By James Melchiorre*
June 20, 2007 | YORK, Pa. (UMNS)     

Growing up in Ghana in Africa, Dr. Seth Quartey had one chore to complete each day before heading to school.

"We would usually fetch water," Quartey recalls of his childhood in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Today, as a physician specializing in infectious diseases, the 54-year-old Quartey realizes that the water he fetched as a boy was not only scarce, but probably unsafe.

So Quartey and his wife Grace, 40, also a Ghana native and a certified public accountant, founded the nonprofit Building Solid Foundations Inc., to ease the water crisis in their homeland, where their parents and most of their families still live.

"It's divine," says Grace Quartey of the resulting ministry. "I just believe God has his hand in this because how we all met and the group we have together is nothing more than a miracle."

Even a cynic would be struck by events that turned the Quarteys' dream into a $450,000 clean water project.

It began with a conversation between Grace Quartey and Dr. Bob Davis, a retired plastic surgeon and Aldersgate member who has traveled abroad on medical missions almost 50 times.

Davis, 69, wanted to go with a medical team to Ghana to perform surgeries to reverse disfiguring conditions such as cleft lip. When Grace mentioned the scarcity of clean water, Davis immediately understood the medical implications.

"The children and the women are scooping surface water, which is in puddles. It's in ponds, it's stagnant," Davis explained. "And the guinea worm and bacteria that harbor typhoid fever are rampant in places like that."

The Quarteys and Davis recruited volunteers from their church and community for a September 2006 trip to the West African nation.

The vision spreads

Meanwhile, in Denton, Md., about 90 miles southeast of York, Ken Wood was putting up a sign advertising a well-drilling rig for sale.

A Roman Catholic, he had never even heard of Aldersgate United Methodist Church. But a member of the congregation saw the sign, negotiated a price for the rig and invited Wood to travel with them to Ghana to help.

"I thought, take a trip, see what's going on," Wood remembers.

Then, while attending a seminar in South Carolina, he met a man from Ghana who told him "how he was a kid walking two miles twice every morning to get water out of a stagnant pool," Wood says. "So this is like God's talking to me."

Wood listened. 

He joined his new United Methodist friends from York on an 18-member mission team and donated more than $100,000 in equipment. He has since made four other trips there to drill 98 wells in tiny villages in the remote Ketu District, east of Accra along the border with Togo.

“We believe that to whom much is given, much is expected.”–Grace Quartey

Through their combined efforts, up to 100,000 people there now have safe water.

"I thought horses were my passion," says Wood, who has trained, driven and owned standardbred horses for harness racing. "But it's nothing compared to this."

The experience has been a transforming one for Wood, 63, who had suffered two heart attacks and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in June 2005.  Fifteen months later, he was working outside, drilling wells and building concrete platforms in Ghana, where daytime temperatures reach 95 degrees-in the shade.

"It's fun to think they're going to have spigots all over town," Wood says with a smile. "You're doing something worthwhile."

Work blessed by God

Seth Quartey is still amazed by the speed with which his family's dream has blossomed. As a physician, he realizes what the work means to the health of people in his homeland.

Studies show that introducing clean water to undeveloped areas can cut down on infectious diseases, including diarrhea, by about 50 percent, he says.

The dream continues. An Aldersgate church team of doctors, nurses and well-drillers plans to return to Ghana in September. So far, 35 volunteers have signed up.

"We believe that to whom much is given, much is expected," says Grace Quartey. "I go to bed every night just thanking the Lord for putting these people together."

*Melchiorre is a freelance producer based in New York City.

News media contact: Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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