Many of the villagers who came to the evangalisitic series received filters for their families, and of course all of the church members of the Muthumo SDA Church got them.
On behalf of this group I would just like to thank everyone who donated towards these water filters. We were able to give about 410 filters to people in the community. Each filter can provide for about a family of 8, so that’s a total of 3280 people that now have access to clean, safe, and drinkable water. Without all your donations and prayers, this could not have been possible! I also want to thank you on behalf of the people who actually received these filters. I can tell you that they made a huge impact on their lives. Even now people have been texting me and my dad and I’m sure other people from this group here saying that they are so grateful to us that they now have clean water to use and just praising God for providing for their needs.
Going to Kenya for this mission trip was the best experience of my life. I want to personally thank everyone here who made it financially possible for me and the rest of the group to go and do this mission as well as to thank everyone who prayed for us. To close, I would really like to encourage anyone here that if you ever have the chance to go on a mission trip; do it. I promise you, your life will never be the same again!
Here are some more photos from this Mission Trip
Thank you for your support!