Stories & Testimonies

Pasis warmly welcomed us when we entered her small home in Makono during our visit to Uganda just a few weeks ago. She had recently received a Sawyer water filter from Heaven's Family partners Kenneth and Kevin Wafula, and I came to see how it was helping her family.

Did you miss it? October 15th was "Global Hand Washing Day." You probably celebrated it without realizing it! This day is dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of washing our hands with soap. We often take it for granted, but this simple act helps prevent us from becoming ill and spreading illness to others, and is a very low-cost way to prevent diseases in general.

Smiling broadly and holding two new Sawyer water filters in the above photo is Patricia, wife of Kelvin Mwikya. Kelvin (not pictured) runs Philemon Foundation's new Christian residential facility for juvenile offenders, a revolutionary aftercare center where young men learn important skills to succeed in life and be discipled in the Lord, located in Kibwezi, Kenya—the first of its kind in that country. In the past, these boys and young men would have been tossed onto the streets when their sentences were over, doomed to a life of poverty and recurrent crime.

Fine is a survivor of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994. During a 3-month melee, an estimated 1 million people of the Tutsi tribe were slaughtered by members of the Hutu tribe. Although Rwanda has been peaceful in the years since, many scars remain.

The students at St. Elizabeth Primary School in Bvirindi, Zimbabwe, were often thirsty and sick. That's because they drank rainwater that collected in a small reservoirs dug by hand. Not only was the water contaminated with bacteria and other pathogens, but it also dried up often.