Bigfork and Kipalapala Village in Tanzania are small towns located more than 8,000 miles apart, and aside from their size, they don’t have a lot in common. Even so, members of the local Montana community are finding connections to the impoverished African village with a new initiative that aims to help bring clean water to the people of Kipalapala.

Last November, Kipalapala native Father Nicetas Msinge came to Bigfork to serve as the pastor of St. John Paul II Church. When community members learned about Msinge’s friends and family back in Kipalapala — where there is essentially no access to clean water among the 1,500-person village — they endeavored to pool their resources to help out.

Longtime Bigfork resident Caroline Solomon partnered with fellow Bigfork resident Vicky Creamer to start “Friends of Father Nicetas,” a fundraiser to install a well in Kipalapala. Creamer’s nephew, Doc Hendley, will drill the well with his nonprofit, Wine to Water, which he started after living with the Creamers in Bigfork and learning about the plight of Third World countries through a trip to Sudan.

“There are no permanent wells like here in Bigfork,” Msinge said of his hometown, located in the Tabora region of Tanzania. The savannah climate there receives precious little rainfall, plaguing the small town with a persistent drought. Most of the villagers, who have little to no education, work as subsistence farmers, but the dry weather makes for a meager living. Women and children walk two to three miles every day to gather water from a natural pooling place, but he pointed out this access point is not clean or safe to use.

“My people are dying and people here have more than what they need,” he lamented. “I need to help my people.”

Fortunately, Msinge has the support of the Bigfork community. When Solomon heard about Msinge’s plight — including his aging mother who still lives in the village after his father died of typhoid fever — she realized she had the connections to do something to help her priest and his loved ones. She contacted Creamer about enlisting the help of her well-drilling nephew, and by the next morning, Solomon said, “we were up and running.”

The effort quickly expanded beyond the church community to the greater Bigfork area. Solomon reported “Friends of Father Msinge” has raised about 40% of its $30,000 goal, the amount Wine to Water estimates it will need to construct the well in Kipalapala. They are currently holding a big advertising push until July 17, and once the funds are raised it should take approximately 12 to 18 months to put the well into place.

To be fully effective, the effort will require negotiation with local leaders, land surveying, installing water filters in each household, protecting the well from animals to avoid contamination, and education about hygiene.

“You just don’t drill a well,” Solomon explained.

Msinge agreed with this assessment. His father had always championed education, which allowed him to receive his training and ordination as a Catholic priest. Now, he donates gifts from the church to support the education of girls in the village and he hopes the new partnership with the Bigfork community will provide an avenue to increase education for his people.

But first, the Friends of Father Nicetas needs to reach its fundraising goal.

Msinge said he’s been overwhelmed with the blessings available in Bigfork, although the native of an Equator-based town is still getting used to snow in wintertime.

“I’m so blessed by God,” he insisted. “Here, you have more than what you need … when you go to my village, you will cry.”

He will serve as a pastor in Bigfork for at least the next three years, with the possibility to extend his service at the end of the current term. In that time, he and his local counterparts hope the Bigfork community will be able to have a big impact back in Kipalapala.

“People are just fascinated that little Bigfork here is doing this,” Solomon said.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at bserbin@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4459.