“He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.” - Isaiah 49:10
All who live in Mandritsara town are familiar with the rainy season (mud and floods) and the dry season (no water in the taps for most of each 24 hours). At the Good News Hospital, a mile out of town, things are a little better because of two bore-holes on the hospital site that were drilled some years ago, and a large underground reservoir enabling water to be stored. However, as the hospital and number of staff houses continues to grow each year, water shortages become a familiar theme, especially in the last few months of each dry season. Have you ever had a bucket shower? Half a bucket of water and a plastic cup are standard practice during this time.
Can you imagine running a hospital with severely limited water supplies? For example, at the end of the dry season, the Good News Hospital tractor brings barrels of water from stagnant ponds in the river bed for use by the hospital laundry – handwashing all the sheets, gowns, surgical drapes etc.
Jesh writes:
“Last December, I was thinking, “surely God can provide what we need in the way of water.” I sat at my computer and googled “Madagascar Well Drilling” and found a charitable organization who were drilling hand drilled wells along the east coast of Madagascar. I figured what could it hurt to ask if they could help us and emailed them, but received a polite reply stating that our project was too large.
However, two weeks after my request, they received a large donation from overseas. They felt this was not a coincidence, and agreed to take our project on. They tried to hire a Malagasy geologist to help with the initial studies and planning, but he had recently received a large salary increase from his existing organisation and was not free to come. But then, when he heard of our need in Mandritsara, he agreed to run an analysis at no cost. Thank you, Lord!
Hydrologic studies had previously been done at the Good News Hospital in preparation for the previous bore-holes. This laid the groundwork for further soil testing performed by the team of the local charity. All the data was analysed by the geologist and 3 new promising sites were localised.
We wanted to wait till the dry season and so in late October a Malagasy drilling team hired by the charity arrived and began drilling the first hole. This was not without challenges! Hard, difficult rock was encountered after 3 metres of soil and hope was waning. Then the drill bit got stuck and was lost at a depth of 10m.
But, we serve a God who can bring water from a rock! A new diamond core bit was purchased and a new hole started. One week of drilling later, multiple fractures were identified in the core samples but we still were not convinced there was water. Hope was waning again. At 28m, the driller suddenly began smiling as his lubricating mud began disappearing down the hole and he could no longer circulate it back to the surface. This meant it was being taken away below the surface by nothing else than water and a large quantity of it!
At 35m drilling was stopped and a water test was performed yielding a minimum of 2500L per hour of water and likely more. The water level in the bore hole showed little change despite pumping at 2500L per hour! Just to contrast this with the existing 30m hospital bore hole, this new bore hole can produce in 3 hours what the existing bore holes can produce in 24hours. Drilling proceeded to 40m with evidence of good permeable rock at this depth - meaning lots of water.
This is an incredible answer to prayer to find this amount of water at the peak of the dry season!!! Praise our God who can and has literally provided water from rock!”
Jesh continues:
“After finding water far from the hospital in the rice fields, we attempted drilling a higher risk bore hole on the hospital property. The probability of water was not as high as the first two sites out in the rice fields which is why we left this location till last. We drilled through 38m of solid rock to 40m. It was the perfect timing to drill as we were at the end of the dry season so water levels were as low as they possibly could be.
We found water in this third new bore hole (around 2000-2500L/hr). Praise God! This is far more than the existing bore holes on the hospital property. As a result, the hospital has been functioning independently in terms of water with this new bore hole. This means our water is clean, sediment free and the hospital water is running 24hrs per day.
Due to the infrastructure required to connect the rice field bore holes (given their distance from the hospital), they will not be fully functional until around July 2023. New pumps are coming from South Africa and some electrical controls and wires will be coming with a LIFT container from Northern Ireland.
All this said, we have 3 new bore holes each of which yields roughly 2000-3000 Litres per hour (or 7500 Litres per hour in the dry season!!!). Our goal was to be able to fill the hospital reservoir (60,000L) in 8 hours. God has provided this for us with these 3 new bore holes.
We look forward to dry season this year where we can have an abundance of clean water to use and share.”
Praise the Lord for leading the team to a site where there is water in good quantity, and for watching over the drilling process.
Pray for the completion and ongoing functioning of this water project.
Pray that our faith may rest in our gracious and powerful God.
Pray for the workmen, that the hearts of some might be touched and that they come to trust in Jesus.