Alan Perera

THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

Pastor Kurt Dahlin loves to surf, but he probably doesn’t need to tell you that.  The wavy silver hair on his head and the goateed tuft against his tan skin makes him look the part.  There’s also the constant feeling that he’s about to say “dude”.  It doesn’t happen though.

So, it makes sense that his church, The Breakwater, is located in Manhattan Beach, California.  The modest-sized sanctuary sits on a quiet, residential road.  The ocean is not too far off, and the marine winds deliver the familiar sweet, salty fragrance.  If Dahlin had his way, however, he would not be leading a congregation.  “It’s not like this is what I want to do,” he whole-heartedly admits.  “What I want to do in life is have a fishing boat in Costa Rica, near Herradura, and take rich people out to catch marlin.”

Clearly not much of a land-lover, Dahlin seems to appreciate the value of water more than the average person, which is why - on his first trip to Malawi - he noticed the extreme absence of it.  “There were these women walking around with huge buckets of water on their heads with no visible village and no visible water point, and I thought: ‘Where are they coming from?  Where are they going?’  And that just opened my eyes to the fact that water is a very essential ingredient to life, and obtaining it is a huge struggle every day for these people.”

In the early 1990s, Pastor Dahlin had been leading mission trips to South Africa, but in 1994 – when the extreme genocide in Rwanda was taking place – Hollywood came knocking on his door.  As the events in Rwanda started attracting the world’s attention, certain celebrities expressed interest in helping.  Research into Rwanda, however, revealed that the opportunity to assist the country was simply not there.  At the same time, the inquiries that Dahlin was making opened up his interest in some of the African nations that he had never heard of – one of which was Malawi.

So, in September 1994, with a handful of friends from his church, Kurt Dahlin travelled to Malawi.  At the time, Malawi was one of the top suffering countries in the world, and what moved him the most was the abundant lack of clean drinking water.  “All we were doing in 1994 was going there to find out what the need was so that we could come back and produce something for the folks in Hollywood,” he shares.  As it turned out, the Hollywood endeavor fell through, but compassion had already reached Dahlin’s eyes to needs that he strongly felt he could meet.

PLANTING WELLS

After returning to the U.S., it took Dahlin a year to find a driller, to raise enough money and to find a suitable place to begin his water project.  With all of that put together, he returned to Malawi in the spring of 1996 and put in his first borehole in a small village called Nchiwa, located in the Phalombe region of Malawi. 

It was a Swedish-made hand-pump, imported from India, known as the Afridev.  The Afridev is a very simple device: the metal pump head with its handle and spout are embedded on a concrete pad.  Depending on how strong you are and how fast you can pump water, the Afridev is capable of extracting about 900 liters of water per hour from a depth of up to sixty meters below the surface.  The fact that it has a simple design and is easy to repair has made it tremendously successful throughout Africa.  At the time, Dahlin did not realize that he was a pioneer by experimenting with it in Phalombe.

Anticipating that this was going to be the first of many boreholes, Dahlin began partnering with a church in the main city of Blantyre and a National Board was established to oversee this new ministry.  The Malawians that were on the National Board became guides, translators and travel companions for his teams.  They also inform him on the areas of greatest need, possible sites for future boreholes.  “They were the eyes and ears for us,” says Dahlin, “because we would take a trip out there once every summer, so we depended on them to coordinate various aspects of the water-drilling project.”

Sixteen years and about 130 boreholes later, Dahlin returned to Phalombe and found that the first borehole was still being used just as it had been when they put it in.  The pump has been there for so long that the ground had eroded away from the concrete platform, and the pump head now stands about four feet above ground level.  At this point, instead of standing on the platform, one has to reach up and pump the handle from their head to their chest.  Yet, it was still working and that excited Dahlin. 

“I asked the headmen in the village, ‘Has there been any cholera since this borehole had been put in sixteen years ago?’  They said that there hasn’t been any cholera, not even one case.  I mean, all of the kids growing up in this village have neither seen nor experienced cholera – they don’t even know what it is.  That was exciting to me.”  Dahlin and his team asked the same question at every borehole they visited that year and the response was the same: there were no water-borne diseases in the areas where the pumps were put in place.  “That’s the health benefit,” he says.  “That’s the healing.  That’s life, and that’s what Jesus wants.  So, it’s awesome.”  

NEVER THIRSTY AGAIN

In John 4, Jesus sits down by a well when a Samaritan woman comes to draw water from it.  He says to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4: 13-14 NIV)  It would be one thing if Pastor Dahlin devoted all of his energy into providing clean, sustainable water for villages in Malawi, but – as incredible an achievement as that is – it is not eternal.  At the forefront of his mission is the Gospel.

At each village that Dahlin visits, some of his team members lead church services for the adults while others gather the children together for various games and a simple sermon – for example, the story of David and Goliath or Jonah and the whale.  As the sun goes down, a screen and projector are set up to show the ‘Jesus’ film.  An introduction and testimony are given before the movie starts and an alter call once it finishes.  On average, several hundred people – sometimes a thousand - appear to watch the film.  For many of them, this film – chronicling the birth of Jesus up to his death as presented in the Book of Luke - will be the only film they will ever watch, leaving a strong impression on their hearts and minds.

“In each place we visit, we’re putting two things together: water and the Word,” Dahlin shares.  “We’re finding that the great story here is that if you get a thousand people to celebrate a new well with you, a thousand people to watch the ‘Jesus’ film with you, you can get a thousand people to pray with you.  Now we understand that not every hand raised is an indication of a true change of heart, but we also know that God’s Word is powerful and does not come back void.  When people call out to the Lord, it’s a powerful experience.  God can change hearts through that.  That’s the mechanism.  Preaching is a vehicle, and prayer is the mechanism.”

The good news of Jesus Christ, the promise of eternal life, the concept that everyone is thirsty and that one day our thirst will be completely satiated in God’s presence has been delivered to thousands upon thousands of Malawians thanks to the efforts of Dahlin and his teams.  “There’s so much that you’re investing in this ministry,” he shares.  “A hundred thousand people have water and a hundred thousand people have the Gospel, and that also ripples out because those people take the Gospel to other people.  It’s reaching a generation in a country that – hopefully – will provide a Christian foundation for the future in that place. It’s a ministry worth doing, so we’ll continue to do it.”

The Breakwater has always been a small church - the congregation consists of about seventy members.  Yet, it continues to raise and spend millions of dollars in its overseas mission projects.  According to Dahlin, there is nothing surprising about that.  “This whole thing is the work of God,” he says, “but we can’t just sit back and watch.  We’ve got to do our part.  So, we work hard – we’re hardworking farmers.”

So, in the end, despite the allure of the ocean, Pastor Kurt Dahlin decided to turn away from it and tend God’s land instead.

For more information about Kurt Dahlin and his ministry, Water Wells For Africa, please visit their website at www.waterwellsforafrica.org.

All work © Alan Perera. Website © 2012 Alan Perera, all rights reserved.