The team from Colorado

Meet the Crossroads team from Loveland Colorado…

This is the school in the community of Pistere, and we hung out with them all week. It was a national school, which means it is funded by the government. They have very little resources. And since we were not drilling on church property this time, for many of the kids, these Bible stories were new to them. It was a great way for them to hear about Jesus, and come into the local church.

We visited a few houses in the community. We asked the pastor if there were a few families the we could visit, and pray with. We were able to visit two families per day, and it was so nice of them to welcome so many strangers into their homes. It was great to just visit with them, pray with them, and encourage them too.

Every afternoon we met on the soccer field to play with the kids form the community. The team brought soccer balls, jump ropes, bubbles, and frisbees. They loved it every minute of it. And the end of each day, we rounded up all the toys and brought them back the next day. In some places, those toys grow feet and wonder off. Then we have the game of hunting them down. I’m not going to lie, I get pretty moody when one of those toys disappear. But my newest strategy is locating the kasak, pastor, or man in charge and he always seems to hunt it down. But we didn’t have that happen here in Pistere. When it was time to go, they all lined up and put everything back in the bag and we returned again the next day.  They were so polite, and so happy to play with the toys, with the grown ups. At the end of the week, we left the bag with the pastor of the church and the director of the school.

So after just the very first morning, we were able to drill down 75 feet. We were so excited because we got so deep in such a short time. And on Tuesday we drilled the rest, reamed the hole out, and prepared it for the casing (the big white pipe that encloses the drop pipe) Wednesday we put the casing in and discovered there was indeed no water. The formations that we dug up indicated that we might, and the hard part with mud rotary drilling is that you don’t know if you have hit water until you put all the materials down and start pumping. (Because we drill with water, it does shoot up in the air like you’re imagining-that only happens with air rigs) So on Thursday, we started drilling a new hole, one that was deeper. And once we got to about 130 feet things really slowed down. We have hit some rock formations, and it’s taking almost an hour to go down 5 feet. It’s slow going. The team gave up their ‘cultural day’ in which they wanted to hike the citadel, in order to continue drilling. The Colorado team left on Saturday, and as they said, they are “disappointed but not discouraged”. I love that. It’s so true. It’s been so hard to not hit water, especially in a community like the one we are in.  The people here are so lovely, so welcoming, so sweet. We have to continue to trust in the Lord on this one. We have to know that He has plans for Pistere, and we don’t know what they are. Perhaps it doesn’t involved getting water, yet. We are trying to patiently wait for the Lord, and let Him guide and direct what happens.

And for now, we have continued to drill in Pistere. We’ve drilled there all last week, and just yesterday we were there all day, and only got down about another 15 feet. Now we are at about 170 feet. Please continue to pray with us. That God would be glorified whether we find water or not. That the people in Pistere would come to Jesus. There is one church pretty close to where we are drilling, and a few people from the community go there already. We’ll continue to pray for water for Pistere, but also that they would experience and know the Living Water.