Deep Well Ministries was started by CinA missionaries Elmer and Joann Reifel to bring clean water and pure gospel to local villages and schools in Sierra Leone Africa.  You are invited to transform a village.

Deep Well Ministries

Deep Well Ministries was started by CinA missionaries Elmer and Joann Reifel to bring clean water and pure gospel to local villages and schools in Sierra Leone, Africa.  Digging wells in Sierra Leone is often done by hand…hours of strenuous labor under a hot sun in an area normally devoid of clean drinking water.  Many hand dug holes are deep, wide and unable to be kept sanitary due to the larger opening and dirt walls with no shoring the sides. They often dry up sooner in dry season because they are shallower than a ‘bore hole’. The people must then resort to long walks either to other villages, a swamp, or a spring during the dry season.
Usually expensive machinery is used to dig deep wells that are topped with a had pump or an electric pump, but that equipment cannot make it into a remote, rural village, and if they do get close, they are much more expensive than a hand dug bore hole.
We use a more sustainable system that combines the hard work of a hand drilled hole with the more sanitary solution of a lined borehole. A hand drilled well lined with a pvc casing and back filled in such a way to help filter water. When that is in place; we install a hand pump in a concrete base to keep things more sanitary and sustainable and build a concrete surround to separate the pump from the surrounding area. Water4 developed the technology we use and made the augers and other tools that was purchased in 2013.
Since 2014 well sponsors have helped us install sixteen wells and repair three more. The Ebola epidemic from 2014-2015 curtailed more wells being drilled. We work under Christians in Action Business Enterprise (CinABE). As of 2018 well installations are now followed up with Missional Water Access Sanitation Hygiene (mWASH) training to teach villagers how to improve their health and sanitation practices.
A single well with an India Mark II hand pump costs $4,500. A stronger pump (German made ‘Kardia’ brand) has a longer lifespan, but add an additional $1,500 to the cost of a well.
To get all our equipment and supplies to the well sites demands a workhorse of a truck and to that end we have been raising funds to buy and maintain another Toyota Land Cruiser ‘dogface’ to replace the one we bought used in 2014.

You are invited to transform a village.