Todd Luke — October 2023 Update

Thank you for your prayers and continued support! In 2023, we built twenty-eight family-owned cisterns — seven in the village of Castilla Brito, eight in Tres Huastecas, twelve in Cristobal Colon, and one cistern in Xpujil. We have now built 667 cisterns that capture, store, and dispense more than 7,000,000 gallons of rainwater per year. That’s over 12,000 gallons per family-owned cistern.

Mission teams from Colorado, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina grabbed buckets, wheelbarrows, and shovels to significantly lighten the load for our local partners.

Todd Luke — March 2023 Update

In January and February, our little partnership built seven cisterns for seven young families in the village of Castilla Brito. That’s where our cistern ministry began back in 2002. Not surprisingly, we share a bit of history with our newest cistern owners. Most of them grew up drinking rainwater from cisterns we built with their parents a long time ago. Those kids grew up, got married, had kids, and built their own homes. Like their parents before them, they need a year-round water source to keep their families healthy.

Todd Luke — July 2022 Update

Thank you for the prayers, gifts, and hands-on participation that have made 2022 a very good year.

Cisterns Built in 2022
March
Four cisterns in the Village of Felipe Angeles. It was our first time building there. We worked side by side with fantastic families who love the Lord and will not hesitate to break a sweat and get their hands dirty.

May
Four cisterns in the town of Xpujil for four families who live beyond the reach of the town’s water works system that only distributes water about once a week (if that).

Todd Luke - December 2021 Update

“Lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great”

Many water projects build or deliver the infrastructure and then give it to the poor. Our cistern ministry takes a different approach. In Mexico, projects that give away materials and infrastructure tend to have an overall negative impact. In search of better outcomes, we trust skin-in-the-game partnerships between families, neighbors, and communities to solve the clean water problem in our region.

Todd Luke - September 2021 Update

Dear friends,

The 2021 cistern building season is over. We thank God for working through our American and Mexican partners to bring year-round rainwater access to hundreds of families in our neck of the subtropical jungle. Thank you for your prayers, time, and support of all kinds. In 2022, we will build cisterns with as many new families as the generosity of our American partners will allow. $2,200 for one family-owned rainwater catchment tank which can collect, store, and distribute up to 15,000 gallons a year for decades is a solid, long-term investment. As a testament to that, I share with you the following:

36 Cisterns Built in 2021 – 609 Cisterns Built Since 2002

Thirty-six family-owned cisterns were built this year: 8 in Carmen Dos, 8 in Unidad y Trabajo, 8 in Caña Brava, and 12 in Quiché Las Pailas. That brings our grand total to 609. Our Mexican cistern-building partners continue to lead the way.

Global Workers, Missionaries, Latin AmericaThe Outreach FoundationSeptember 10, 2021Todd Luke, Todd and Maria Luke, Mexico

Todd Luke - February 2021 Update

Mexico

Dear friends,

Our partners in Mexico are very busy even though we do not plan to send American mission groups to build cisterns this year. Victor, Raul, and Isaias are leading a team that will work with at least twenty-two families to build twenty-two family-owned cisterns during the next couple of months. Generous financial support from our American church and family partners makes this possible. We hope to build up to forty cisterns in 2021, but that number depends on the response we receive from our American partners.

We are also doing something new and exciting. In addition to the many support tasks he already performs to support the cistern process, our associate in Xpujil, Felipe Torres now leads a small crew that visits each of our cistern partners who have repaid at least $2,000 pesos of their cistern materials loan. The purpose of the house call is to:

Todd Luke - December 2020 Update

Dear friends,

Maria and I traveled to Xpujil in October. I returned to the Chicago area a week later. Maria will continue to work there until December 10. She has plenty to do. I will be back in Xpujil to meet with all our cistern owner partners after Thanksgiving. A snapshot of the week follows below. But first, I will share a portion of a thought that kept coming to mind during my first visit to Xpujil since the pandemic began.

Work

All over the Calakmul region, entire families work so hard, trying to survive. By God’s grace, humans can work and bring in the harvest. He cares for his creation, in part, through human labor. After God created the heavens, our planet, and humans in his own image; he gave us the task to fill the earth, subdue it, wisely govern its creatures, cultivate the soil, and care for it. Work is not a necessary evil. It’s a valuable part of God’s health plan for us and all of creation. As we consider how to help the poor, the weak, the widow, the orphan, the alien, the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner, the old, and the sick—we do well to be mindful of work’s sacred origin. Whether we go to Xpujil in person or contribute a portion of the fruit of our labor so that others can work together for God’s sake to build cisterns, God uses work to bring health to individuals, families, and communities. As we labor, it is altogether reasonable to constantly thank and praise God for the opportunity to do so. For as great as work can be, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Todd Luke - April 2020 Update

Note from Outreach: Even during these unsettling times, Outreach partners continue sharing God’s love around the world. We received this update from Todd Luke in Mexico:

Dear friends, We had a great January and February. At the request of over a dozen families, we took our cistern building ministry to the village of Guillermo Prieto—an eighty-minute drive south of Xpujil.

We built fourteen cisterns with fourteen local families. But COVID-19 forced us to cancel a mission team scheduled to arrive on March 21.

Missionaries, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationApril 15, 2020Todd Luke, Mexico

Todd Luke - December 2019 Update

Dear friends,

Every year Victor, Felipe, and I drive from village to village to meet with our cistern owner partners. This year, these visits are in early December. Hundreds of men and women from a couple of dozen villages will tell us about the state of their rainwater catchment systems and pay back a portion of what they owe for the building materials. Not only cistern owners attend these gatherings. Families without cisterns often come to ask how to join this movement. We meet in churches, town halls, basketball courts, streets, and front yards. We do business at tables, benches, and the hood of my car. Flashlights required. The December visits add new strands to and reinforce the existing fibers of our partnership web.

N&Ctrl America Caribbean, MissionariesThe Outreach FoundationDecember 18, 2019Todd Luke, Mexico

Partner Updates

Mexico