Well No. 10

Methodist Church at Y'Apy

 Sponsors - Larry Hunter Development and

Golder Associates, Inc.

The Methodist Church at Y'Apy is on the reservation of the Guaraní people, indigenous to Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.  This church was planted by Korean Baptist missionaries from the United States, but due to shortage of missionary staff, had no full-time missionary presence since the early 1990's.  In the fall of 2003 the small congregation of faithful believers agreed to join the Comunidad Evangelica Metodista del Paraguay - the Paraguayan Methodist Church.  The Agua de Vida Ministry has been working with this church for over 2 years, and was recently able to drill them a well.

The colonia (as the locals call the reservation) covers almost 4,000 acres, and is home to almost 500 people, clustered in several villages.  The village of Y'Apy (which means "source of water" in the Guaraní language) is home to about 15 families clustered around the Methodist Church and a school originally built by Korean  Baptist missionaries.  The needs in this community are very great - it is hard to convey with words or photos the conditions that these people are living under.  Because of these great needs, we decided to double the size of the project, combining the funds from two donors, allowing us to build much more extensive sanitation facilities for the church, the school and the villagers.  The pictures on this web page show the well project itself - look in the Photo Gallery for more Y'Apy village images.

There are dozens of kids that live in the little village, and they all wanted to go help us collect water.  It was quite hot, so a trip to the creek was very popular.  This creek is almost a mile away from the village and is where the ladies do all of the  laundry - see the Y'Apy village images page for laundry photos.

The kids were around all the time - and more than ready to take advantage of the a good time.  They really enjoyed playing in the water - and the mud - while we were purging the well.  The well was finally completed and the water tower constructed with a 250 gallon tank to provide water for the entire village.

As we mentioned above, the needs at this location were much greater than at the other sites.  We constructed much more extensive sanitation facilities here than normal.  Click here for details, and shots of the well inauguration.

For those who want to read about the technical details of the well, click here.