By Kari Costanza

The community of Lelan, in Kenya’s Northern Rift Valley, was green, hilly, and wet with rain. The Muruny River supplied plentiful water for its people. But the valley below was dry and getting water was a daily nightmare, consuming both time and dreams. Then, a miracle happened.

It began in 1996 with World Vision’s long-term development project for the Pokot people, farmers, and livestock herders in the Cheperaria valley of western Kenya. Initially, staff helped the community with education programs. Life improved for the Pokot people, but one thing still stood in the way of community transformation: a lack of water.

“[With] no water in the schools and none in the community, it really jeopardized our efforts,” says Priscillah, World Vision’s sponsorship coordinator. Other agencies had tried water projects that failed, “so people were apathetic,” says David King’oo, a World Vision water engineer.

World Vision set out to address how to get water from the Muruny River in Lelan to the valley below. David knew that finding solutions would be difficult, so the first thing he did was pray. He came up with a plan to build a concrete dam that would direct water from the Muruny River into a massive system of pipes carrying water to the valley.

The work began in September 2007. It took one year to complete a two-mile underground section of pipe. Workers carried and sunk 300 pipes into the earth