“There are 1.1 billion people throughout the world that drink unsafe drinking water, ... and until those 1.1 billion people have safe water, we're going to be putting in wells.”
“I had been in Ethiopia as a young man, and I ended up donating money to an organization that had done a good job of publicizing the famine, ... I found out later that 40 percent of the donations went for overhead and that angered me.”
“Those first trips were to Zaire, and we made sure that 100 percent of the donations we received made it to the field, ... Dr. Morgan, an orthopedic surgeon, did 65 operations in a little over six weeks. Dr. Pueda went to a hospital with no electric power and took out a little girl's spleen by flashlight. He saved her life while we all stood around and held Wal-Mart flashlights so he could see.”
“There were some larger agencies that were drilling deep wells, but the problem was that when they would break no one in the village would know how to fix them, ... Our projects are aimed at self sufficiency. The goal is the wells are built hand-in-hand with the villagers, and then someone in the village, someone who the villagers choose, is trained to become the maintenance person, and he is paid in vegetables or a chicken for the work he does maintaining the well.”
“Our goal this year is to build 800, ... These wells save literally thousands of lives. If we meet our goal of 800, then by the end of this year there will be 1.1 million people who will have safe drinking water from all of our 20 years in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.”
“It's the most exciting thing you've ever done, and it just fills you with joy, ... It just bursts through; it can't be contained. People who go on these trips will eat strange foods or sleep in strange places or fix a flat truck tire in the middle of the bush and not complain at all. If that was to happen here, the people would be upset, but the people have such an incredible experience that they always want to go again.”
