River of Life

It's going to be another scorching day Santos thought, wiping away a bead of sweat, as he and his helpers, all operators from the Living Waters for the World (LWW) system at Iglesia Evangelica Central, carried 20-liter bottles of water onto the boat.

It wasn't yet 5 a.m. and they had already loaded over I 00 bottles. August is one of the hottest, driest months in Chazuta, Peru, and their goal today was to visit the small villages of Tununtumba, Mushak Llaca, and Ramon Castilla which are on the Huallaga River and provide purified water to the 50+ families that live there.

The communities are isolated in a tropical rainforest in the province of San Martin. Landslides during the rainy season each year wash out roads in the area making the river the safest and most reliable way to get purified water to the villages - often, the river is their only link to the outside world. And lacking any developed infrastructure, the LWW water system at Iglesia Evangelica Central in Chazuta is their only source of safe water.

Senora Abijita heard the boat coming up the river before she saw it and gathered her three empty bottles and headed toward the river. The water level was lower than she ever remembered it at this time of year and there was now a wide field of river rock at the bottom of the hill where the river usually met the bank. Getting to the boat to exchange her water bottles wouldn't be easy. When she got there, a crowd was already waiting, their light blue water bottles lining the riverbank, testi­mony to how hot it had been and to their need for purified water.

The boat carefully beached on the rocky bank, and the operators jumped out of the boat. In a well-choreographed sequence, one op­erator prepared to record the bottle exchange, another to collect money, and another to distribute the water. Santos greeted many people by name and the bottle exchange, empty for full, began.

Santos was glad to see Senora Abijita, as there had been some illnesses in her village lately. Having access to purified water was a blessing not to be taken lightly along the Huallaga and he felt honored that his church was able to be a source of life-giving and often life-saving water for these small villages. It meant that she, her daughter, and her grandchildren would be healthy as would others in the community.

In 2024, an LWW team was able to meet with pastor Jairo Sangama Saurin and the water committee for the system. During the visit, the team was invited to experience what it means to deliver water to some of the remote communities on the Huallaga River. It was gratifying to witness first-hand the impact the water system has in improving people's lives and to put faces with the names of the people who faithfully serve through the LWW ministry. Iglesia Evangelica Central operates its system continually, providing over 950 families in Chazuta proper and four nearby Amazon villages with purified water.

Since being installed in 2017, the church has distributed over 250,000 gallons of purified water. The church hosted the 2024 LWW partners conference for LWW operating partners in northern Peru. In addition to being the lead operator for the water system at Iglesia Evangelica Central, Santos Guerra became part of the LWW Peru Network staff, sharing his knowledge and experience with other operating partners to help them reach higher and to impact even more lives in the Amazon provinces.