via Tracking Hunger | A nutrition crisis amid prosperity – Economy and Politics – livemint.com.

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“Almost 50 per cent of children below the age of 5 are malnourished in India. Malnutrition stunts physical, mental and cognitive growth and makes children more susceptible to respiratory and diarrhoeal illnesses. The children who do manage to survive the ravages of malnutrition have lifetime disabilities, weakened immune systems and are intellectually disabled.

A silent epidemic quietly unfolds everyday across villages and towns in India. Close to two million children below the age of five die annually in India mainly from preventable causes: that is, thousands of children dying every single month of diseases that are easily treatable and even preventable. Malnutrition is the underlying cause in over 50 per cent of the deaths.”

via IBNLive : Ananthapriya Subramanian’s Blog : India’s malnutrition crisis.

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India’s Growth Held Back by Overpopulation | PBS NewsHour | Oct. 19, 2011 | PBS.

“Most of the newcomers are migrants unable to sustain a living in the vast countryside. In Delhi, the struggle to earn a livelihood is compounded — and interrupted — by the lack of easy access to life’s most basic need: water.”

Read more here…

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Come celebrate the end of summer at the newest addition to Hawaiian Falls Waterparks and help give people in India access to safe, clean water.  Buy your specially priced tickets from us and half of your ticket price will help fund water wells for communities in India.  

Pricing:
Discounted Fundraiser Ticket – $20 per person (Regular Price $23.99) or $15 for kids under 6 (Regular Price $16.99) –  Half of your ticket price goes to water well projects in India!

Print your confirmation email and present it at the SOS booth to pick up your tickets on the 18th.

Tickets grant access to the water park for the entire day Thursday, August 18, 2011 as well as the exclusive afterparty after everyone leaves the park! 6-8:30 PM, featuring DJ Kam.

Bring your own food and drinks. No alcohol permitted. See Hawaiian Falls site for restrictions.

Contact us or phone Chase for more info: 817-898-0262

Buy Your Tickets!

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Hawaiian Falls Water Park, 290 W Byron Nelson Blvd. Roanoke, TX 76262

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For Lauryn’s 2nd birthday, the Calfee’s are doing something different this year.  They celebrated the life of their healthy 2 year-old daughter by asking for donations in stead of gifts this year.The Calfee’s contacted S.O.S. with their idea and raised a total of $95 – emough to give 12 people water for 30 years.This is the kind of impact your gift of water can have.  Giving the gift of water is truly a celebration of life.Happy birthday Lauryn! Thank you for clebrating your birthday with children in India without safe, clean water.

Kodi and Amanda Calfee live in Rhome TX with their son Noah (3) and daughter Lauryn (2). Noah and Lauryn love to read books and most of all run free outside with Daddy while Mommy would rather be indoors.  They also enjoy spending time together as a family.  They are members of Gateway Church in Southlake TX.

It is simple, for as little as $7.77 you can save a life.

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by Mark Mueller

For a few years now my family and I have been raising money to drill a water well in India. I’ve been to India seven times and seen the full impact of what a water well can do for a village.

When a well is given through Sower of Seeds, a couple who is trained to share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ will oversee the well. All people regardless of caste will have access to the water, and untold hours of labor will be relieved as women and girls no longer have to travel to the nearest river for the nasty groundwater that they find there.

We take for granted so many things living here in America. Access to clean water seems more like a right than a privilege. But if you were to go to the villages that I have seen, you find a different reality: parents feeling helpless as their children suffer from water-borne illness, many who will die without proper medical attention. Little girls who cannot go to school because they are needed as water carriers seem to dot the landscape. Dry and dusty fields reflect their heat, and relief seems so far away.

Now fast forward to a new well site. Smiling faces, happy hearts everywhere you look. I love to see the pictures of kids playing in the water coming out of the pump. It reminds me of the water fights I used to have as a kid. Cool, sweet water spraying them in the face, running down their necks and splashing off their hands.

Please consider helping me as I raise money to drill another well: www.championsforindia.org/muellerswell01

Water-how cool is that?

Mark Mueller is a licensed Certified Public Accountant with over 25 years of financial and accounting experience.

He is a graduate of Oral Roberts University. Mark serves as the CFO for S.O.S. In addition, he provides leadership for the office and staff in the areas of operations and strategic planning. Mark has served as administrative pastor on the staff of a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has owned and operated several businesses including construction companies and accounting practices.

Mark and his wife, Pam, have been married for 24 years and have four children. They are long term supporters of S.O.S. and Mark presently serves on the board of directors.

According to this article, India is particlarly at risk. Read more here:

Scientists Find Superbugs in Delhi Drinking Water – FoxNews.com.

“We all know small villages where, when you say hello, and you hug 10 children in that village, two or three of them may not be there four or five years from now due to problems that they have just getting access to clean and potable water,” he said.

India’s challenge in delivering basic sanitation and water supplies to the majority of its citizens is part of what Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh describes as a broader problem of “ecological poverty,” which contrasts with India’s growing wealth as an industrial and technological power.

“The reason why India must take environment seriously is because it is becoming a very serious public health concern,” said Ramesh. “A public health concern not for the rich or for the middle classes, but it is becoming a public health concern for the poor.”

Read more at Voice of America: India Could Face Water Woes In Coming Decades | Asia | English

$4,800 provides one well for a village community
$777 provides water for 100 people
$388 provides water for 50 people
$194 provides water for 25 people
$39 provides water for 5 people
$7.77 can save one life by providing clean water for one person
… for the next 30 years!

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We live in a water bottle nation. In our homes we have access to multiple taps, ice cubes, and cabinets full of plastic tumblers, yet we opt to buy our drinking water in crates at the bulk market and lug it home instead.

An article on MSN estimated that Americans spent more than $15 million on water bottles in 2007, an interesting irony since we can get water virtually free, you know, anywhere. In typical American solipsism, we have chosen to horde and exploit a natural resource Biblically used as a metaphor for Christ Himself.

And the question is why?

The answer is very unphilosophical. It is simply this: we aren’t thirsty.

We aren’t the ones comforting an infant dying of cholera. We aren’t the ones crammed into urban slums vying for access to polluted mains. We have never suffered through months of diarrhea, dehydration, or malaria due to a contaminated water source. Water has lost its inherent value in our lives. It has become a convenience, a fashion statement, an indulgence.

Americans aren’t monsters. (Are we?) We are just too busy tossing–nearly full–plastic bottles from the gym bleachers or identifying whose bottle is whose after dinner. What would we do if an Indian slum resident were to witness this? How could we defend ourselves? We have more than we need, and we have a tendency to forget everybody else.

Fact: “World Bank estimates that 21% of communicable diseases in India are related to unsafe water.” (source: water.org)

Fact: “In India, diarrhea alone causes more than 1,600 deaths daily—the same as if eight 200-person jumbo-jets crashed to the ground each day.” (source: water.org)

Fact: Four children die every MINUTE of waterborne diseases.

Fact: For $7.77 (less than you spend on water bottles!) you can give safe, clean drinking water to ONE PERSON for THIRTY YEARS.

The worldwide water crisis is vast, but we CAN make a change. Without major sacrifice, we could give fresh water to thousands of people. There is no reason why children should die for lack of water while we have it so extravagantly.

If Christ is the water of life, then let’s quit bottling Him up and leaving Him abandoned on our kitchen counters. Let’s give Him freely to all in need!

Learn how easy it is to make a difference at http://www.777water.org.