October 2011 Kindle Aflame

Dear friends and supporters of Kindle,

Water has been a hot topic lately, in the midst of our dry season.

Last month Kindle’s management team spent three days planning for 2012. Some of the verses that God led us to for the coming year are from Isaiah 43:19. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” And it seems they’re already starting!

Yohane Malenga and Yohane Chisale, Kindle’s Community Development Field Workers, have been making plans for better using the Namanda River, which flows through our area in the rainy season and which still has some pools in the dry season. Their idea is to get people to form “clubs,” and then to provide each club with a foot-powered “treadle pump,” for irrigating gardens near the river.

As of this month, there are also three more villages in our catchment area where they have new boreholes with hand pumps. Two are in villages in Chief Gadi’s territory, and the third is at Mtseche. The two in Gadi went in very quickly, but the one at Mtseche was actually started three years ago! It has taken this long for the people in the village to come to a decision about what exactly they wanted to do with the borehole.

You can see a video from the drilling here on YouTube.

It’s been a delight to start getting to know the Kindle staff—they are a remarkable group of people—and I look forward to getting to know you as well!

Dean Stocker
Director of Kindle (as of this week!)