Serving Mission Partners During a Pandemic

While in-person mission trips remain on hold during this season, the World Missions Department of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas continues its partnership with the Episcopal Church in Navajoland, praying for our neighbors there and donating funds in support of their pandemic response and outreach ministries. The citizens of the Navajo Nation face a particularly desperate situation which has captured national and international attention. They are in dire need of clean water, food, and medical equipment, including protective gear, face masks, and other supplies, in order to endure the pandemic.

Donations to the World Missions Department have helped purchase much needed food, emergency equipment, and personal protective gear for the Episcopal Church in Navajoland to distribute through its congregations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. World Missions has also contributed funds to Texas Water Mission, a nonprofit with historic and ongoing relationships with the Diocese, for the installation of a safe water system at St. John the Baptizer Episcopal Church in Montezuma Creek, Utah. The water system, which consists of an underground cistern, a solar pump, and a water distribution system, will provide the entire community with longterm access to pure, clean water, promoting good hygienic practices that help slow or prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In addition to installing a safe water system, Texas Water Mission partnered with Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health to provide approximately 30 hand washing stations and wellness boxes for families who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the Montezuma Creek community.

Samantha McLelland, Executive Director of Texas Water Mission, shares “Texas Water Mission believes that clean water is a right for all people. Installing this clean water system is the first step in addressing the many inequities that the Navajo people have faced. This project is truly a fulfillment of our Mission of loving our neighbor as ourselves and providing a beacon of light in a world that seems otherwise dark.” Read full release here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and compounded problems already plaguing vulnerable communities around the globe, such as limited access to clean water, safe housing, sustainable food sources, and reliable medical care. The World Missions Department remains in close communication with its other partners worldwide, including the Lakota nation in South Dakota, as well as individuals in need in Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Uganda. Through prayer, giving, education, and relationship-building World Missions is finding modified ways to sustain and grow its mission.

For more information about World Missions, contact Marthe Curry, Director of World Missions, at marthe.curry@dwtx.org, click here to receive the monthly World Missions Newsletter, and follow World Missions on social media. And click here to support the ongoing ministry of World Missions.