LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — Ten mission volunteers in Costa Rica to provide safe drinking water and vision clinics turned to disaster relief when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit Jan. 9.
 This grandstand is staging area for a feeding operation being staffed by mission volunteers and the Emergency Commission of Costa Rica. (Photo provided) |
Nineteen people were confirmed dead and 23 missing as of Jan. 12 from the quake that hit near the Poas volcano, a popular tourist destination 25 miles from the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.
A PureWater PureLife team that was finishing the installation of a water system and conducting a vision clinic in Costa Rica at the time changed its itinerary after the temblor struck. Instead of moving to another part of the country, the volunteers from the non-profit faith-based organization EDGE Outreach in Louisville, Ky., decided to stay put and respond to needs of about 350 families cut off in the village of San Miguel de Sarapique.
The team refocused efforts on providing emergency relief for the next 10 days to an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 residents without food or safe water.
Mark Hogg, executive director of EDGE Outreach, said the town has no electric service or potable water. A factory that had employed 600 people collapsed.
Hogg said three miniature water-treatment plants will provide 1,200 gallons of pure water per hour, while a feeding operation will seek to serve at least one hot meal per person for 10 days. He said the operation will cost $35,000, and about $22,000 has been raised so far.
“It’s really not a lot, when you think about 1,200 or 1,300 have water and food for a few days,” he said. The water equipment will stay behind, allowing residents to produce clean drinking water for themselves long after the volunteers are gone.
“Our water work is all about empowerment,” said Hogg, a business entrepreneur and former youth minister who started a non-profit charity in 1995 and has been doing water purification since 2001.
While people in developed countries take safe drinking water for granted, in developing countries 25,000 people die, on average, every day from water-borne diseases like cholera. Diarrhea is the world’s second-leading cause of infant deaths. The World Heath Organization says 80 percent of all global illnesses can be attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation.
Hogg said some mission groups travel long distances to drill a well but forget about purification, leaving residents at risk.
PureWater PureLife teams bring along a portable purifying machine that fits in a suitcase. The device uses table salt and electricity from a 12-volt battery to make chlorine, which kills water-borne bacteria. Volunteers are trained not only to set up the purifiers, but to repair United Nations wells needing service.
Shipments also include appropriate containers for the safe exchange of water. People exchange their old container for a new one that has been sanitized, reducing the risk of contamination from a dirty bucket or jar.
The team is ecumenical, with Protestant and Catholic members, but there are Baptist connections. Three members of the team hail from Kentucky Baptist congregations — Crestwood Baptist Church and Phos Hilaron Church in Louisville, and Berea, Ky., Baptist Church. Each of those churches provided financial assistance, along with Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville. Team members worshiped at Crescent Hill before embarking on the trip and were sent off with prayers and blessings from the congregation.
Hogg attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and belongs to a Baptist church. D.E. Adams, a musician popular at Baptist gatherings over the years, manages the organization’s website and computer technology.
Links to the ministry appear on websites of both the Kentucky Baptist Convention and and Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.