A church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gave an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a much needed gift: a filtration system that will provide clean water for the orphanage’s children and staff.

The filtration system replaces the defective well that My Father’s House orphanage had been using. Often, especially when it rained, the color of the water from that well turned brown, says Pastor Prédestin Pierre Hérard. Hérard is director of the orphanage and president of the Association of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Haiti, which partners with My Father’s House.

Concerned about the quality of the water, Hérard asked friends to pray for the provision of a water filtration system. “God answered our prayers,” he says.

Desert Hills Baptist Church in Albuquerque purchased a high-quality water desalination/purification station that would produce 500 gallons of pure water a day, straight from the ocean if necessary. In addition, the church committed to provide all filters, maintenance, and other necessities in the future. The energy requirements to run the system had already been made available, “thanks to others with like passion,” says Pastor Kirk Wesselink.

“Our church has made a heart commitment to give all the resources we can muster to assist national pastors and leaders to reach their people for Christ,” Wesselink says. “We opened our church coffers to the Haitians after the earthquake of 2010. We refused to spend a dollar on our own church building program without setting aside one for church buildings in Haiti. Fifty thousand dollars into it, we knew there would be no going back.”

Desert Hills Baptist Church now supports two churches in Haiti in addition to My Father’s House.

“Our church’s financial decisions are now consistently laced with a simple mentality: before we spend this dollar on ourselves, have we taken care of these others?”