Homewood-based ministry building wells in Tanzania

Lamnyak Lazaro Siria had never seen clean water before last year.

The Maasai warrior said about three days a week, while the men herded cattle and protected them from lions and other predators, the women in his Tanzanian village would walk 18 to 25 kilometers to bring back water for everyone. However, as the water was shared with elephants and other wildlife, it was filthy.

Still, it was all the village had.

That is until a chance encounter with a Homewood couple at the gallery near Mount Kilimanjaro where Siria works changed his life and the lives of thousands of other villagers forever.

Climbing the Mountain

Last July, Anne-Marie Touliatos, with The International Ministry of Jesus, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania along with her husband, two of their children, her brother and his family. Following their climb, they were able to take safari trips for a couple of days.

When the chance came for a third safari, the family chose to go shopping at a gallery nearby instead. While shopping, they met Lamnyak Siria, an employee at the gallery assigned to help the family.

Learning that Siria was a Maasai warrior, they began talking more with him and learned about the daily struggle to get even dirty water, Touliatos said. Siria told the couple the water they drank was shared with cows and elephants.

The couple shared their faith with Siria and prayed for him and exchanged emails so they could keep in touch. Despite having very little formal education, Siria is fluent in English.

After leaving Tanzania, Touliatos made sure videos and photos of the village got to her ministry. They worked to get a professional out to the site to figure out if there was any water in the area.

While the geologist worked, members of two churches in the area gathered together and prayed for water. They walked around for hours, praying and searching and drilling, but no water was found.

The geologist went down 160 meters but found no water. Twenty meters further down, it was still dry.

The geologist went back to one of the churches and told those operating the drill to move it to the side of the church. The machine overheated, but after getting it working, they let it drill all night.

At 6 a.m. on a Sunday, underneath the same church villagers had prayed at the day before, water sprayed out from under the ground, clean and clear. It was a miracle.

“We’ve never seen clear water,” Siria said. “The water is now for them.”

The water is “like life,” Siria said, but villagers never thought they could have it.

“Now, we are saying, ‘Glory to God,’” Siria said.

The villagers are now able to stay in one place and build a life instead of traveling around so often, he said.

“Now the lifestyle of the Maasai can change,” Siria said.

After the well was built, villagers began building homes around it while others began selling their wares. Water has formed a community, Touliatos said.

“Water is the new currency of the world,” she said.

Touliatos and others from the ministry attended a dedication of the well and were able to share the “Jesus” film with villagers, she said. It allowed them to give an answer to Siria, who told Touliatos in the gallery that the villagers did not know where they would go when they died and they “hope someone will tell us.”

Touliatos said the ministry plans to build three more wells in other communities nearby, freeing the women to do something else with their lives.

The well can serve between 2,000 and 3.000 people and work is ongoing to build a fence around it to protect it from animals that try to use it themselves.

The money for the fence is about $10,000, Touliatos said.

The group also plans to build a well this year in a village named Kati-Kati, which is 29 kilometers from any water source, Touliatos said.

Being able to help the village was a divine directive, she said.

“It’s God’s Spirit who speaks in your heart who tells you what to do,” she said. “It was a unique circumstance.”

The mission also fit seamlessly into one of the ministry’s themes, “united in Christ.” In Christ, she said, people are “not black or white, male or female.”

“God sees us all equally,” Touliatos said.

The villagers are very happy, Siria said, and recognize that God is behind it.

“God has allowed them to come and do [this] for us,” Siria said.