A DIVINE MISSION

from Parker County LifeStyle Spring 2020

HEALTHY RECIPES

by Rick Mauch

JIM MYNAUGH AND HIS WIFE KATHY ARE ON A DIVINE

MISSION TO BRING CLEAN WATER TO AS MUCH OF THE WORLD AS POSSIBLE.

So, they started Divine Water. The non-profit organization funds water wells in parts of the world where people don't have access to clean, safe drinking water.

The group has two chapters, one in Pennsylvania, where they started it, the other in Texas, where they now live just outside of Weatherford. It is all volunteer, no salaries, no travel costs, and every penny donated goes directly to fund water projects.

Jim said he first got the idea to help others with their water needs while teaching a Bible class on Sunday mornings. They were studying a book entitled "The Hole In Our Gospel", which includes better ways to help each other.

Then came a trip on which Jim had his eyes opened even more. "At the time I was working in India (as a chemical engineer), and we were going down the road about 15 miles per hour, so it was easy to see everything around me," he recalled. "There were boys wearing shorts, and they were bathing, and every little bit they'd shout at each other."

Jim soon learned that they were yelling at each other in intervals, warning each other to get out of the way of sewage that was coming out of the pipe that was also supplying the water in which they were bathing. "I went back to my five-star hotel. I couldn't sleep. It wasn't right what I saw," Jim said. "I went back to my church, met with the elders, and that's when we founded Divine Waters."

That was in 2011. Now, eight years later they are helping people in five countries improve their lives with better water.

They started in Haiti, and are now helping in Uganda, Mozambique, New Guinea, and Costa Rica. They partner with organizations such as the Texas Baptist Men's Group, Kibo Group International, Water Underground, and Healing Hands. "We do it the right way. We don't just stick a well in the ground," Jim said. "There's about 50,000 wells in Africa that have been abandoned. People come in great intentions and then leave. That's not us."

Essentially, Divine Waters is a fundraising group. Their efforts help provide funds for partners to go in and do their jobs, which includes such projects as wells, troughs, outhouses, sanitation, sinks, pipelines, hand drills, well repairs, and even dish racks to keep dishes off the ground.

"You go to the tap here, turn it on, you expect water to come out. But there's about 750 million people in the world who can't do that," Jim said. "And we don't partner with any group that doesn't include sanitation."

Kathy added, "Some of them, until someone teaches them you need a latrine, for example, they're defecating all over their village. They don't know any better, and of course that's the most unhealthy situation you can imagine."

Jim recalled the time a chief in a village told him the rate of child molestation had gone down as a result of having a well in their village. Women and children were having to walk two hours to get water previously, putting them in danger on the road, along with the dangers of facing such animals as crocodiles and hippopotamus once they reached a place with water. "We have heard several stories of people being attacked by crocs," he said. "It's just the opposite of here, where if you live on the water it's a prestigious thing. There, if you live on the water, you're poor as dirt, and it's a lot more dangerous."

Dysentery is also a problem in many of the villages, Jim said. That is, before they are introduced to clean water. "You can't concentrate in school, you can't work, not when you're dealing with that all the time," he said. "Now, their dysentery rate is about the same as the United States."

Jim's "right way" is more than bringing water to the villages. The villagers are also taught to maintain a fund to maintain their water supply, in case repairs are ever needed for the well, etc. They typically pay about five or 10 cents monthly. They are educated mostly by Kibo officials, many of who grew up in villages, Jim said.

The villagers will also often help with the installation. Jim told the story of a villager in a wheelchair who dug a 40-foot deep latrine by himself. "He's actually a huge person in the village now. That raised his stature," Jim said.

There is, however, a lot more to be done, Jim said. And yet, somehow, more continues to be done, even when Jim wonders where it is coming from. "Once the board said, 'We're going to double donations.' I said how are we going to do that?" Jim said. "Then, I checked my mail and had two $1,000 checks from people I'd never met."

Then, he recalled having breakfast with a man in a restaurant and leaving with a $10,000 check. "He funded a well," Jim said.

Kathy said another person called asking if he might donate some money he inherited. "We didn't know him, but he wanted to help. That just happens," she said.

Divine Water is having a fundraising appreciation dinner at Weatherford Christian School on Nov. 9. Entertainment will be by master guitarist Jack Simmons, with a fiesta stack dinner. Tickets are $50 per person. For more, visit www.divine-water.org.

Jim said one of their hopes is to start another chapter of Divine Water. In the meantime, they stay busy with the two they have. For example, he and Kathy were recently joined by 10 others on a trip to Uganda to educate and help spread and raise funds upon their return.

Jim said visiting a village is a learning experience for everyone. He said one such time was a couple years when he gave some Tootsie Roll Pops to some children in the village. "They put them in their mouths, and they didn't like them. But they didn't take the wrappers off," he said. "Then I showed them that you take the wrappers off first, and they all took their wrappers off and gave them to me. They thought I wanted the wrappers. "Each of our projects changes people's lives 500 times over. If you track how many people in the world still need water, it's still going to be another 40-50 years to reach them all.We can't fix it all, but we can fix a little bit, and then a little bit more." PCLS