Dear ADRA Family,

You have likely observed by now how hard it is to buy water bottles in the grocery store. During this time of confusion and instability, folks are buying as many essentials as they can afford, just in case the global health crisis worsens. This panic purchasing creates empty aisles and compounding fears.

Many people around the world, however, do not have the luxury of buying bottled water. In fact, 844 million people don’t even have access to clean water, bottled or not.

Today is World Water Day, a time to acknowledge the immense work that still needs to be done for those in need, as well as to celebrate the many successes ADRA sees around the world.

Take, for example, this community in southern Madagascar. For years, they gathered water from an open, shallow well. It was impossible to regulate cleanliness and monitor usage, and the community suffered.

“The water from this well was really insufficient for us,” one community member said. “Sometimes, we had to go to another village to fetch water, and we felt we were really struggling. The water we drank was not safe at all, so diarrhea really prevailed here.”

All that changed when the community partnered with ADRA to rehabilitate the waterpoint, install a pump to cover and regulate usage, and build a protective shelter.

If you go to the village today, you will not find the dirty, dried-up waterpoint of old, but a clean, secured, and ever-flowing well.

Yes, these are troubling times, but let us remember that God has a plan—here on earth and for the day we meet in Heaven. We are told in Isaiah, “With joy you will draw the water from the wells of salvation.”

The grocery stores may be short on supplies, but the wells of salvation will never run dry.

May God bless you all