We decided to celebrate Christmas and Lukas’ birthday on the beach in Vietnam! We traveled by bus and taxi which was a bit of an adventure and took about 17 hours each way, but it was worth it. Once we arrived we stayed in a little bungalow right on the beach in a farming and fishing village. It was relaxing and refreshing. We came home yesterday ready to take on the new year!

December kept us busy with all of the end of the year administration tasks, as well as some water testing and teaching. The Stoeng Keo Elementry schools where we drilled a well and installed a water filter and a tank last year had some strange coloring on the pipes and filter when Lukas went to do a yearly followup visit. He brought back some water samples but our laboratory isn’t complete. We can test for a growing number of elements but not all harmful minerals or chemicals. Lukas was suspicious that the water was contaminated with manganese, but he doesn’t have the equipment to check for that. After consulting with the school and collecting more samples, we decided to send the water to a larger laboratory in the capital city. A few days later the results came back, and Lukas’ suspicions were confirmed. The well water has dangerous levels of manganese. Thankfully, after passing through the water filter the manganese was greatly reduced, but in our opinion it’s still too high for a school (we try to think of every child as our own). We are looking for another solution and we’ll keep you updated on this story as it develops.

We’ve also been doing an increasing amount of advising and water testing for individuals and small business in our community. Now that we’ve been in Kampot for a while, people are getting to know us and our work and they have started reaching out to us for advice and help with their water. It’s kind of like the “Wild West” over here when it comes to water filters. Anyone can (and will!) sell you anything that resembles a filter, and it’s up to you as the buyer to determine if it’s a real or a fake. This is an aspect of the Water Project which we didn’t anticipate but we’re happy to provide this advisory service to people in our community.

Lukas had the opportunity to teach a chemistry class at the international school in Kampot. He shared a bit about our work with clean water, and then set up the teenagers with a little challenge. They were giving five bottles of water, and had to determine which one was safe to drink. He provided them with the necessary testing equipment and taught them how to use it correctly. The children loved the activity, and the teacher has already asked him to come back again next year.

We have an exciting update from Warm Blankets Switzerland, the Swiss NGO that we direct and which provides our funding.  Our annual donations last year were enough for the needs of the Water Project as well as support for three new projects. In 2024 we were able to begin sponsoring the Lunch and Tutoring program at New Life Church, Seed, and Safeplace Mission. I’ve written about these projects in the past, so I’ll just link to their websites here.

https://www.safeplacemission.com/

https://www.seedbeginnings.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066899174318&_rdc=1&_rdr

Well that’s it for December, we hope that you all had blessed holidays, and wish you a good start  in 2025!

Here’s the photo link from December, so you can see more photos from our month.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mR5VLDiQdZKUjAfR9

Merry Christmas from Vietnam