In Chilliwack, clean water is a given, but in Nigeria, it's a luxury.
Most villages don't have clean water. Women and children have to walk for hours every day to obtain water from rivers that people also bathe in, wash their clothes and motorcycles, even defecate in.
"It's really bad, infants are dying, hundreds and hundreds of villages are without water," said Steve Anderson of The Wanted Children Foundation.
And the water they do have, "it's green, milky, slow-moving water. It's full of microbes, guinea worm, hookworm.
"Eighty per cent of the sickness that hits children out there would be gone if they could just get clean water," said Anderson.
A local church fundraiser is striving to make that happen.
Broadway Church has partnered with The Wanted Children Foundation to raise enough funds to purchase a water rig for the foundation to start drilling wells in Nigeria.
Every year Broadway Church selects a global cause to raise funds for over the holiday season. They've sent a teenager in a third-world village to university, have built schools and homes, and have rebuilt churches in disaster regions. This year, it's water well drilling.
"We want to drill wells in villages that have no water," said Anderson.
The organization is close to achieving that goal.
This summer Anderson and his daughter Courtney, founder of The Wanted Children Foundation,
went to Nigeria where they reorganized and consolidated the non-profit's focus.
Top of the list is providing villages with clean water.
They met with high-ranking officials, grand chiefs, dignitaries, royalty, secret service, and the minister of water resources.
"We're moving into a new chapter, a new era," said Anderson. "within two years, we hope to have the ability to drill wells as a team."
But first they need to purchase a water rig.
Because Nigeria has no surface water that can be purified, clean water can only be found "by going into the ground," said Anderson.
The foundation expects the water rig to cost $70,000, which includes retrofitting and shipping to Nigeria.
The Broadway Church fundraiser, which runs through the month of December, is getting the organization closer to achieving that goal.