Mission, Guatemala

In April 2008 I went on my first mission trip. It was to Perlington, Mississippi with Central Presbyterian Church. Our mission was to help restore housing to a community that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I went with the idea that the residents of Perlington were living in FEMA trailers and had the desire and need to return to living in a regular home, which they had completely lost. Once there, I realized that the people of Perlington had an underlying issue that was not the focus at the time. Their water system was destroyed. So the fresh tap water that we as Americans enjoy (and usually filter before we drink it) was lost to this community and the surrounding areas. I had the opportunity to work with the local Baptist Church that provides lunch for all the volunteers in the area during the week. At first, I was not that thrilled to work on “lunch duty” instead of helping a family return to a normal home. Those of you on the trip also know that I had hopes that since it was a church, they would have a flush toilet, which I was missing after one day. They didn’t. And they didn’t have safe water appropriate for drinking or washing all the dishes that it takes to provide a meal for over 50 people every day. So daily I went to a shed and retrieved cans of beans, wiped them of the “debris” (mouse droppings), cooked them and made rice. I served the volunteers and washed all the dishes in a mixture of bleach and dish detergent. However, I also got to listened to the stories of survival that I will never forget from the residents of Perlington that would stop by for “left overs” while we were cleaning up. They never talked about the water problem. It became a way of life to not drink the tap water and to wash their dishes in Bleach even though 3 years earlier they did not have to do. That is what is happening in our country.

So I didn’t think twice about the opportunity to go to a country where fresh tap water is not something they had lost, but something they have never had and probably will never have. This is my first international trip. Except for occasional trips to Canada, which was only a 30-minute drive from my home in Detroit, I have never left the comfort of the United States. I am nervous, I’m not going to lie, but I will come back knowing that for one week I have helped a community become stronger in their dependence on clean water.

I thank you all for your support and ask you all to daily go to your cupboard, grab a glass and enjoy the tap water (unfiltered) that is available to you.

Kari Pathuis