Posted: 9/10/04
San Angelo church sends team to help dig wells in Bolivia
By George Henson
Staff Writer
SAN ANGELO—Southland Baptist Church is digging deep to continue the growth of its commitment to missions.
Pastor Bill Shiell and 15 other church members recently traveled to San Julian, Bolivia, to help drill wells, lead Vacation Bible School and support the efforts of missionaries Terry and Kathy Waller.
The Wallers resigned as Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionaries rather than sign the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement.
| Members of the Southland team work on a well in Bolivia. |
For awhile, the Wallers were supported by a relief fund set up by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, but now they receive their support from Southland Baptist Church, Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., two churches in Cloudcroft, N.M., and a cadre of individuals.
“I think this might become a model for missionary support in the future,” Shiell said. “But we have not cut off our cooperative missions giving at all. This is an additional missions effort, not in place of what we do cooperatively.”
The team from Southland was the first to travel to Bolivia to assist the Wallers since they returned to the mission field nine months ago. During those nine months, Terry Waller has led in drilling 200 wells within a 30-mile radius. In all the time he has spent in Bolivia, more than 1,400 family wells have been manually drilled. The wells produce more than 1,000 liters of water per hour.
The Southland team drilled a well for a school in San Julian. The cost of drilling the well was only about $45. Waller, an agricultural missionary, has designed the drilling process so the Bolivians can make the bits and parts themselves and then train others to do the same thing. The cost of building a drilling rig is about $250, but it can be used more than once.
Families come together to form water clubs to drill their own wells. Depending on the depth required, the cost for the well and pump combined can range between $50 and $100. The cost of drilling a well with a motorized rig is about $1,500.
The process is labor-intensive and somewhat slow, however. It took more than three days for the Texas team to drill the 50 meters required for the well.
The Vacation Bible School was filled to overflowing. The team had planned for about 150 children, but that number was exceeded the first day and grew to more than 300 children on the final day.
The team also led Sunday worship for a congregation while they were there.
“I can tell you that the 16 people who made the trip to Bolivia have an excitement about missions now, and we think at least one of them many hear a call to missions as a vocation,” Shiell said.
For more information about the drilling project and its methods, visit www.geocities.com/h2oclubs.
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