Life-Giving Waters
South Carolina Knights help their council chaplain build a well in his home village in Kenya
By Cecilia Engbert
9/5/2024
Men fill containers with water from the new well in Kambai, Kenya, inspired by Father Cosmus Wambua and sponsored by Our Lady Star of the Sea Council 7122 in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. (Castletown Media)
Watch: Knights Bring Water to Kenyan Village
Father Cosmus Mutie Wambua had two big dreams in life: One was to become a priest and the other was to bring water to his hometown in Kenya. The first dream was realized when he was ordained in 2016. His brother Knights in Our Lady Star of the Sea Council 7122 in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, helped him achieve his second dream more recently, raising enough money to build a well in Kambai village.
“Since I was small, the biggest challenge I’ve faced in life was to go to collect water,” explained Father Wambua, a Fourth Degree Knight and chaplain of Council 7122. “Sometimes you’d come back from school in the evening, and then you have to go and collect water. It would take hours.”
Most of Kenya is arid or semiarid, with rain falling only a few times a year. Kambai had no well, so residents often traveled up to 4 or 5 kilometers (2-3 miles) to collect water from streams. Disease from contaminated water was always a threat, and time spent gathering water robbed women and children of opportunities such as finding work or attending school.
For years, Father Wambua thought about how he could bring water to the 3,000 people in Kambai. He even designed a water system himself, complete with water mapping and a hydraulics study. But it wasn’t until he had a chance conversation with several officers of Council 7122 in October 2022 that his plan gained traction.
“They asked me ‘What is it like in your village?’” Father Wambua said. “And then I just opened up. I told them about the challenge, how we don’t have running water.”
A little girl carries several jugs of water outside the village of Kambai, Kenya. (Courtesy of Father Cosmus Wambua)
Father Wambua showed the Knights a photo he had taken in his village: a young girl carrying a jug of water in each hand with a third one hanging down her back.
“Four days later [Grand Knight] Jim LeVan comes to my office in the parish and tells me, ‘[Father] Cosmus, we want to help you get water in your village.’ Just like that, that’s how it started,” Father Wambua recalled.
Robert Pape, a member of Council 7122, immediately collaborated with LeVan to form a fundraising committee.
“It blew my mind that in this day and age, people still don’t have a source of fresh, clean, running water,” he said. “I just wanted to do something to help the village of Father Cosmus, but most especially the children.”
The Knights decided to partner with WorldServe International, an organization dedicated to providing clean water wells in sub-Saharan Africa. To complete the project, WorldServe needed $50,000; within six months, Council 7122 had raised $57,000. More than 150 people and groups from 19 states contributed, including notable support from the women’s group associated with the council, Our Lady Star of the Sea Assembly 2431 and the St. Thomas More Fraternity of Secular Franciscans.
“It was an organic ground-up approach, asking everybody and anybody for a donation,” Pape said. “We didn’t have any fundraising activities. It was simply building contacts.”
The project, which began in 2023, required drilling 1,000 feet to find fresh and sustainable water. A solar-powered pump was installed to bring the water from the well into three 10,000-liter storage tanks throughout the village. Council 7122 raised an additional $18,000 this year to install two more distribution tanks.
In February 2024, Pape and other members of Council 7122 accompanied Father Wambua on a visit to Kambai to bless the well. Pape met the 300 schoolchildren who originally inspired him to support the project and saw how the new water source is already improving life in the village.
Father Cosmus Wambua speaks with council member Robert Pape, who helped to lead the Knights’ fundraising efforts for the water system in Kambai. (Castletown Media)
“It’s very difficult, obviously, to grow anything without water, and anything that they did grow had to be watered with water brought up in these 5-gallon buckets,” said Pape. “The water is literally life-changing, not only for the children who can focus on their studies now, but for the families, who can have more sheep and cows. They’ve been planting some fruit trees and those types of things, because now they have access to water.”
Grand Knight Jim LeVan was not able to see the project to completion, passing away in August 2023. But his leadership was essential to get it started.
“Jim was the one who first said, ‘We can do this!’” Pape said. “He got the Knights of Columbus behind the effort and a few months later it was in the works.”
“It’s literally at the heart of the Knights of Columbus to assist, to help,” Father Wambua said. “Thank you to my brother Knights who have really come through for me and for my people in the village.”
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CECILIA ENGBERT is a content producer for the Knights of Columbus Communications Department.