Tonya Jacobs’ Fundraising Page

January 01, 2020 to December 31, 2021

I haven't always loved to run. I discovered the true joy of it after my kids were born. I didn't come to truly love it until I discovered distance running 10 years ago. One of the things that I enjoy most about it is community. If you find one other runner in a crowd and strike up a conversation with them about running, you could literally chat for hours. Believe me, I have done that. There is another aspect of running that, unless you experience it for yourself, it can be very difficult to describe, and that is the joy you experience in running for a worthy cause. Running for health, running for looking and feeling better, might be motivating for some, but when you run for a purpose greater and outside of yourself, you'll find the overwhelming sense of purpose to be astounding. For me, I haven't run a full marathon in over a year. It's been hard to find the time to invest in training between my job and my family over the past few years. There was always a good excuse to not put the time and training into anything beyond the half marathons that are easier for me to manage. But over the past 4 years I have discovered a greater purpose; a stronger motivation: I AM RUNNING TO BRING CLEAN WATER AND JESUS TO THE POKOT PEOPLE! What does that mean? The Pokot people are 1 million strong, and living in an area of Kenya that gets little to no rainfall. The water that they consume is filthy, found by walking for miles and digging into dry riverbeds. They drink water that we wouldn't water our lawns with, because they have NO CHOICE. Hope Water Project goes into these remote Pokot villages, helps them to create a water committee among the residents of the village, a well location is found and a well is dug, and for the first time in their lives the Pokot villagers drink clean, untainted water. Water that tastes fresh instead of bitter. That is life giving instead of disease causing. For each well drilled, 1000-2000 villagers and thousands of livestock are provided with clean water for 20 years. A church is also planted in the villages where each well is drilled, so that people once forced to roam for water, can now settle, prosper, and hear His Word. Help me to bring clean water and Jesus to these beautiful, resilient people. Thank you.