No.11

We Can Drink Beautiful Clean Water Every Day! The Completion of the First Session of Digging a Financed Well. by Koyasan Shingon-shu International Exchange Center "To Cambodia, a well. To its children, a smile." July 1995 saw the opening of a Buddhist school in the temple in Unarum, Cambodia; it was at the time that the officiating General Manager of Koyasan, Yusei Arai, visited there. He noticed that the children had reddish hair and simply asked, "Why is your hair reddish colored?" "It's because the water is bad. In this area we collect rain water and drink muddy water, " the children replied. A Cambodian boy drawing water from the well. Upon returning to Japan, he immediately started a movement to sponsor a well for the temple and school. The Koyasan Shingon-shu International Exchange Center called the project "The Cambodian Education's Financial Sponsoring Movement for Digging a Well." (This was the first session of the dig.) They started digging for a well with a fund of $56,800. Since there is no electricity available in this area, we opted to make wells that draw water with manual pumps. It was our desire to construct as many well sites as possible, that the wells may bring to the children pure water. With the mutual collaboration of Japanese priests, contributors, Cambodian priests and others, the first session of the construction was brought to completion in May 1996.

Koyasan Shingon-shu Recent Major Missionary Activities November 10th - 20th, 1995 Visitations of missionary sites, celebrating 60 years of missionary work in South America. 11/11: Ceremony of 60th anniversary of South American Missions 11/12: Ceremony of 40th anniversary of Kongo-ji, Suzzano City May 19th - 26th, 1996 Visit to Sekiganchin, China 5/21: Ceremony of Kobo Daishi's (Kukai's) visit to China Ceremony at the Memorial Hall of Kobo Daishi. May 1996 Completion of the first session of digging a financed well in Cambodia. March 4th - 11th, 1997 Convention on Hawaii Shingon-shu and Koyasan Shingon-shu May 19th - 26th, 1997 Visit to Sekiganchin, China May 30, 1997 Kongoko (Vajra Dance) and Shomyo (Buddhist Chanting) at Carnegie Hall, New York

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