Amazing Photographer + Big Heart = Powerful Photographs and a Good Friend

Photo by Bryce Boyer from the D.R.
To see more of his DR photos, go to:

http://dominicanrepublic2008.blogspot.com/

When I was in the Dominican Republic for five weeks last summer doing my work with Healing Waters International, I had the privilege of co-leading a group of Healing Waters and Compassion International friends during my last week there. The group came down to help inaugurate a Healing Waters system and also visit the children that they sponsor through Compassion international. There is an amazing synergy between our organizations and this trip was a great manifestation of that synergy. (that was an academic sounding sentence, sorry about that, there is still a lot of academia left in me.)

Anyhow, Compassion International sent down a photographer with this group of people named Bryce Boyer. In the week that we spent together, it became very clear that Bryce is a talented photographer and has a HUGE heart for the work that Healing Waters and Compassion do. I really cannot say enough good things about him, and consider him a good friend after spending a week in the DR with him and seeing the way he interacts with people, especially kids. I have used a few of his photos in my blog posts.

I wanted to share a couple of differnent links with you about Bryce. First is his website as a professional photographer (shameless plug.) He does amazing work and has shot for some REALLY high end magazines and newspapers. http://www.bryceboyer.com/

The other link I want to share is the blog he put together after our trip to the DR. His posts provided some amazing insight to the issues of poverty and safe drinking water in the developing world, and I was so impressed with his perspective and his amazing photos. http://dominicanrepublic2008.blogspot.com/ I have cut and paste his most profound post below, but please jump over to his blog that he wrote to see some AMAZING photos.

If you saw a hit and run, would you tell anybody by: Bryce Boyer
Thursday, September 11, 2008

If you saw a hit and run, would you tell anybody?
Visiting the ghettos in a third world country can feel like a punch in the stomach. Like witnessing a terrible car wreck... an accident in which no one want to take responsibility for the victims who are left writhing in pain.

How can I witness such a need for the basic necessities of life (like healthy water) and not tell someone about it. I just got back from a trip to the Dominican Republic taking photos for two fantastic non-profits that are doing something to help: Compassion International & Healing Waters. It feels good to have done something to contribute to their efforts.

My parents have sponsored children through Compassion International for over 25
years. We always had pictures on our refrigerator to remind us of them. This was
the second international trip I've made taking marketing pictures for Compassion
Int. (You can see my Africa trip blog here).

Compassion's focus is helping the poorest of the poor children of the world. Thru community churches, they mobilize thousands of volunteers and staff to help over 1 million children around the world get food, medical attention, education, and encouragement. In America, sponsors help make this possible with $35/month and letters to their sponsored children.

Compassion realizes they can not help the poorest of the poor children of the world if the children are sick all the time because they don't have access to clean water. Healing Waters is a non-profit NGO (non-government-organization) that has a passion for installing clean drinking water systems in some of the poorest areas of the
world. I don't want to bore you... check out their site here if you are interested in what they do.

I hope my pictures will help spur someone into action. Volunteer, here or abroad. Donate. Go on a trip. Sponsor a child. Do something.
Posted by Bryce Boyer Photography at 9:02 PM 0 comments

Amazing Blog Post in support of Healing Waters

A child at a Compassion International site

in the Dominican Republic with a cup of

clean drinking water from the

Healing Waters system

Compassion International, the child sponsorship organization that is a partner with Healing Waters, posted an amazing story on their blog today and I want to share it with you. It not only deals with the impact that the safe drinking water has had from the Healing Waters project, it also talks about the investments in the community that the church has been able to make with the revenue generated by the project.

I have cut and pasted some excerpts below. The link to the whole story can be found here:
http://blog.compassion.com/inside-a-healing-waters-international-project/

Inside a Healing Waters International Project
Written by: Adones Martinez

Since the Healing Waters International water project opened at the Comunidad Cristiana El Santuario Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Church in 2006, church members have had more opportunities to decide on matters that can benefit the ministry and the community of Barrio Mexico in southern coastal town of San Pedro de Macorís in Dominican Republic.

The church’s leadership calls for periodic members’ meetings where all ministry managers update the assembly on their ministry. Since all the ministries overlap in some way, these reports help the church make the best decisions.

The ministries include Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program, the Healing Waters International water project, a school and a community holistic vocational center.

These church meetings have become a forum at which the community, represented by the believers, can discuss the best ways to manage resources.

Milqueya is a mother of eight and grandma of seven. She and her husband still live with 11 children and grandchildren at home. Milqueya and her large family enjoy the benefits of the decisions she’s been helping her church make as a voting member. One important decision was the incorporation of the Healing Waters International water project.

In the past, even the least harmful water source wasn’t safe enough for Milqueya. She bought water from the trucks that drove past her home.

Miqueya paid only RD$20 for a 5-gallon water bottle, avoiding the RD$35 price at local stores. But the truck-bought water was making her and her family sick.

“The water caused us stomach diseases. But after we began to drink the water
from the church, we are always healthy and we don’t have any stomach problems.”

After the Healing Waters International project began, the community’s health has improved.

“Since we’ve been running the project, there’s not been any health problems
reported,” says Ana Ivelisse, manager of the Healing Waters International
project. “The National Ministry of Health comes and tests our water to certify
it.”

Not only is the water from the church the purest, it is also the most economic.

For RD$10, half of what she paid for the truck-bought water that made her family sick, Milqueya can take her 5-gallon water bottle home, saving her family’s limited resources for other living expenses.

Proceeds from the water project go toward human and social development to serve and benefit the community through education, health and nutrition.

In the field of education, the Healing Waters International project provides 20 children from Barrio Mexico with a scholarship so they can study at the church’s school.

The project also pays for a watchman who protects the property and equipment of the Compassion-assisted child development center, and a housekeeper who cleans the center’s building.

The proceeds also support the church’s vocational school, which trains locals in a variety of jobs, including computers.

Motorcycles, carts and trolleys arrive each day, taking home 41,000 to 45,000 gallons of purified water each month. The church donates another 600 gallons to the community.


The highest water consumption in the year comes during the summer months when the temperature reaches around 34 degrees Celsius, and the children are home for school break.

The 600 gallons of water that the church donates to the community benefits many groups, including the Compassion-assisted children at Cedina Student Center, the students in the church’s school, the medical staff and patients at a local clinic, and some neighbors in times of special need.

When the community holds a sports event, the church is always willing to support it. Pastor Ventura Taylor says,

“We serve the water in small bottles and we donate it to them as a way of our
church being committed with that activity, which has to do with the social and
cultural development of the community.”

A label is put on the bottles specifying that it is purified water from Comunidad Cristiana El Santuario Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Church and Healing Waters International.

Another great water video - Brought to you by Compassion International

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Compassion International. It is one of the "child sponsorship" organizations. For $32 per month, you can help provide a child education, health, personal development and spiritual growth.

As an organization, Compassion focuses on the "spiritual growth" piece of their mission directly, and they do it well. They outsource the education and health pieces to organizations that can help them with those parts of their mission. That is where the relationship between Compassion International and Healing Waters International comes in.

One of the key aspects of providing health care and education to children is a source of safe drinking water. Without safe drinking water, kids become sick (health) and miss school due to their illness (education.) Compassion partners with Healing Waters to install water purification systems in the Compassion Childhood Development centers. 18 of our 68 systems are installed in Compassion centers, providing a free source of safe drinking water to the kids while they are at the center and a source of safe drinking water to their families while the kids are at home!

Healing Waters loves its partnership with Compassion International, and we hope to continue to grow and build that partnership over time. In fact, the next water system that we install in Mexico will be at a Compassion center and will actually serve four additional Compassion centers in the area through a system of safe drinking water deposits. Really cool stuff!

Compassion put together the video below to illustrate the drinking water problem. . . enjoy!

Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 6 from 3/26 and 3/27

I want to begin this blog post with an apology for not updating the blog yesterday. Our days are so full, and I am so profoundly enjoying spending time with this group and with the Guatemalan people that I just ran out of time yesterday to update the blog.

Thursday 3/26 was our final work day. Half of the group was back at the school painting while the other half was working fast and furious at the Habitat site trying to get as much of the house built as possible. Around 3:00 in the afternoon, the teams reunited on the Habitat site for a final look at our house and a closing ceremony put on by the Habitat Chimaltenango affiliate.

Emy, the director of the Habitat affiliate for the city of Chimaltenango said some very nice words and handed us all certificates and a bracelet as a way to remember Guatemala and feel a sense of solidarity with the people here. We also gave small gifts to the masons we spent the week working with as well as to Esther, the woman who is receiving the Habitat house.

Emy, the Chimaltenango affiliate and Casey Leo, the Habitat employee that accompanied our group all week, speaking to the Wellshire team with the house in the background

Casey translating for Esther, the woman who is receiving the house. She was sincerely grateful to the group for the work we did, and we could hear it in her words and see it in her face.

Janie Johnson presenting some hand knit hot pads to Esther as a "House warming gift."

Jay Allen and Ted Griffith, who worked as the masons' helpers all week, presenting a soccer ball to each mason signed by the whole group. (We played some fun soccer games in the street with the masons while taking a break from working on the house.)

Emy reading the certificates she presented to each member of the team

The masons in front of the house, proudly holding their soccer balls.

Pattie and the pastor from the church in Chimaltenango talking and praying together. Giving thanks for the friendship that is forming between the two churches

Our van had some power issues and went really slow up the hills every day between Chimaltenango and Antigua, so we took this fun photo on the last day we drove between the two cities. The sign on the right says "This is not a high speed road."

Friday, 3/27 we started the morning with a debrief of the trip led by me and Daniela. After that, 16 members of our group loaded in to the two vans to head off and climb the volcano Picaya. It was an incredible experience as you can see from the photos below:

The group getting ready to climb the volcano

You can see the steam and smoking coming out of the cone of the volcano here

Rivers of red hot lava. We were standing less than 50 feet away from this!

Some of the group posing in front of the freshly formed rock at the top of the volcano

Roasting marshmallows over a heat vent from the volcano, we started to melt our shoes! By the way, a marshmallow roasted over lava tastes better than any other roasted marshmallow I have had.

After we got back to the hotel from climbing the volcano and got cleaned up, Pattie Kitchen led us in a closing ritual. We had all drawn names earlier in the week of someone in the group that we would pray for each night and give a small token gift to on the last night. We went around the circle and it was clear that authentic relationships were built and strengthened over the course of the week, not just with the Guatemalan people, but within the group as well.

There is a sense of melancholy as the team prepares to leave this morning. We all eat breakfast out in the patio of the hotel, and usually the conversations are load and jovial. Today they are being had in hushed tones.

We will drive out at 8:00am and stop by a Healing Waters International system on the way out for one last look at the work that is being done in this country and to motivate all of the group to take this experience home and let it transform them, just like Healing Waters works to transform the communities where we work.

I will write some follow-up blog posts when I get back to the states next week. I promise to post more photos and reflections from the trip and the group. Thank you for following along on our journey. LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

These photos are from the closing ritual that Pattie led us in, you can see the joy and exhaustion in everyone's faces