(Photo by Living Water International)
Zimbabwe (MNN) — It isn’t hard to believe water, poverty, and violence are directly related to one another.
Together, these problems result in senseless and incomprehensible violence throughout the world.
Meet Fadzai. Fadzai is a Sunday school teacher and well caretaker in Zimbabwe.
The new well caretaker lives in a house just a few feet away from the community’s borehole well, drilled through the partnership of Living Water International and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe.
The pastor of Fadzai’s church says Fadzai is the forerunner in ending their community’s epidemic of domestic violence.
Before the well was put in Fadzai’s community, women would walk mile after mile to bring back contaminated water. The women had to get up at 2:00AM for the long journey.
Because the women were gone so long, husbands began to get suspicious. When the women returned to their homes, they were met with husbands ready to beat them. Families began to fall apart.
After the well was placed near Fadzai’s house, water-collection guidelines were set in place. The well is now only open for a couple of hours a day and receives cleaning once daily. Community members must form an orderly, peaceful, single-file line and resist the temptation to gossip.
Fadzai and her bore well just go to show that when you attack violence at the root, peace and the living water of Jesus Christ take its place.
Living Water International builds wells in countries like Zimbabwe to spread the gospel with hundreds of villagers in need of living water.
Building wells in Zimbabwe is a step toward saving lives with clean water, reducing poverty, and ending violence.
Pray that wells will continue to influence villages. Pray that the wells would end domestic violence and bring peace to the nations.
You can make a difference toward clean water and domestic violence by #endviolence and visiting Living Water International’s Web site.
I highly doubt that the well ended domestic violence, actually I and everyone else who is educated on this topic know for a fact that it did not stop the violence. Domestic violence is all about control, the husbands want control over their wives. Men who abuse their wife are mentally ill, I would not be surprised if the rate of violence encounters went up after the well was put into place because it leaves a lot more time for the husband and wife to be around each other which makes it easier for him to find a motive and a reason to be mad. I am not saying that giving these countries clean water is a bad thing, it is a very good cause, but using uneducated information about domestic violence as a way to get people to be sympathetic and jump on this band wagon is an insult to everyone in the United States that are suffering from or survivors of domestic violence. #ithappenshereeventhoughwehavecleanwater
It’s great that they are building wells and great that they are able to get clean water.
But please don’t confuse that with ending domestic violence. That’s not how it works. Their husbands will just find new reasons to beat them. If it’s going to be “attacked at it’s root”, it will only come through the husbands’ having a heart change through a relationship with Jesus.
Brandi and Nicole, thanks for your input here. Domestic violence is a terrible problem in many countries. While real abusers will find other reasons to beat them, it’s difficult for journalists to argue with someone telling us a story. Our desire is simple — to tell the story of God at work around the world. In this case, He’s at work through a water well. Perhaps He’s using it to curtain many issues — one could be domestic stresses that can lead to abuse. If you doubt the story you may want to contact Living Water International. Thanks for your feedback, though.