Tick, tock. Tick, Tock. Tick, tock. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight seconds pass. And another child dies of a water-related illness somewhere in the world.

That staggering statistic was as surprising to Dr. George Bates as it is to most people who read it for the first time. Bates, working with others in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., is doing his part to confront that crisis.

In an arid area of northeastern Brazil, Bates and others have begun assisting people in rural and urban regions to build cisterns and small water purification plants. It is a start, only a start, to address a problem that is global and growing.

&uot;Most people think of the AIDS crisis as the greatest health crisis in the world today. That’s not true. The water crisis is the greatest,&uot; said Bates, a retired Alcorn State University agriculture professor and researcher.

&uot;Water is becoming more and more scarce. There is a finite amount of water. Ninety-seven percent of it is in the ocean, and 2 percent is in the polar ice cap. That leaves just 1 percent.&uot;

As water on the planet remains constant, population increases. &uot;In the time it takes to read an article about this, 40 to 50 children will have died from water-related illnesses,&uot; Bates said.

An introduction to missions

As a member of First Presbyterian Church in Natchez, Bates began to become involved in missions to China, Mexico, helping a church there to build an education building.

In 1999, the Presbytery of Mississippi leadership asked Bates to chair the Mission Committee. Along with that new position came opportunities to visit Brazil with Outreach Foundation, one of the mission arms of the denomination.

&uot;I had no interest in going to Brazil,&uot; Bates said. &uot;My interest had been in Mexico.&uot;

Nonetheless, he went to Brazil in 2001. It changed his life. &uot;That trip made a big impact on me. For one thing, I found that Brazil has a desert. Most people, when they think of Brazil, think of the Amazon, the rain forest and beautiful beaches and cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo,&uot; Bates said. &uot;But 18 million live in the northeastern states, the most heavily populated semi-arid region in the world.&uot;

Partnership with Brazil is sealed

Bates lost his heart to the people he met. He found they were eager to work with their American friends. Groundwork was laid for a partnership, formalized in 2002,

between the Presbytery of Mississippi and members of the Independent Presbyterians of Brazil in the Northeast.

Bates and others from Mississippi became involved with local volunteers to install cisterns for families in rural areas. The 4,000-gallon cisterns &045;&045; more than 135 of them in place since 2002 &045;&045; capture enough water during the rainy season of January and February to provide drinking and cooking water for the year, he said.

&uot;We’ve had the opportunity to visit with the families who have installed the cisterns,&uot; he said. &uot;They all said nothing has had such a big impact on their lives as having a clean source of water.&uot;

Prior to having a cistern, the woman of a rural household might walk two to three miles to reach a water source and carry it back to her family in a jug. &uot;And it wasn’t water fit to drink,&uot; Bates said.

Working like Habitat for Humanity, the cistern program requires families to assist in the installation. &uot;We’re continuing to install about 50 a year. They’re about $400 apiece, funded through donations from churches and individuals,&uot; Bates said.

Families are not chosen based on any affiliation with the Presbyterian Church, he said. &uot;In fact, a Catholic priest has been one of our consultants in helping to select families,&uot; Bates said.

Different challenges in towns

In towns, cisterns do not work. Houses are close together, often sharing common walls. In June, a group of 16 volunteers from the presbytery, including Bates, traveled to Patos, in the state of Paraiba, to install a water purification system at a preschool associated with a Presbyterian church.

Bates and his wife, Linda, and others on the mission first attended a training camp at Camp Hopewell near Oxford, where they learned both how to install a system and how to teach the people to use clean water in appropriate ways.

&uot;The preschool serves one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city,&uot; Bates said. &uot;It took about four days to install the system. And now for the first time ever the children in that school have fresh water.&uot;

The training program offered to Brazilians stressed using the clean water for cooking and drinking. &uot;They were instructed how to use the water wisely, and what the difference is between clean and dirty water,&uot; Bates said.

With that experience behind him, Bates will be among the Natchez-area group returning to the sister church in Mexico in January. There, the group will install a similar water purification system.

First Presbyterian members and veterans of previous missions to Mexico Lee Jones and Everette Ratcliffe will attend Camp Hopewell to learn about installing the system.

Challenging all who will help

The Synod of Living Waters, a division of Presbyterian U.S.A. that includes Mississippi, sponsors Camp Hopewell, known as Clean Water U. The camp is open to all, regardless of denomination. The synod also sponsors a project known as Living Waters for the World.

&uot;Living Waters for the World has installed water systems in Mexico, Haiti, Honduras and Belize. Ours was the first in Brazil and the first south of the equator. It was the first one that operates on a 220-volt current. That was a big challenge because we had to install a transformer.&uot;

Bates said getting to know the people has been a reward for him &045;&045; finding that people in countries far removed from his own have the same basic needs.

&uot;We can all work together to make the world a better place. As Christians, helping other people is not something we should have a choice in doing,&uot; he said. &uot;Seeing that first little preschool boy who went through and had the first cup of water when the system was installed &045;&045; that was payment enough for all of us who went there.&uot;