How bribes became obsolete and good health became the norm
Are little water filters really able to prevent disease? José Luis would say he can show you proof they do.
José is the local health worker in Hacienda San Diego, a community with 275 families that depends on the local river for everything. He stockpiles medicine each year in preparation for the rainy season, a time when the rivers in El Salvador turn brown with dirt and contamination.
Anti-parasite and anti-diarrhea pills fill his house. “Every single day, mothers and fathers stand in line in front of my house waiting to receive the pills.”
José has to ration the medicine, and he has to make sure no one receives more than they absolutely need. “I sleep in front of the medicine closet to ward off any potential thieves.” He even gets offered the occasional bribe, but he turns them all down. He needs to protect his community for 5 straight months of disease.
Andrea and Josh Geisinger, the Filter of Hope directors for El Salvador, first visited Hacienda San Diego in 2018. “It is a beautiful place with tall trees and a cool breeze, but the river stinks like a sewer.
The river water is pumped to various taps throughout the community where families fill up plastic jugs with the water—even though they know it will make them sick.” Josh and Andrea agreed to bring filters to this community as soon as they could.
Clean water for all of Hacienda San Diego
Then God moved a church in the USA to ask the Geisingers if there was a village they could sponsor with water filters. Andrea and Josh coordinated three mission teams to install filters and share the Gospel with hundreds of men, women, and children. Every family received a filter.
Many prayed to receive Christ as their Savior or recommitted themselves to the Lord. Some heard about God’s love for the very first time, and promised to read the Gospel of John they received.
The Proof: Full Shelves
A few months later, as the storm clouds swept over El Salvador, Andrea and Josh got a phone call from José. “He was very excited and he invited us to his house. He said, ‘I have something to show you.’ We could hear his smile through the phone.”
“He was very excited and he invited us to his house. I have something to show you.”
Josh and Andrea entered José’s property through a barbed wire gate and he took them straight to the medicine closet. He threw open the metal doors to reveal that it was full. “The wooden shelves were sagging under the weight of the medicine bottles. José gestured to the pile of medication with a smile. We didn’t understand at first why he was so proud of his stockpile.”
Jose then explained why he was so happy. “By this time last year, this closet was completely empty. I haven’t had a single family ask me for medicine this year because they are all using their filter!”
The importance of the full shelves began to dawn on Andrea and Josh. “Because the families had the filters, they weren’t getting sick from the river water.”
“I’m going to send all the medicine back to the clinic so they can use it for families who don’t have filters yet.”
José was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m going to send all the medicine back to the clinic so they can use it for families who don’t have filters yet.”
“Yet.” That word stuck with Josh and Andrea. There are many more families who haven’t received a filter yet.
Now There’s a New Goal
The Geisingers now have an image of what they want to see in the future. “We want to see many more full shelves in the coming years, a sign that the simple, life-giving water filters are continuing to save lives.”
Thank you, donors and volunteers, for giving clean water and the gospel to so many who needed it so badly.
