The Miracle borehole at Mkhonyeni Village
Community members of Emkhonyeni village in Matabeleland North province of Zimbabwe were overwhelmed with joy on the 25th of September 2019 at the official handover of a borehole drilled for them by Adventist young people during the Global Youth Day (#GYD18) in 2018.
The handover took place at a glamorous event officiated by church officials from West Zimbabwe Conference. In attendance were various Government departments, Bubi Rural District Council, District Development Fund, Zimbabwe West Union Conference Youth Director, Emkhonyeni Village Head and community members at large.
Community members have had no access to clean water. The only water body available had been a seasonal dam. For years they had to share the unsafe water with animals, only to be relieved because of GYD18 whose theme was “Food and water drive”. The Youth Department managed to drill a borehole for them as one of their Global Youth Day activities.
One senior community member said she started residing at Mkhonyeni in 1950 and since then they have never had access to clean water. They had witnessed several organisations try to help them solve their water problem, but none of those efforts was successful. They only witnessed a miracle when the members of the Adventist church managed to drill that borehole for them.
Speaking at this event, Mr V Ncube, Chairman for the District Water and Sanitation Sub- Committee (DWISC) said that several attempts had been made to try and provide the community with clean water, but none of the efforts was successful. “As Bubi Rural District Council we concluded that Mkhonyeni area has no water, and efforts to try and bring piped water were now in place.”
“When members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church came, seeking for a go-ahead for a partnership in this project, we discouraged them as we had in the past years engaged trained water engineers and surveyors who had failed to get water in the area” added Ncube. “However, it was a miracle when they managed to strike water even at 22m AND at an uphill location, as most of the boreholes in Bubi are dug as far as 70m, and thus indeed we praise and thank God the Almighty for providing water to the community.” He emphasized that the water this community had found, was a miracle from God as the book knowledge they had, had failed to yield results they had looked forward to. The community is now hoping to have solar-powered equipment for the borehole so that piped water can also reach their school that is close by.
The WZC President, Ps Taddius Nkanyezi encouraged community members to give thanks to and put their trust in God as their only source of livelihood. He emphasised that God was our sole Creator and supplier of all our needs, only He deserved glory and honour.
The Global Youth Day concept to the community. “Global Youth Day” was launched on March 13, 2013. The vision of GYD is to recapture the reality of Adventist youth as a global movement mobilized for service, who are the hands and feet of Jesus, showing compassion to fellow men and contributing to the proclamation of the everlasting gospel and ushering in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Pastor G. Mlilo also thanked the youth for living up to the vision of GYD through this project. The initial idea was to just donate bottled water to the Mkhonyeni community however after some deliberations the youths rallied behind the idea of providing a sustainable way of solving the water problem.
During the Global Youth Day activities, the youths also rehabilitated a borehole in Ward 11 and built lavatories in 3 old people homesteads in Bubi District alone. Resultantly, 51 precious souls have been baptised in this area and of note is a Mr Ngwenya (new convert) who says what brought him to the church was the provision of water, no one preached to him but such an act of kindness was sermon enough for him to give his life to Jesus.
