The number of people who don’t have basic water access is astounding. While the rest of us take instant water flowing from a faucet for granted, there are millions of people all over the world who don’t have clean drinking water or even proper water for bathing and basic hygiene.

Living Water International is making a difference, however. As a non-profit organization based out of Houston and operating all over the world, they have reduced the number of people without basic water by 14 million in the last year alone.

Last year, global data showed that 785 million people lacked access to water, but now, that number has declined to 771 million. It remains too high, however, and the organization continues to work with these countries to locate and distribute clean water. 

Countries like Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda, Mozambique, Pakistan, and Nigeria face massive challenges in securing safe water. In Ethiopia, numbers have improved with fewer people being forced to drink surface water, a health hazard exacerbated by lack of toilets leading to outdoor defecation. In Pakistan, the problem is centered on the lack of clean water for handwashing for those in lower-income brackets. Pakistan reports huge disparities between the wealthy and the poor, and only 17 percent of the poor have access to clean water. In Uganda, half of the population must travel more than 30 minutes to collect water, with most being left with no choice but to drink surface water.

Organizations like Living Water International make it their mission to provide water to these countries and help them create good sanitation habits to prevent future illness and death. Living Water mobilizes churches and communities to not only meet these needs but to share Jesus within the communities they are serving. More than 25 years into this work, they continue to see progress, but the work is ongoing.

Their name, Living Water International, comes from the living water of God’s word, which they share along with the physical water so desperately needed in these communities. The group started small, traveling to Kenya in 1990 and witnessing the devastating lack of resources in that county. Using the guidelines in the Bible of “teaching a man to fish,” they trained drillers in Kenya to locate water that could then be transported safely in the community. They continue that mission of working with local people so that they can invest in their own health and well-being while helping to give them spiritual strength in their journey. 

The organization asks for prayer for:

• 771 million people who are still without safe water
• The women and children who spend 200 million hours every day collecting water
• 1.69 billion people who lack sanitation services
• The Living Water community is dedicated to expressing the love that Christ shows each of us to our neighbors in need

If you would like to get involved in this ministry and make a worldwide difference in people’s lives, go to water.cc/ and learn more.