I know a girl named Jennifer who walks for most of her day. Not by choice but by absolute need. One step in front of the other brings Jennifer closer to a source of water, water that is needed to survive. She carries a bright yellow bucket in one arm and the hand of her younger sister in the other. Her calloused feet meet the dirt path with ease and levity. She passes neighbors, livestock, mud huts with thatched roofs, and the primary school down the road.

After thirty minutes of walking, Jennifer and her sister dip their buckets in the filth of a muddy river. They do their best to swirl the water before dipping their buckets deep into the water so as to push away the clumps and bugs that sit along the surface of the brown water. With remarkable grace, each girl places her 20 pound bucket on her head and walks back. Their bare feet hit against the dirt of the path, passing yet again the primary school down the road, the mud huts with thatched roofs, the livestock and the neighbors. When they arrive home, they empty their buckets into a large tub. Invisible bacteria swim in the water, causing serious stomach aches, skin infections and life-threatening diseases to the members of the family. They will use it for drinking, cleaning and cooking. It is what they have, and so it is what they use.  Jennifer around to walk back along the dirt path with her bright yellow bucket in one arm and the hand of her younger sister in the other, to return to the river once more.

I have clean water at the turn of a tap. What takes many girls around the world hours to get, I have in seconds. It is a juxtaposition of the world that brings discomfort to so many of us, and rightly should! I have many friends who observe Lent and choose to give something up for the length of the lenten season. Some people give up sweets, others give up facebook. There is a movement of people that is choosing to give up all beverages but water for Lent. It means that we will go 40 days and make tap water our only beverage. We will save up all the money we would have spent on coffee, soda, beer, wine and juice over the 40 days and donate it to provide THE essential beverage for Africans -  clean water. Through the work of Blood:Water Mission, thousands of girls with yellow buckets are no longer walking to get filthy water because a clean water source has been brought to their villages. Jennifer is one of them, and she is now able to attend school and to be rid of stomach aches and skin infections.

In a world that feels overwhelmingly impersonal, this small sacrifice that many of us will take on for the next 40 days will give us the deepest and most beautiful connection to the provision of clean water for girls we have yet to meet. Please consider joining us in this.

www.bloodwatermission.com/40days