Dungeness Community Church has long supported the efforts of Living Water International to connect communities with access to sustainable access to clean drinking water clean, sanitation and hygiene.

From Living Water International's Website:

"As followers of Jesus, our concern is for the whole person—physical and spiritual. Through ongoing Christian witness, we know that only Jesus can truly transform people, restore relationships, and heal factors that lead to poverty, hunger, and thirst in our world."

Part of these efforts has taken form in Team Living Water,which gathers local runners to raise funds by walking, jogging or running in the North Olympic Discovery Marathon each year. 

Click to learn More about Team Living Water

A Letter from Julie Hill

A wonderful update you can forward along to this year’s NODM team…. The well in Peru that they worked so hard to train, run, walk, raise money for has BEEN COMPLETED!!! 

Clean Water for Peru

Because of Team Living Water'scollected efforts, a small community/hamlet of 175 men, women and children FINALLY has safe and clean water access that will be sustained for them. The name of the community is called Libertad and it’s located in the region of Ucalayi, in the inland part of Peru, in the Amazon rainforest. This community is made of poor subsistence people, who live off the land, hunting, fishing and farming. 

Melita's Story

While in community working, we interviewed a 75 year old woman named Melita about the prior water situation and she told us:

“We have always collected water from the [Amazon] river, the local government never cared to give us drinking water, that is why we always consume water from the river, I thank God for keeping us alive, One of the stories I can tell is that of my neighbor, she always washed her dishes by the river, after washing her utensils she always collected water for her house, but one day she fainted, the heat was unbearable, she began to sink in the water, her little son who was next to her was screaming for help, because his mother was drowning, quickly thanks to God other neighbors nearby ran to help her, managing to save her and bring her to safety. That day was very tense to know that my neighbor could have died, now we are happy that LWI supports us in the issue of drinking water, I thank God for that.”

Thank You For All You Do

Thank you ALL for caring about and serving Melita and her community so that they may know the health and hope and safety that clean water brings!! I will have the completed report to share back in a few months but wanted to share this update along with a few photos from the project in the meantime. 

Thank you, thank you ALL! GO TEAM LIVING WATER!!!

In Christ,

Julie 

Julie Hill - Senior Director, Major Gifts - LIVING WATER INTERNATIONAL

Sunday at 4:30am it was raining hard, but it stopped for the beginning of the race at 7:30am.  Our relay team completed the full marathon and crossed the line together.  It was a great site. Other participants completed the ½ marathon. Thankfully the rain held off until our relay team had finished the race.  Then came the wind and rain!

During the day Team Living Water had a booth set up at the finish line, for folks stopped to inquire about Living Water International. It was a great opportunity to raise awareness and share what we are all about. Contact Martin Murray If you are interested in participating next year.

A Letter From Julie & Jordan of Living Water International

"Thank you so much to Martin and the team at DCC for your incredible efforts this past weekend in the North Olympic Discovery Marathon! It was a joy and honor to join together with all of you to provide water, for life, in Jesus’ name and even more fun to watch you exceed your fundraising goal! Thank you for choosing to endure for the thirsty and for all the hard work that went into making this event a success. I witnessed people stepping in to help out all weekend and it was clear this was truly a team effort! You are all a blessing to Living Water and are already looking forward to next year!"

 

- Jordan Griebner - Living Water International - Director of Trips & Affinity Groups

  

"I (and on behalf of Living Water) am so grateful for DCC and each race participant, each person who made a gift, every volunteer and advocate. Each person, gift and step ran/walked matters for the thirsty; sharing in this work and community together is a true gift. Praise God!"

 

- Julie Hill - Living Water International - Director of Philanthropy, West 

 

For a number of years, Dungeness Community Church has partnered with Living Water International to connect the world with life giving water. Martin Murray has been a key figure in this relationship. Martin is in the process of assembling a team to participate in the North Olympic Discovery Marathon to be held on June 4 & 5, 2022.  

All Ages & Skill Levels Welcome

Team members can run or walk the full marathon, the half marathon, a 10K or a 5K event. This can be an individual, a relay team or it can be done "virtually" at any time in 2022.  It is preferred, however, that we do the race live rather than a virtual event. 

The kids' race is Saturday, June 4. The adult events are on Sunday, June 5. The full marathon starts East of Sequim at the Seven Cedars Casino in Blyn. It ends at the pier in downtown Port Angeles. 

Click for more details of these events.

To join Team Living Water, contact Martin Murray or contact the church office at Dungeness Community Church.  

Purpose of the Team

The purpose of Team Living Water is to:

1. Raise awareness of the world water crisis and what LWI is doing about it
2. Raise funds for water projects
3. Create community and have fun in the process.

Our final totals have come in for DCC's Advent Conspiracy Initiative in 2021.

Our five local community groups (who are featured farther down in this article) received a total of $25,000. Living Water International received $50,000, which will go toward at least three known wells. In additon, a donor in Texas asked Living Water International to match their own giving with a church and DCC was selected. So an addiional so $40,000 will go toward building wells. So that's $75,000 plus $40,000 which equals a total of $115,000 for Advent Conspiracy this year. Isn't that amazing!

Psalm 115:1 says "Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,  for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!" 

Thank you to each one of you that were participants. We ask God to go ahead and mobilize these acts of faithfulnees for His glory. Amen 

The following is a list of our global and local community partners for Advent Conspiracy 2021.

On behalf of the DCC Global Outreach Committee, I wanted to share a super important development about our short term mission trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala planned for 2021.

DCC has partnered with Living Water International for over a decade now. In that time our partnership has reached more than 20 communities across 4 continents. We recently interacted with Julie Hill from LWI as part of our 2020 Advent Conspiracy. Here she explains the work of LWI and how Dungeness Community Church has contributed to their work over the years.

"It is not by man but God alone that we can continue to find water, Living Water, HIS water, His life, country by country, well by well and gift by gift."

- Julie Hill 

In 1990 a group of Christians from Houston, Texas went on a medical mission to Kenya, Africa. While there, they learned that what these Kenyans needed more than medical assistance is clean, safe water.  Dirty water is mainly what was making them ill. This group returned to Houston and formed the nonprofit Living Water International and since that date they have completed 21,058 water projects that provides safe water to over 6 million thirsty people (as of 7/27/20).