Water Missions International offers alternative Christmas gifts

Launches 2013 Christmas Catalog, features gifts that provide safe drinking water, sanitation for people in developing countries and disaster areas

December 12, 2013 – Give meaningful Christmas gifts to loved ones and friends that touch their hearts and change the world through the Water Missions International 2013 Christmas Catalog. These honorary Christmas gift options allow people to start a new tradition of keeping the holidays simple by providing the most basic of human needs around the world – safe drinking water and sanitation.

The Water Missions International 2013 Christmas Catalog is available online at www.watermissions.org/christmas. Once gifts are made, donors may choose to send an honorary gift card to recipients through the mail or online e-card.

Donors have the option to purchase multiple gift levels that will transform lives for people in need, including:

• Safe Water for Life to Change Everything - $10: Your gift helps make safe water for life possible for an individual.
  • Your gift of safe water can change everything for someone else. The foundation for health, education, economic development, and holistic growth rests on safe water access. It is about so much more than supplying cups of clean water. Your gift of $10 helps provide people with access to safe water for life, which means no more hours spent walking to fetch dirty water, no more sick children and fatigued bodies, and no more struggling to simply survive. Safe water access offers a new future full of healthy tomorrows.

• Living Water Ministry Support to Quench Thirsty Hearts - $25: Your gift will support the ministry efforts of Water Missions International staff members and local partners as they share the Gospel.
  • As important as water is to the body, Water Missions International also seeks to quench thirsty spirits. Your gift of $25 helps fund the Living Water component of Water Missions International’s work so that an opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ is never missed. As part of the implementation model for safe water projects, Water Missions International seeks opportunities to share the Gospel through a culturally sensitive approach. Your gift will fund ministry materials like audio Bibles, outreach films in a community’s native language, and training opportunities to equip local churches and outreach mission partners to share the Living Water message.

• Safe Water for Life for a Family - $50:Your gift gives families more time together by providing a sustainable source of safe water for families that allow them to thrive rather than fight to survive.
  • Education, economic development, and holistic growth rest on the cornerstone of access to safe water. Your gift of $50 provides this cornerstone for families. Access to safe water does incredibly more than quench thirst. This gift gives a family the freedom to thrive with healthy bodies and renewed hope for the future. Women and children no longer need to spend hours every day fetching water that will ultimately make them sick. Parents can divert money spent on clinic visits to food and school fees. Kids can focus on their studies, and moms are given more time to seek new opportunities for their families. Bring loved ones together this Christmas by providing families with safe drinking water for life.

• Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion Support - $100: Your gift will help equip community leaders with the materials and training necessary to teach their communities about health and hygiene practices.
  • Providing safe water for a community is just one part of Water Missions International’s comprehensive solution for transformation and development. Your gift of $100 provides support for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) promotion. WASH promotion empowers communities to champion the success of their projects. This involves training community members to teach their neighbors about healthy sanitation and hygiene practices like hand washing and container cleaning to tackle behavioral threats to health. This requires materials and capacity for training. Your gift will ultimately impact generations through a transformed understanding of the relationship between health, safe water and sanitation.

• Solar Power for Safe Water Projects - $250:Your gift enables Water Missions International to power safe water solutions using the limitless, green energy of solar power.
  • Providing solar power for Water Missions International’s safe water solutions, like the Living Water™ Treatment System (LWTS™), gives the gift of sustainable and affordable green energy to communities in need. Your gift of $250 lessens the burden of operational costs to keep a system running by harnessing green energy from an unlimited source. It also offers a power source to charge devices like batteries, lanterns and mobile phones. This helps ensure that safe water flows continuously and removes one more obstacle to development and sustainability. By investing in a dependable power source, you empower a community and help provide the transformational gift of safe water.

• Sanitation for Families in Need - $500: Your gift provides support for Healthy LatrineTMprojects for families without adequate sanitation.
  • Lack of sanitation severely compromises the health of people around the world. Your gift of $500 supports sanitation projects that provide families with a Healthy Latrine™—a safe, sanitary place for men, women and children to answer the call of nature. Adequate sanitation prevents the spread of diseases and deadly symptoms caused by contact with human waste, like cholera and diarrhea. A Healthy Latrine™ also provides dignity and safety, especially for women and young girls who otherwise must walk long distances in the dark. Adequate sanitation promises healthy tomorrows and changed lives.

The Christmas Catalog will be available until January 30. Gifts made after December 18 may not receive the honorary card in the mail in time for Christmas, but printable cards and e-cards are available to distribute at any time.

Media Contact

Rogers Hook, PE

843.769.7395

rhook@watermissions.org

About Water Missions International

Water Missions International is a nonprofit Christian engineering organization providing sustainable safe water and sanitation solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas. Using state-of-the-art technology and engineering expertise, the organization has provided access to safe water for more than 2.4 million people in 49 countries on five continents since 2001. Water Missions International implements customized solutions through a comprehensive community development model in its ten permanent country programs in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Notably, Charity Navigator has awarded Water Missions International their top rating seven years in a row, a distinction shared by only two percent of the charities rated by the organization. To learn more about Water Missions International, visit www.watermissions.org.

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