Delivering food, shelter, and hope to the poorest of the poor
WORLDWIDE
In developing countries around the world, poor families often walk miles just to collect water from contaminated ponds, streams or holes in the ground. Drinking this water leads to illnesses like typhoid and cholera.
It’s a tragic situation — but you can help solve this worldwide water crisis!
This Easter season, your generous support of Cross Catholic Outreach will enable our ministry partners around the globe to provide needy communities with access to clean water.
In addition to bringing clean water into these thirsty communities, our partners also offer them hygiene training and the hope of Christ. For families in places like the Diocese of Chipata in Zambia and those served by the Kobonal Haiti Mission in Haiti, your help will have a life-transforming impact for generations to come!
In developing countries around the world like Zambia and Haiti, the search for clean water can be overwhelming. Women and girls wake up long before the sun rises to collect water from contaminated sources, such as shallow holes in dried riverbeds, ponds or streams. In parts of Central America, families are forced to dig their own wells that are often too shallow and operate with broken pumps. Sadly, drinking this water frequently results in illnesses such as cholera and E. coli.
Worldwide, over 2.2 billion people don’t have access to water at home, and rural communities are the most affected. In Haiti, 43% of families in rural areas drink from unimproved sources of water, and in Zambia, 43.4% of rural families collect water from unimproved sources. Source: CIA World Factbook
Cross Catholic Outreach partners with ministries around the world to deliver clean water and spiritual refreshment in the name of Christ. Two of our partners providing clean water are the Kobonal Haiti Mission and the Diocese of Karonga in Malawi.
For over three decades, Father Glenn Meaux’s team at the Kobonal Haiti Mission has been shining Christ’s light to poor families. A critical part of the Mission’s holistic transformation strategy is providing clean water, improving health and hygiene. The Mission also provides safe housing, nutritious food, medical care, Catholic education, agricultural training, microenterprise and spiritual formation activities. As the Mission addresses both material and spiritual needs, it also strengthens families for the next generation.
The Diocese of Chipata serves a vast, rural area with more than 500,000 faithful. Since 2017, we’ve helped the diocese provide water to 135 communities.
Here’s a breakdown of the impact you can make through the Kobonal Haiti Mission and the Diocese of Chipata in Zambia this Easter season.
In Zambia, your support will help build 55 wells, and in Haiti, you can help install six wells and repair five additional wells.
Help provide hygiene education that will help community members stay healthy and adequately maintain their water source.
Bless families with access to Catholic spiritual formation that will draw them closer to the Living Water of Christ.
Christine Banda is smiling now, but it hasn’t always been that way. For most of her 24 years in the village of Chionongela, Zambia, her life was dominated by the search for clean water.
“I remember very well I was about 15 years old when the village men organized themselves to deepen the open well we were drawing water from because it had dried up. It was in the process of digging that one of the men died inside the hole because the soil and rocks collapsed and buried him alive,” she said with tears in her eyes.
After this tragedy, the women and girls in her village began collecting water from a shallow stream about three kilometers away. The water was unclean and scarce. But when the diocese provided a new well sponsored by friends of Cross Catholic Outreach, it changed her life forever.
This Easter season, your support can bring the priceless gift of water to more mothers like Christine. Share clean water now!
Each morning, Evenson Dorvil walks down a steep ravine in rural Haiti to collect water to bring home to his wife and four small children. The water is not clean, but Evenson has no other choice but to use this water even though it makes his kids sick.
Your support will help empower Fr. Meaux’s team at the Kobonal Haiti Mission to build a hand pump well in Evenson’s rural community. Help us change his life.
Use it for reflections and notes to grow in your spiritual life. You’ll also receive a prayer request form to mail back so that we can pray for your needs. In effect, this creates a spiritual bridge to connect you to our sisters and brothers in Christ in the developing world!
Cross Mission Partners also receive a semiannual Mission Update with news, insights and information about the good work and accomplishments made possible by your support.
* Every dollar helps us bless the least of our brothers and sisters throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and South America.
Proceeds from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures incurred through June 30, 2024, the close of our ministry’s fiscal year. In the event that more funds are raised than needed to fully fund the project, the excess funds, if any, will be used to meet the most urgent needs of the ministry.
When you include Cross Catholic Outreach as a beneficiary in your will, trust, retirement account or life insurance policy, you will make a difference for poor communities by meeting both material and spiritual needs for generations to come. Create Your Legacy!
Our mission is to mobilize the global Catholic Church to transform the poor and their communities materially and spiritually for the glory of Jesus Christ. Your gift empowers us to serve the poorest of the poor by channeling life-changing aid through an international network of dioceses, parishes and Catholic missionaries. This cost-effective approach helps break the cycle of poverty and advance Catholic evangelization.