SHREVEPORT, La. — An Internet-fueled show of support for a 12-year-old girl killed this summer in a church-bus accident is reaching as far away as Africa, bringing clean water to impoverished children in Malawi.
More than 13,000 people have committed to one act of kindness Oct. 29. That would have been the 13th birthday of Maggie Lee Henson, who died Aug. 2 from injuries she received when the bus carrying youth from First Baptist Church, Shreveport, overturned while headed to a church camp. The accident had taken place about three weeks earlier.
Proceeds from sales of a T-shirt and charm necklace designed for the occasion will go to Watering Malawi, a ministry of the Passport youth-camping ministry that provides clean water and irrigation in the drought-plagued country of 13 million. Passport has its headquarters in Birmingham.
Maggie Lee’s father, John Henson, an associate pastor at the Shreveport church, heard Colleen Burroughs, Passport’s executive vice president, talk about Watering Malawi recently.
Burroughs, who is based in Birmingham, said she didn’t know the family had chosen to contribute funds to Watering Malawi until she read a Web site posting about it written by Maggie Lee’s mother, Jinny Henson.
“The gift of this water is as though Maggie Lee herself will be sharing cups of clean water with 13-year-old girls in Malawi,” Burroughs said. “The thought takes my breath away. It really is Living Water.”
The Shreveport youth were on their way to a Passport camp in Georgia July 12 when their bus blew a tire and overturned several times on an interstate highway near the Mississippi-Alabama state line. One youth, 14-year-old Jason Ugarte, died almost immediately.
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