By Jessica Easthope
Father Cletus Forson does not take a single glass of water for granted.
He remembers what it was like to walk six miles during the dry season in his native Ghana just to find water.
“During the dry season, water is scarce to come by,” he said. “So you go look for water and carry it on your head — maybe five gallons of water you’re carrying, from six miles to bring home.”
Today, Father Forson is helping make sure others do not have to endure the same hardship. He partners with International Help of Missionaries, a nonprofit that drills wells across Africa, including in Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan and Ghana.
His friend and collaborator, Don Magnotta, founded the organization 18 years ago.
“Since I started this, this was exactly what God wanted me to be,” Magnotta said. “I understood that this was my mission in my life because you know that God is putting you there. There is nothing that could stop you from doing well because he is there helping you along the way.”
To date, International Help of Missionaries has sent close to $2 million around the world to support wells, schools, clinics and orphanages. The organization is now assisting in the construction of a pediatric cancer hospital in Ghana, which aims to help treat the 100,000 African children diagnosed with cancer each year.
“Over the course of time, there are a lot of children cancer cases that are really showing up — retinoblastoma, leukemia and lymphoma — all of these things are really prevalent,” Father Forson said.
More than 5,000 miles away, Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen Church in Carroll Gardens, where Father Forson serves as parochial vicar, has embraced the cause. The parish’s faith formation program has made fundraising for the hospital its Lenten service project.
“It became a real personal experience,” said a parish leader. “It wasn’t simply something that was a blind charity, so to speak. There were real people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean who were benefiting by what we were doing here.”
In the past five years, the parish has helped fund three wells in Ghana.
“Africa, the continent, sits at our dinner table and is very much part of this parish,” the parish leader said. “That has also taught us a great deal — and our children a great deal — on how we might appreciate what we have and to share what we have.”
Parishioners say the funds raised go toward life-changing aid for communities thousands of miles away.
“This small little thing, that we may look at as quite insignificant, is really making significant impact in the life of people out there,” Father Forson said.
The money collected by Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen for the pediatric cancer hospital will be sent to Ghana after Easter. Just as with the wells drilled in African villages, supporters say every contribution makes a difference.