Marion Medical Mission (MMM) is an ecumenical, Christian, front-line, hands-on, volunteer, nonprofit organization. Our purpose is to share the love of Christ with the extreme poor in Africa. We do this through the Well Program by providing a sustainable source of safe drinking water while working hand in hand in a horizontal relationship with our African partners.
Since 1990, MMM has provided over 5 million of the extreme poor (3 million of whom are children) with a sustainable source of safe drinking water. A Marion Medical Mission well costs only $475. To build a well, the village makes the brick and provides the sand and stone and unskilled labor. MMM supplies only what the villages cannot: the cement, Mark V galvanized steel pump, PVC pipe, and skilled African well builders. Subsistence farmers who are well maintenance people make the Mark V galvanized steel pumps in 3 workshops (one in Malawi, one in Zambia, and one in Tanzania). Sustainability is the key to the program’s success. A Marion Medical Mission well is a well the extreme rural poor know how to maintain and can afford to maintain.
• Safe drinking water means children won’t die from waterborne diseases. Not just the year the well is built, but the next year, and the next year, and the next year…
• Safe drinking water means healthier people who work longer in their fields producing more food, and that means less starvation. Not just the year the well was built, but the next year, and the next year…
• An MMM well means the children can attend school.
• At each and every well the village people are told their well is special because Christians in the United States shared the love of Jesus with them. What do these people think of Christianity and what do they think of the United States? Sharing the love of Jesus is the best defense against war and terror.
• 100% of all designated donations go to their designated purposes.
• 100% of all undesignated donations go to the mission field in Africa
• No overhead or administrative costs are deducted.
• MMM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-deductible corporation.
• For each $475 well donation, MMM sends the donor a picture of the specific well(s) their funds built
MMM wells are technologically appropriate and can be built in the most remote areas. The extreme poor can afford to maintain their well for approximately $10 a year. This provides the needed spare parts and the trained village maintenance person. The village Well Committee inspects their well weekly.
MMM’s infrastructure on the ground in Africa is superb. There are four Well Programs each run by an African Coordinator. Two in Malawi, one in Zambia, and one in Tanzania. There are 21 African Field Officers, 104 African Installation Supervisors, 1,100 certified African well builders, and 4,000 trained village maintenance people. Our program covers roughly 60,000 sq. miles in Northern and Central Malawi, Southwestern Tanzania, Eastern Zambia, and Northwestern Mozambique.
MMM projects are done in partnership with our sister churches: The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, the Synods of Livingstonia and Nkhoma in Malawi, and the Synod of Zambia in Zambia. In Tanzania, we work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, the Konde and Iringa Dioceses.
Every year, U.S. volunteers pay their living expenses and travel expenses to and from Africa. Volunteers work directly with those who benefit from our projects in Africa. They personally travel, personally audit, and personally work hand in hand with God’s people.
UNICEF reports 4,000 children worldwide die each day because of unsafe drinking water. Over 90 million people in the rural areas of Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique lack access to safe drinking water. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the largest source of disease is from unsafe drinking water. The average distance a woman in Africa walks to collect water is 6 kilometers or 3.7 miles. Half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from a water-related disease. Providing nothing other than access to clean water, without any other medical intervention, could save 2 million lives a year.
MMM projects directly impact the African people and stress self-help and sustainability. Everything is purchased, manufactured, maintained and administered in Africa by Africans.
To learn more, go to www.mmmwater.org.
After graduating high school, Tom Logan, Founder and President of Marion Medical Mission, spent time hitchhiking through Africa. His father, a Presbyterian pastor had previously traveled to countries such as India, Japan, and Africa (where he met Albert Schweitzer). During Tom’s travels, he found his way to Schweitzer, as well, and through the help of an interpreter (Schweitzer only spoke German and French), worked alongside him in the leper colonies. Because of Schweitzer’s reputation in Africa, Tom’s relationship with him allowed him to safely complete his travels before returning home.
Tom writes: “After graduating from highschool in 1961, at age 18, I took a solo hitchhiking trek through Africa (Ghana, Cameroun, Gabon, South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya, Ethiopia). I spent two months with Dr. Albert Schweitzer at his hospital and leper colony in Lambaréné, Gabon.
Albert Schweitzer (January 14, 1875 – September 4, 1965) was a theologian, organist, musicologist, author, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize “for his altruism philosophy, “Reverence for Life”, and tireless humanitarian work which helped make the idea of brotherhood between men and nations a living one.” He used the money from the prize to build the Lambaréné leper colony. Leprosy is a terrifying disease causing severe and disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage commonly resulting in fingers and toes to rot and fall off. Schweitzer’s philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. When I met Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, he was 86 years old, yet his spirit of love was a light you could see.”
An introduction to his book When You Pray, Move Your Feet, states that when “Ethiopia was devastated by famine in 1985, Tom and his wife, Jocelyn, were dismayed to find that 40 percent of the contribution they’d made to a large charity had gone to overhead for the organization. Feeling that there had to be a better way to get aid directly to people in need, Tom went back to Africa himself.” This ultimately led to the creation of sustainable water wells through Marion Medical Mission in 1985.
Tom’s work in social justice is not limited to the Marion Medical Mission. He has also worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in voter registration drives, spent time with Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem, and worked in a Kibbutz in Israel. In the 1970s, he developed and built low income housing projects in 10 southern Illinois towns.
Today, Tom and Jocelyn continue to work in partnership to meet the needs of some of the most marginalized people while preserving their dignity. To learn more, go to www.mmmwater.org.
