Joe Walenciak's Blog: Clean Water has Come to Chajul, Guatemala!

May 22, 2012, Chajul, Guatemala

History will probably never remember that clean water came to Chajul, Guatemala, for the very first time on May 22, 2012. But the people of Chajul...and a group from John Brown University...WILL remember this day.

The JBU Guatemala Water Project has been a journey...a story too long to tell here. It really began in March 2011 with a meeting between people from JBU and Compassion International (Guatemala) in Guatemala City. The journey eventually led us to Chajul, a remote village which was at the heart of the nation's 36-year civil war and which continues to be isolated and neglected. Other than a limited amount of expensive bottled water that most of the residents of Chajul could never afford, there has never been any kind of water purification in Chajul.

I am very proud of the JBU Guatemala Water Project team. In spite of so many obstacles and setbacks, this group has stayed committed to the people of Chajul. Today, as we ended Day 2 of training and installation, we were actually able to turn on the machine and watch clean water come out! The JBU team and the Chajul project leadership team ended today with a time of prayer, and then we all shared a toast and enjoyed a glass of the very first water ever to be purified in Chajul.

Most of the world has never heard of Chajul, and they won't ever know or remember what happened here today. But for those of us who were here, we will never forget.