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Well No. 7

Ara Pyahú Methodist Church and Parsonage

 Sponsor - Mike and Kathy Graham (Cannon United Methodist Church) and the Pursuits Sunday School Class at Highland Park UMC

Ara Pyahú is a "homestead community" in the Paraguayan state (or Department as we say here) of San Pedro - the meaning of "Ara Pyahú" in the local Guaraní language is "new day".  A Methodist church was founded here two years ago to serve the community of Christians who live in the area.  The Pastor, German Denis, his wife Miriam, and daughter Dalmis live in a small, humble home with no running water and a VERY erratic water supply from a community well.  The system is so undependable that they just leave the spigot turned on all the time and when there is water, it fills a small 125 gallon tank beside the house.  This is the water that they use through the day by filling buckets from the tank.  They just went through an 8 day period with no water from the system as the system did yet another round of repairs.  Having a well at the church, with water for the family, the congregation and the neighbors is a real blessing!

This well turned out to be a challenge - 300 feet deep!   This is the limit of the equipment that we have - and beyond the limit of our experience.  As Linda says - only with God's help can this little machine drill a  well to 300 feet!  Actually, we drilled two wells at this location.  In the first we encountered a "perched" water table at about 50 feet and set a well to about 150 feet deep.  But when we installed the pump, we found that the water table was only of limited capacity and the water ran out rather quickly.  It would have replenished with rainfall - but it could not sustain a flow.  So we had to fill in this well, and redrill the well to the full 300 foot depth.

We always enjoy worshipping with the local churches while we do the projects.  This little church was founded only 2 years ago and is growing steadily.  They celebrated their second anniversary while we were there, and to pay for the big event, they planted over 2 acres of cotton!  As they were bringing in the harvest, each members bag was weighed and there developed quite a competition.  As you can see, they take the Biblical mandate to "bring your harvest to the temple" literally.  We really enjoyed being in an agricultural community during the harvest season - all the talk was about cotton prices, how was your yield, and what were you going to buy with the "cotton money".  We think that every peddler in Paraguay must have passed by selling everything from beds to pots and pans.

As an agricultural community, livestock plays an important role.  The neighbor next door has a dozen head of cattle, and they came by every day to pay us a visit and check on progress.  When the community water system went down (which it did OFTEN), a member of the congregation came by to get a barrel of water for his family - by ox cart, of course!  Linda is truly infatuated with oxen - but not enough to buy one.

We finally got the pump installed and working after three tries.  We had a lot of trouble getting the well cleaned out since it was so deep, and this lead to the pump jamming with sand.  So our friendly driller in Asunción, Jose Palermo, made us this nifty winch to raise and lower the pump.  After the final repair at Jose's shop, Pastor Pablo laid hands on the pump and prayed over it - and it worked!  What a blessing for all.

 Technical Details

Sponsor:    Mike and Kathy Graham (Cannon United Methodist Church) and the Pursuits Sunday School Class at Highland Park UMC

Drilling date: February 7, 2004

Location:   Latitude -  S 24° 36.560'     Longitude - W 56° 01.659'

Elevation:   295  meters above mean sea level

Total cost:    $ 2,748

Drill depth:    91 meters (300 feet)

Soil types encountered:    Dense clay, fine sand, soft sandstone

Static groundwater level:     62  meters below ground surface

Dynamic groundwater level:     72 meters

Installed well depth:   91 meters

Length of screened section:   33 meters

Length of gravel packed section:  35 meters

Length and type of sealed section:  Approx. 1 meter of bentonite pellets

Pump description:    1 hp mono-phase electric submersible

Depth to base of pump:   82 meters

Flow rate:   1,000 liters/hour

Water analysis results: Not yet tested

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