Still, the team of Laurie Boucher, Kim Cecatti, Joanna Haddad, Dwight Kempf, Josh Luey, Nick Luey, and I brought back glowing reports about our encounters and conversations with the students at the Alfonzo Guillen Zelaya Elementary School in Mezapa. Between taking turns driving the rig on the school’s back playground, the mission workers enjoyed many rounds of soccer, ring toss, Frisbee, photo taking, storytelling and simple interlingual conversations with the children.


Tey returned home with heads held high. But still, they wanted to see the village served with fresh, living water!


A subsequent drilling effort was arranged after Living Waters was able to transport a much higher-powered rig and purchase a much higher-grade, custom-made “roller cone drill bit” to lead the way through the resistant rocks.


Living Waters, Indeed


Well-drilling mission in Honduras village completed BY JACK HABERER


The May-June edition of Tidings reported that when seven valiant mission workers returned from a weeklong, water- well-drilling adventure in Honduras on March 31, their story had not concluded as anticipated. An unwelcoming 15-foot layer of underground stones had thwarted the best efforts of our well-digging team and their drilling rig.


But the tide was turned seven weeks later, when yours truly returned from a subsequent trip to the village of Mezapa in the state of Arizona, Honduras, with photos of the fait accompli: the well dug by (mostly) local staff members of Living Waters International. Tis time they were supported by a much larger drilling rig. Tis time they installed the PVC pipe that was capable of drawing clean water up to a hand pump and provide healthful refreshment.


Te first trip was not a failure. Te drill had reached a depth of 90 feet—the depth needed to reach a steady flow of water. But attempts to ream a four-inch-wide column to the needed width of seven inches proved to be too much for the drilling rig to conquer. After four days of “I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can” striving, the mast supporting the drill split beyond repair. Te effort had to be abandoned, at least for the moment.


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I booked a flight to the Central American community to help dedicate the completed well pump. But my timing was thrown off by a delay caused by the bridge into town being closed for repairs and I was not able to be on hand for the dedication. But undeterred, I joined the drilling/reaming efforts on May 16, and by the end of the day, the PVC pipes descended to the 90-foot depth. Over the ensuing week, the pump was installed, the waters rose to the surface, and the well was dedicated to the glory of God by students, teachers, parents, and other villagers—along with Living Waters staff members.


Proclaim the good news that God’s love is flowing by way of a freshly dug and dedicated water well. Te efforts of First Presbyterian Church of Allentown and our partners at Agua Viva, Living Waters International, and especially their newest partners—the children of Mayapa, Arizona, Honduras—are rejoicing over the flow of those waters.


“All’s well that ends well,” they say. All’s well all the more when the well is a water well, and when the ending is really a new beginning.


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