Almsgiving Collection Cup Craft
Make your own collection cup for Lenten almsgiving. This craft helps Catholic parents teach their children about the true meaning of the season.
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Your Gift Provides Clean Water to the Poor
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Change Lives With Clean Water
In Kenya, nearly one-third of all people — more than 17 million — lack access to safe, abundant water sources. Cross Catholic Outreach is working with Father Fabian Hevi, a longstanding partner in Kenya, to provide water for thousands of people and forever transform their lives.
Together we can honor Christ’s sacrifice and empower the lifesaving work of Catholic leaders such as Fr. Fabian.
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People with clean water
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People with clean water
Our Brothers and Sisters Need Your Help
Learn how the desperate hunt for water consumes each day, and how painful waterborne diseases, such as typhoid and bilharzia, pose a threatening presence in villagers’ lives.
Cross Catholic Outreach is working with Fr. Fabian to meet the urgent water needs of 10 dry communities. Your support will help finance missions like this one — in Kenya and other developing countries around the world — providing water for thousands of people and forever transforming their lives!
Philomena Wanza, 15, fills her bucket at a shallow ground hole in a dry riverbed. She and other villagers in Mokine walk nearly two miles to collect this muddy water.
Poverty, Health and the Water Crisis
Securing basic human necessities should never cost a family their health and safety, but, tragically, such challenges are common for many poor villagers who dwell in southern Kenya. Each day, women like Gladys Mghoi and Joyce Shuaka risk their lives to reach the nearest water source. Your generous compassion will bring hope and new life to villagers like these in underdeveloped communities around the world.
Gladys and her grandchildren often spend their whole morning collecting water.
A Grandmother’s Fight for Water
Gladys Mghoi is helping raise her 13 grandchildren in Mokine, a small village situated in the Archdiocese of Mombasa. Every morning, her family risks their safety to collect water from a distant riverbed, and her grandchildren often miss school as a result.
Gladys Mghoi is helping to raise her 13 grandchildren in Mokine, a small village situated in the Archdiocese of Mombasa. Every morning, she wakes up at around 4 a.m. to start collecting water for the day.
To quench the thirst of her grandchildren, Gladys must walk nearly 2 miles to a dry riverbed, where villagers dig a hole and wait painstakingly for muddy water to seep up from the ground. Because of Gladys’ age and health, her older grandchildren usually assist with this exhausting process — often missing school or arriving late to class as a result. They also face physical dangers, such as assault and attacks from wild animals.
“It is not very safe for me as an elderly person,” Gladys says, “and so, since there is no alternative, we have to risk our lives.”
About 32% of Kenyans do not have access to improved water sources.
More than 36% of Kenyans live on less than $1.90 a day.
A Mother’s Difficult Journey
Every day, Joyce Shuaka treks more than 12 miles to reach a polluted lake — the closest water source to her village of Orkung’u. The water she carries home for her four children is riddled with bacteria and parasites, but she has no other option for quenching their thirst.
Joyce walks more than 12 miles to reach the nearest source of water in Orkung’u.
Joyce Shuaka, a hardworking mother of four, must walk to Lake Jipe and collect water each day — a journey of more than 12 miles. It is the nearest water source to Joyce’s village of Orkung’u in the Diocese of Machakos.
Unfortunately, Lake Jipe is grossly contaminated, and Joyce’s neighbors frequently contract bilharzia and other diseases from drinking its water. Joyce’s family is risking their health in order to quench their thirst, and her children are also risking their education. Often, they miss school in order to help their mother carry her heavy jerricans home.
“I normally pray and ask God to give us water, benefactors who are going to assist us in order to give us good health and safe water for drinking, and for our children at least to have a better life,” Joyce reveals. “Without water, there’s nothing we can do — so water is life for us.”
Forty-one percent of Kenyan children under 5 are anemic due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies — conditions worsened by frequent bouts of bacterial diarrhea and other waterborne diseases.
The Plan for Transformation
Sustainable Water Solutions to Change Lives Forever
Your generous support can drill deep wells and install clean water systems that will bless families in need. Working together as the Church, we can heal communities that frequently battle drought and waterborne illness — and we can also provide a tangible reminder of the Living Water that is available to us in Christ!
The Society of African Missionaries first sent Fr. Fabian to Kenya in 2002, and it was there that he discovered one of his life’s greatest callings: bringing water to needy villagers.
Fr. Fabian’s Calling to Share Christ Through Water
Local Impact Through Simple Love
Originally from Ghana, Fr. Fabian has served in Kenya for more than 18 years, and since 2013 his primary focus has been providing reliable sources of water for communities that have none.
This devoted priest bases his ministry on two primary passages of Scripture: the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. In that story, Jesus asks the woman for a drink — and then makes her an offer of Living Water. As we read in the Catechism, “God thirsts that we may thirst for him.” (CCC, 2560).
According to Fr. Fabian, meeting a community’s most critical need — water — is the perfect way to share the love of God. He works through local parishes, empowering priests to care for their communities by overseeing water projects and appointing village water committees. In this way, many villagers experience a deeper understanding of the abundant life that is available to them in Christ.
The Process of Reaching Water
Give the Gift of Water
There are several important steps taken to guarantee the quality and longevity of the water systems. Drilled deep into the earth (to around 200 meters), the boreholes reach into the clean, abundant water table. Such measures ensure that the water systems will endure through seasons of drought and bless communities for generations to come.
- Contract trusted drilling company Geotronics Engineering Ltd. for project.
- Conduct a hydrogeological survey/determine best location for drilling. Case/drill borehole. Conduct pump and water quality tests to confirm the quantity and quality.
- Install additional components: elevated water storage tanks, solar panels and water kiosk.
- Train water committee members on borehole maintenance and sanitation. Provide community training on water, sanitation, hygiene and agriculture.
Give the Gift of Water
Your Giving Will Transform Communities Around the World
Your compassion and generosity are needed to transform lives. By funding clean water systems around the world, you will end families’ painful battles with waterborne infections. You will enhance food security by bolstering agriculture. You will give villagers more time to attend school and church. Through your generosity, the gift of water can bring restoration and spiritual refreshment to entire communities.
Give now to share clean water — and the Living Water of Jesus Christ — with our brothers and sisters in dire need.
African Water Resources
Just how important is clean water in Africa? Discover the link between the water crisis and poverty — and how Cross Catholic Outreach is responding — in the stories below.
Craft for Kids: Build Your Own Water Pump
Cross Catholic Outreach’s ministry partners build wells to satisfy thirsty communities. This craft will help kids understand how wells pump clean water.
Catholics Empowered a Poverty Relief Program in Guatemala
Cross Catholic Outreach friends empowered Guatemalan families in the Diocese of Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu through practical and spiritual support.
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Cross Catholic Outreach’s staff prays daily for friends of the ministry. Click below to submit your prayer intentions.
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Answer the Call
Learn how you can engage in projects serving the poor and their communities around the world.
Cross Catholic Outreach
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.
Proceeds from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures incurred through June 30, 2023, 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.