Greetings from Fiji 

 
What a beautiful country God has placed in the center of the south Pacific! We were so taken back by the physical beauty as well as the generous hospitality we found greeting us in Fiji. We feel privileged to have spent time with them and look forward to many happy returns.

Our time in Fiji began with a one week workshop that introduced three water technologies as well as some personal sanitation and hygiene teaching. Day one explored a variety of hand washing techniques and the importance of keeping living areas clean and free from animals. We talked about the importance of washing hands after using the restroom or working with animals and before eating or preparing meals. The information was well received and I seemed to be known as “the hand washing guy” and not “the water for life guy”, but that’s OK, as long as they remember to wash their hands!

Sand Filter in Fiji 

 
After this great beginning, we moved on to building a rain catchment tank with 36 eager students. We chose a household-size tank that holds about 2400 liters (600 gallons) for our model and a local church graciously opened their doors for us to use their facility as a classroom and laboratory. Jordan Hill and I began with a picture presentation showing the basic steps then moved to the tank site for the hands-on phase. Wooden forms were built and cement mixed for the tank base, then a richer cement mix was plastered onto the forms to make the first layer of the tank wall. This was a good start to a solid tank. The following day we spent time demonstrating the steps to packing a simple slow sand filter. Much water around the world is loaded with sediment from runoff so if people know how to remove this and make the water potable, they have the ability to have a much healthier life.

Getting water from wells 
One other technology we shared was a simple hand-made pump for lifting water from their below-ground wells. These can be made with two sizes of PVC pipe and a couple of handmade fittings. This was eagerly received not only because it is inexpensive, but because they are easy to make, much needed and easy to fix if a problem arises.
While working in Fiji, we had opportunity to make many new friends. One such friend was a pastor from Lautoka named Michael who has a ministry that provides jobs for men that have been recently released from prison. He enrolled eight of his men in the water seminar so that they could use tank building as an occupation to generate income. Their hard working hands-on labor was a real boost during the first week and their questions during the teaching were both intuitive and insightful. They are just part of the group of 36 that attended the full week of teaching. Others were YWAMers from bases in Fiji that were new to us as well as some that we had met at different time on the Kona campus