On 30 March 2024, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated a solar- powered borehole water project to two communities in the Mono Dasse Chiefdom, Moyamba District, in Sierra Leone. The villages of Tanenihum and Mokaba hosted the donation ceremony.
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The Church donated two boreholes and 5,000 litre tanks, one to each of the villages. Each well had a solar-powered pump and community spigots.
Residents of the communities joined together to welcome Church leaders in Sierra Leone with traditional chanting and dances from both villages. This represented their thankfulness to God, and gratitude to the Church for the love and kindness shown to them. Also attending the ceremony were local civil and traditional leaders.
Representing the Church of Jesus Christ were Elder Locke Ettinger and Sister Carol Sue Ettinger, missionaries in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission, and Steven Kamara, representing the District President.
“We received a warm welcome of dancing and singing when we arrived. The wonderful people in these two villages expressed great appreciation,” said Elder Ettinger at the ceremony and noted that, “Before the wells they had to go far down to the swamp area to fetch their water. It was not clean. Now they have a source of clean water. The members of the village were instructed to take good care of the wells and they were given full responsibility of their new water source. They were happy with beautiful smiles and songs of thanks.”
During his speech at the donation ceremony, one of the traditional chiefs said, “Water is a gift from God, but for our communities this is the very first time that we have had the opportunity to have pure and clean drinking water.”
He also noted that the new water source would, “provide safe drinking and cooking water for our communities, minimize the health and sanitation hazards in the villages, and reduce the burden on women and children who currently have to travel great distances for the water needed for drinking and domestic use.”
Brother Kamara explained that the funds to support this project came from the generous offerings of the members of our church throughout the world. “They give freely and with love to make projects like these come to completion and to bless the lives of members of these communities for generations to come,” he said.