Run With Purpose: A Letter of Hope

Today I am coming to with a heavy and optimistic heart and hope you have a couple minutes to open yours with me.

Grab a cup of coffee (or whatever you’d like) and let’s chat for a minute…

Run With Purpose: A Letter of Hope

Dear friends,

I will be running my second half marathon race October 19th.

In a little over a week (ahh!), I will literally be crossing international waters and the border to run in the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon over the bridge to Canada and back, all in a matter of hours! Pretty neat, right?

What really got me motivated to hop back on the long distance training and racing horse, however, is something pretty special.

Scott and I have finally found a church we can call home up here in Michigan. It’s called Kensington, and there are several campuses in our area as well as in our hometown of Orlando. (<- Who knew?)

What I’m about to share means a great deal to me, and is only one of the reasons we feel a calling to be a part of what this community is all about.

Running with Team Kensington

Since 2004, Team Kensington has been partnering up with Hope Water Project for the Detroit Marathon to provide clean water and hope for the Pokot tribe in Kenya.

Who are the Pokot and why are we helping them?

If you have some tissues ready, watch the video that explains it all.

(Hope Water Project on Vimeo)

Directly from the Kensington website:

“The Pokot are beautiful, hospitable, and resilient people in Western Kenya. They are also extremely impoverished, neglected, and marginalized; which is why we’re coming to investing in their lives. Over the past eleven years, we’ve entered into a partnership with the Pokot to provide Hope – one clean water well at a time.”

Why water? 

“Ultimately, clean water provides hope for a new future. Water is our most basic and vital need in life. Without it, nothing can happen. Nothing can grow. But with it, everything changes. Clean water quenches thirst – but is also restores health. With access to clean water, life can be given back to a community.”

Access to clean water is something I and most of you reading this take for granted every single day.

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For the people living in this community, getting clean water is a part of their every day struggle.

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Next weekend, I am running with a purpose of Hope, not just for clean water, but for new lives.

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The goal is to raise money to create as many new wells as we can.

Since 2004, Kensington has helped dig 56 deep-water wells in Africa, and now we want to supply safe water to the one million Pokot people living in Northwest Kenya! With the drilling of each well, villages have grown, lives have been saved, and communities have been formed.

Hope Water Project exists to provide hope revealed through clean water.

So what can WE do?

It’s incredible to even have a starting place figured out.

Through the amazing community we have come to find at Kensington, there IS somewhere to start and something to do.

Hearing and seeing the video interviews of runners (<- still have those tissues handy?) and church members from last year’s Detroit Marathon tugged on my heart strings. Hard.

I signed up for the Half Marathon that equals running the distance of 13.1 miles. My goal is to eventually run the full Marathon (26.2) and every time I watch these videos I get one step closer to signing up for it the next year.

Here‘s a glimpse into what race day will look like for us. I get chills every time I think about it.

I run, and I love to do it for all different reasons, but now I am running for one specific purpose. Alongside my best friend, Alex, I will be running with Team Kensington to raise money and awareness for the Pokot Tribe.

Alex has never run this kind of distance before, so I have been coaching and training right along side her.

If you’re interested in following our training journey, you can pop over to the Half-Marathon Training tag!

Last year, Team Kensington raised $1,013,716 in fundraising, which is enough to dig forty new wells! This year, the goal is to raise enough for fifty. I have a personal goal to raise $1,000 for this project, and am throwing my profile page out to you guys.

At the moment, it’s only cracked the surface into my goal and I really want to raise as much as I can! (A HUGE thank you and virtual hugs to those who have already donated!)

Any dollar amount makes a difference, so if you feel called to become a sponsor and help me reach my goal, you can donate online. Any amount big or small is greatly appreciated!

In the mean time, I’ll be training. A lot. With a schedule of running 4 times a week including a long training run on the weekend, it isn’t always easy to get out there.

Anytime I need some motivation, I watch the videos I shared with you above and suck it up. Wouldn’t you?

Thank you all for taking a couple of minutes out of your day to read this and also for considering helping me in making a huge difference in peoples’ lives across the world.

Here is my direct link, just in case it’s easier to find this way. <3

https://www.hopewaterproject.org/default.aspx?page=3896&person=4039

Love and appreciate you all,

Heather