News Updates - Press Release

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Here are summaries of recent news & events filed from our field reports: May - June, 2007

Breakthrough developments in Sierra Leone & News from the fields in Nigeria

Short-term Mission for Long-Term Impacts through Capacity Building

Part of our strategic goal in Africa is to continue to build capacity in our relief and development programs. Motivated by this, Relief Network Ministries made a mission trip into Sierra Leone this June, delivered a semi-manual drilling equipment that uses the water jetting technique to drill in soft formations, and used the equipment to drill two water wells under 20 meters (75 feet).

Photo Top Left: Iheanyi & Mustapha (two Nigerian trainers) drill with Mary "Pump" and Kevin. Top Right: Ademola fetches water to clean up while developing new well

Orphanage Well - Kamara / 16 Hospital Road

The first well drilled was completed for an Orphanage in Lungi under the management of Moses and Deborah Kamara (missionaries from Canada). This well was drilled to about 63 feet, and cased with 6 inch PVC casing to 60 feet. During the initial development, the yield was approximately 5 to 10 gallons per minute (GPM), and should achieve 20 GPM in the near future following sustained use and pumping. This well location has a GPS reading of:

Longitude 08^o 37.509 N; Latitude 013^o 12.435 W, Elevation 123 Feet (accuracy _ or + 30 Feet.)

Photo above: Missionary Deborah Kamara with some orphan children she supports at new well head

Crab Town Community School Well

The second well project was drilled in Crab Town, near the beach and on the school compound of the community nursery-primary school called Diamond Queen Community School to benefit the children and their parents in nearby homes. The community is settled mainly by refugees from parts of the country at the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone. This Crab Town well was not completed because unusual / unanticipated challenges for a well site that is not more than 200 meters from the beach. The team was project to hit water within 10 meters or below 30 feet. However, drilling progressed with not very convincing aquifer beyond this depth until we hit a hard rock at 75 feet which our small rig could not penetrate. The team decided to case the well but without gravel-packing in order to develop for possible yield from the "deceptive" dark sandy formations above the rock without success. We then decided to cover the well up for a return trip with a better drilling equipment that would easily penetrate the rocky formation to lead on to a better water bearing zone.

Confessions of Faith

Before we left Crab Town, we had opportunity to share ideas with the community leaders on how to get out of poverty and also shared the gospel of Jesus Christ as a means for changing lives and mindsets. Testimonies were shared from our personal lives and miracles of how God helped each of us move up in live. There were 7 decisions or confession of faith in Christ following these times of sharing. About 4 of these individuals were Muslims.

Above center - Training the Sierra Leone drill crew

Above: Moses Kamara finishing well grouting & base construction

Below: Alpha Bah, Dr. A. Sunny Okorie (RNM President), Mustapha Sesay (Chairman Crab Town Community), & Ademola Banjoko (RNM Regional Director - West).

The shade trees by this Crab Town beach park with concrete benches made this Lumley community "Library" a nice place to relax or study. We saw several students studying under these shades while the sun scorched elsewhere.

Capacity Building - Training Nationals

The biggest achievement for us is our being able to train a crew of 6 that can now use the same process and tools to sustain a drilling program in areas such as Lungi where the formation is good for water well projects to be done successfully. Five of the six on the team were already trained by Life Water on Hand Pump Repair, especially for hand pumps installed in hand-dug wells. We used two skilled drillers from Nigeria, and a supervising hydro-geologist to conduct these training sessions while doing useful projects for the community and country.

This in-country team will be lead by Mr. Kaprie Thornoka, introduced to the ministry by John Nadolski of Living Water International, Inc. in Texas. John was part of Life Water a few years back when some members of this team were trained for pump repairs. Kaprie also leads another charity called Child Help Center which cares for about 60 orphans in Looking Town, Makeni - Northern Province. Sierra Leone will be supervised by Ademola S. Banjoko - our hydrologist & newly appointed Regional Director (West Africa, based in Lagos, Nigeria), and he also helped conduct the training in Sierra Leone. He has been responsible for many wells in Nigeria, including those done while working for UNICEF.

Photo above: Melrose Kekura (teacher at Community School), & Rev. (Mrs.) Oge' Ochi-Okorie (RNM Gen. Manager) took good care of feeding drill crew at Crab Town for 2 days, plus some community folks.

Above: Drill Crew in training at Crab Town work while Nigerian trainers supervise and help as needed.

Challenges - Getting the appropriate water pumps for Sierra Leone / rural communities that does not have too much draw backs. Under consideration are the following types of pumps for wells under 30 meters (100 feet) deep:

Solar with battery powered pumps capable of delivering better than 5 GPM
Vergnet / Cleo Hydro pump or Foot Pumps, granted we can afford initial cost / delivery; and that maintenance cost or parts replacement will be affordable for communities where installed
Play-Pump - where they can be gotten as donated

Presently - preferred approach in the majority of our applications remains using appropriately rated submersible pump and finding a low cost generator partially dedicated to pumping water out of well into a storage tank for subsequent distribution and reticulation.

Successes in Nigeria - 3 New Wells Completed in May - June

Since January 2007, RNM has drilled 11 new wells. Three of these new water wells were drilled in May - June as follows:

JohnDoris Nursery Primary in Aba / Osisioma Ngwa, Abia State of Nigeria - well profile to follow (see also Water Well page).
Community Secondary School Aba called: Covenant High School, Uratta-Rd - well profile to follow (see also Water Well page).
Alpha Church in Port Harcourt, River State - well profile to follow (see also Water Well page).

Other Project sites visited / reflections - Ikeduru (storage tank in the making); Aba - 2; P.H. (3 - 1 from May 07 and 2 from late 06); Egbe - 4 from Q1 07 with Ademola.

Include the 15 salvations at Egbe.

Story follow with site visit of most 2007 / late 2006 well projects done / trip to Egbe and salvations of the about 15 adults and children - some Fulanis / Muslims.

Medical Missions

Our medical mission team took off from USA to Nigeria in mid May and finished by June 1.

They basically conducted 3 major organized rural clinics and touched about 1500 people with much needed care and medicines for free with the consultations. This was led by Dr. Samson Otuwa and assisted immensely by Dr. Stuart Quartemont and his team from Medical Missions International. Dr. Ben Mbata of Total Care Clinics in Nigeria was also able to join our efforts.

Led by Dr. Stuart and Samson assisting, they also performed about 30 major surgeries / operations at the ICH (International Christian Hospital) in Owerri, Imo State Nigeria. One of the highlights is the removal of a grown breast (tumor) form a man to bring his breast to normal form.

Dr. Samson was further invaded by out-patients in his village community for most of the days he spent in Ikwuano area. He saw an average of 25 patients daily for nearly 6 days running and was virtually forced to take shelter in the city of Port Harcourt to avoid the crowd and get some rest.

The gospel was also preached in all of these outreaches.

Photo above: A cross-section of the Medical Mission 2007 Team - photo taken at the ICH compound in Owerri. L-R: Dr. John, Dr. Stuart & Velvet Quartemont, Oge' F. Ochi-Okorie, Stephan & brother (Dr. Stuart's kids), Dr. Ben Mbata, Evangelist - U.K. Affigbo, Dr. Samson Otuwa, and Dr. A. Sunny Okorie; (Photographer: Pyppa Johnson)

Additional photos under Mission #1 of 2007 (this trip - Dr. A. Sunny & Oge' Florence Ochi-Okorie's trip); Mission #1 (Dr. Samson Otuwa's Medical Outreach), and Mission #2 of 2007 for us: (Dr. Stuart Quartemont's Medical Mission) or find it from: www.relief-networks.org . Praise the Lord!

Providing water wells & skills to re-energize and empower the rural poor