Summers in India are relentless.
The heat springs up in the early hours of the morning and lingers until the late hours of the night, imitating the ferocity of the country’s prized national symbol, the tiger. Steady and unforgiving, these sweltering temperatures are perilous to the thirsty and deadly to those lacking access to clean drinking water.
The hot climate only serves to magnify a much larger issue: the fact that water is not only scarce, it’s dirty . . . causing over 20 percent of communicable diseases in India as a whole. Unclean water is the culprit behind waterborne illnesses like diarrhea, which kills 1,600 Indians a day!
Water is obviously a problem in India—a challenge big enough to win the attention of a few who wanted to make a difference in their own country.
It started with a water hut.
A few local pastors decided to help quench the thirst of those passing through their community by opening a “water hut” along a well-traveled path. The water supply for the hut originates from a causelife well that was drilled nearby. Every thirsty traveler received a cup of clean, safe drinking water, saving them from having to resort to a polluted alternative.
The pastors’ vision was to “provide drinking water to thirsty souls,” and to develop friendships with those who perhaps needed more than a cup of water to make it on their journey. One of these pastors had this to say about the water hut’s remarkable success:
We love the water hut idea because it’s a picture of what we hope causelife will be for the world—an oasis in a desert, and hope for those who feel defeated. Water not only satisfies the thirsty . . . it opens doors to countless opportunities for growth and development.
Thanks to the vision of a faithful few, a causelife well on the other side of the world is serving beyond the community—reaching people who otherwise would have to risk their health and livelihood for something we each take for granted: a sip of cool water on a hot day.