Feud Ends, Clean Water Flows

Victor Guaminga, an Ecuadorian Christian, is a World Vision project coordinator in his own country. Wanting to eradicate water-borne diseases in his home village, Laime Chico, Victor developed a plan for building a pipeline to supply the villagers with clean, drinkable water from a source some distance away. Unfortunately, the best path for such a pipeline was right through Laime San Carlos, a rival village-one with which Victor’s village had a long-lasting feud. When certain implacable enemies in the rival village heard about the proposed water line, they made it known that they would destroy any pipes laid for that purpose.

Therefore, the whole plan was stymied. ln spite of their neighbors’ hostility, however, Christians in Victor’s village, knowing that the other village had no church, decided to conduct an evangelistic effort there. ‘Eileen O’Connor, “Forgiveness Heals the Heart, Research Hints,” CNN, May 20, 1999. 2 McQuilkin, The Two Sides of Forgiveness, (2-3. Doing so was both difficult and dangerous.

Not many of the rival village’s people paid any attention to the evangelizers. But four did respond to the gospel message and became believers in Christ.

After being spiritually nurtured by believers from Victor’s church, the four converts became faithful witnesses to others in their own village. Slowly, a church formed there also. Eventually the very man who had most vehemently opposed the water project became a believer himself. Seeing, then, how wrong his attitude had been, he asked forgiveness and gave his cooperation to the project.

Five years after that project in Ecuador was proposed, clean, drinkable water flowed through dependable pipes not only to Victor’s village but to the formerly hostile one, plus two other nearby villages. And now there are growing churches in all four places. 1 1 “Exa.mple in Ecuador: Forgiveness Unclogs a Pipeline,” World Vision, February- March 1986, 18. -