To our members within the
U.S, Caribbean, Africa, and throughout the diaspora assistance thru GSP.
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· NOVEMBER 9,
2017 BY MASHAUN SIMON
When Kimberly Fogg was a kid, her mother used to tell her
that she had special powers. “I always had this unexplainable way,” she told
MsXFactor. “I always had this, I don’t know…I did not grow up in a church and
I did not grow up knowing the Bible – but I had this connection.” While she
finds it difficult to describe the connection and its source, what she does
know is that while on safari in Tanzania more than seven years ago, the
connection became recognizable once again. “God began saying, ‘I want you to
help – no, I need you to help.” What was God asking her to do? Who was God
instructing her to help?
Following the death of her father, Fogg embarked upon the
voyage as a means of soul-searching. She recalls a defining moment during
dinner in Kenya. The waiter was focused on her – so much so that everyone at
the table took notice. “When he brought my food there was a strange light
shinning from behind him and when I looked, I saw his name tag.” The waiter’s
name was the same as her father’s, Alphonse – she knew in that moment that
her life would forever change. How would it change? She was not totally sure
until she came across a group of young children traveling to gather water.
She would quickly learn that the young people did not have
access to clean water, in their local area so they had to travel. The
problem, however, is that the trek was dangerous, which meant that some never
made it back home. If they did, the water they collected could be
contaminated which eventually made them ill – resulting in death as well. She
felt that she had to do something but at first she resisted.
“Initially I felt sorry as I saw these beautiful little
children traveling to collect water, but I was missing my beautiful house,”
she said.
She did not know the first thing about the process of
providing clean water in a foreign land. “As I pushed back, purpose
kept being placed in my face,” she remembers. “God kept saying, ‘I want you
to do this.’
Photo: Kimberly Fogg
Fogg was obedient to that call and today she heads Global Sustainable Partnerships,
a non-profit organization that provides access to clean and safe drinking
water to schools, households, health centers and hospitals in Tanzania. She
came across the technology, HydrAid
BioSand Filters, after returning to the states from her safari. “The
filters that I decided to use are manufactured in my hometown (Grand Rapids,
MI) just 10 minutes from my parents house,” she said. “I was talking to
someone who was doing work on my parents roof, telling him about what I had
experienced while on my safari, and he started telling me about these
filters.” And one of the two trainings each year just happened to be coming
up. “I never said okay,” Fogg reports matter-of-factly.
“I just started following the bread crumbs.
READ MORE AT: https://msxfactor.com/how-an-existential-crisis-lead-this-social-entrepreneur-directly-to-her-purpose/
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