Loren Morschen, Friends of Madagascar Mission board member, was involved in setting up Sowing Hope International which assisted African mission based projects in finding funding as well as organization and management of the projects.
The first drip irrigation project was done at Ejeda Hospital and was followed up by the following year with drip irrigation and fruit tree planting projects at the Manasoa Bible School and at Ejeda Hospital.
In January of 2017, with board approval, Friends of Madagascar Mission worked to develop a strategy and process to teach drip irrigation with two teaching centers: one at Ejeda Hospital and the second at Manasoa Bible School.
The strategy called for evangelists at the Bible School to learn about drip irrigation so that when they graduated, they would take a drip irrigation system (pail and 100 meters of tubing) out into their area of mission and teach the people there about drip irrigation.
In June 2023, Friends of Madagascar Mission (FOMM) visited the Manasoa Bible School and learned that the drip irrigation system is not being used. Apparently, the water supply line from the spring to the water tower had been cut and had not been repaired. People from Ejeda accompanying the FOMM team were unable to observe and learn about drip irrigation.
In the past two years FOMM has begun to investigate the possibility of expanding our water resource possibilities into well drilling and well repairs as well.
In June 2023, the FOMM team met with personnel from The Madagascar Water Project and their CEO, Fred Rittelmeyer. Fred’s strategy is to repair pre-existing wells, hire local people to maintain the wells, and check back every few months to ensure that the wells are still working. At the conclusion of the meeting, Fred took the action to develop a Memo of Understanding that describes how his company could work with FOMM.
Steve Lellelid is also working on water projects in Madagascar. Steve has a team of 7 people on bicycles marking over 4,000 wells in Androy. Steve views the finding of water as both a physical and spiritual issue.
In meeting with the FOMM team in June 2023, Steve talked about the need for security around the wells both for the safety of the workers as well as safety for the equipment. Steve commented that there are other people who fix broken wells, but the cost of repair is high (1 cow).
Following the meeting with the FOMM team, Steve and Fred met separately to discuss what, if any, opportunities there might be for the two of them to work together.
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