- Rime of the Ancient Mariner
   After numerous attempts to drive a successful well at our family cottage, we resorted to drawing water from the lake and purchasing bottled water for cooking and drinking. One evening, I foolishly took my medications with a sip of water from the tap and subsequently learned a painful lesson: a micro-organism in the water caused an infection in my small intestine called Giardia. Thankfully, my experience was not life-threatening but, in remote areas of the world, fatalities from drinking contaminated water are common. Not until the chlorination of public water sources was introduced in 1908, was the tap water in most of our U.S. communities considered safe to drink but even this measure is not entirely effective: yearly, thousands of older adults, children and people with compromised immune systems acquire waterborne illnesses, anyway.
   Community water treatment and delivery systems such as ours are non-existent in developing countries, where four-fifths of all illnesses are from drinking contaminated water. Worldwide, diarrhea is the leading cause of childhood deaths. Serious, water-borne diseases can only be prevented by practicing proper hygiene and drinking clean water. A PCUSA mission called Living Waters for the World (LWW) is addressing these water issues with a simple, easy to install, batch process that uses dual-filtration and either ozone or UV to kill micro-organisms in a contaminated water source. LWW teams teach hygiene to remote communities and show them how to install and maintain these clean water systems. In the months to come, you'll be hearing more about this worthwhile mission.   Meantime, visit http://www.livingwatersfortheworld.org/ to learn more.                                         - Chief Runamuck

  

  Don't forget! Summer worship services are at 8:15 am in the Memorial Garden (weather permitting) and at 9:30 am in the sanctuary.