Area man prepares for trip to Africa

A Union County resident  is welcoming opportunities to share his story as he prepares to go on a special mission trip to Africa.

Joshua Hathy of Jonesboro is scheduled to spend approximately three weeks partnering with African communities to provide safe water sources to more than 2,800 villages in remote areas of Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania through work done by the Marion Medical Mission in Marion.

Hathy is scheduled to leave for Africa on Sept. 15 for his first mission trip with Marion Medical Mission. 

Thirty-six U.S. volunteers, including Marion Medical Mission founders Tom and Jocelyn Logan, will work in remote villages to help them provide sustainable, life-saving clean water wells to areas that previously had none. 

The group plans to install 2,800 wells during this year’s well season.

“As my first trip with Marion Medical Mission, I’m grateful to just be a part of helping others with something most take for granted, and to some means life,” Hathy said. 

“I wish I would have heard of them sooner. If I’m able to help with providing resources for others to live then I can’t think of anything better to do with my life.”

Six hundred and sixty-three million people around the globe rely on ponds, streams and other exposed and untreated sources for their drinking water. 

For a $400 donation, Marion Medical Mission provides an African village of approximately 150 people with a sustainable source of safe drinking water.

Marion Medical Mission was founded in 1985. Since then, the mission has built more than 29,000 wells.

Marion Medical Mission has provided more than 4 million people, including 2.25 million children, with a sustainable source of safe drinking water.

The mission partners with local villages – local citizens dig the wells, make the brick and provide the sand and stone.

Marion Medical Mission supplies only what the villages cannot provide. The goal is to make the wells inexpensive, practical and sustainable. The wells are easy to repair and can be maintained by those who have few resources available.

Hathy said he is looking for speaking opportunities at churches, civic organizations and small groups which might be interested in learning more about the organization or helping to fund the 2,800 wells the group plans to install.

For more information, Hathy can be contacted at 618-614-9956.

Information about the work being done by Marion Medical Mission is available at www.mmmwater.org, info@mmmwater.org or 618-997-5365.