The McGill Family 

A piped water system is done with a compressed air drilling rig and goes down to 60 meters [197 feet] deep. It costs $5,000 to $6,000 for one bore hole. So you see, you get a lot more for your money with a shallow well. Technically, access to clean water means your house needs to be within 500 meters [1,640 feet] from a well and less than 250 people are using that water point.

MBF: We know that clean water can mean the difference between life and death for people in the villages. Working on these projects must bring you a great deal of satisfaction.

The greatest satisfaction for me is starting to see a community becoming sustainable, working on their own and able to say, "This is what we need. Before we were dying of cholera and diarrhea–related diseases. Now we are well."

Your gifts designated toward Missionary Support, contribute to the support of Jim and Jodi McGill.

Years ago, when I was in seminary, I volunteered tutoring kids who had trouble learning to read and write. The program I served in had a wonderful training program that introduced me to "pre-reading" skills. Teaching these skills helped the kids be ready to learn to read and write. It worked!

In some ways, having clean safe water and nutritious uncontaminated food are "pre-health" issues. Without these, health is always in danger and growth is compromised. For that reason we at MBF, with you, are concerned about water and nutrition as part of our emphasis on community development and health. This concern is shared across our church, as witnessed by the many projects related to clean accessible water and available safe food supplies, as well as the International Health Ministry's Mission Consultation on Water this November 13-15th at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento.

With this issue we will share some of the work MBF is doing on the many connections of water, nutrition and health. We invite you to support this urgent work with a check made out to Medical Benevolence Foundation, with a notation of "Community Health & Development".

-Will Browne

Last weekend, thousands of American families drove up to a fast food window and said, "Super size it!" And, while the juicy hamburgers they ordered may not have been the best choice for their cholesterol, none of them were worried about malnutrition. Malnutrition is a worry for both children and adults in developing countries. Your gifts through MBF help support community health programs in these and other countries where health workers confront the problem of malnutrition. For example:

Recently, Emmanuel Health Association in India provided food packets to families in the area affected by a flood. An HIV–positive young widow who received the packet was able to feed her children for 15 days with the carefully–rationed food, and when hospital workers delivered it, neighbors realized that it was safe to visit her.

At Mulanje Medical Center in Malawi, where 205 hospital admissions last year were due to malnutrition, a production unit is making soy–enriched maize flour for the community.

Making soy-enriched maize in Mulanje 

In Haiti, students at Hopital Ste. Croix’s School of Nursing receive training in prenatal nutrition. At community health centers, babies are weighed in to make sure they are receiving the nutrition they need.

About this time of year, many of our lakes and ponds lose their summer charm when green scum begins forming around the water’s edge. Even if we don’t see the scum, the offensive odor reminds us it is there. Imagine depending on that lake or pond for your drinking water. Imagine pushing aside the scum and batting away flies as you dip your pail into the water and hope it will be enough for the day, for the pail is heavy and the walk is a long one from your home to the pond.

This is what people face in many villages in developing countries today. But, more serious than the burdensome task of fetching water, is that the water you’ve brought home to your family could be causing life–threatening illness. For example, in Malawi the government estimates that over 80% of children who die before age five, die of waterborne illnesses. Where shallow wells have been dug, infant mortality has dropped dramatically.

In North Korea, thousands of malnourished children receive soy milk and bread because of Presbyterian mission coworker Sue Kinsler. In 2004, Sue founded the Lighthouse Foundation and opened a soy milk plant and small bakery in North Korea. Since then, additional facilities have been set up. Sue’s goal is to provide soy milk for 100,000 children.

Officials in North Korea have cooperated with Lighthouse Foundation, especially because food shortages and floods have left families with urgent nutrition needs. In one city where officials requested help for 2,000 children in day care and kindergarten, most of the children were so undernourished that they will be six inches shorter than South Korean children. In another city where children in a province orphanage

receive Lighthouse soy milk and bread, some of the newly admitted children were too ill from malnutrition to survive.

Sue Kinsler and her husband, Art, have been mission coworkers in Korea since 1972. Art was born in Korea, the son of missionary parents, and has recently retired. He continues facilitating the office that supports PC(USA) mission work in Korea. Sue is a native Korean and has worked with the physically challenged, establishing the Koinonia Sheltered Workshop and Welfare Center in South Korea in 1991.

Five dollars a month will provide daily soy milk and bread for a North Korean child. MBF is committed to help in the support of Art and Sue Kinsler.

This Christmas we invite you to share God's love with a hurting world. Through MBF, you can give a gift of life through a wide variety of healing and support ministries. When you do, you can name a friend or loved one as an honoree. That honoree will be sent a Christmas card, informing them of this important gift in their name.

The issue of Mission Connection you are reading now focuses on nutrition and clean water programs. By designating your alternative gift toward "Community Health & Development", you are contributing to this and similar community building efforts for those in dire need.

This Christmas give a gift of love

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