The Samson Project Series #4

After completing our first two projects, something in me shifted. The work no longer felt like an experiment or a tentative step into unfamiliar territory. It felt like a calling, one that was beginning to take shape with every mile traveled, every conversation held, every community visited. Those early projects didn’t just give us clean water points; they gave us clarity. They showed us what was possible, and just as importantly, what wasn’t. Over the next two years, we completed 11 more projects — 4 in 2019 and 7 in 2020. Each one carried its own story, its own set of obstacles, its own small victories, and each of these projects was completed in locations where Samson had a personal connection or influence.

In those early days, Samson’s relationships were our compass. He knew the people, the terrain, the unspoken rules. His connections opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed. And for a time, that was enough, but Nigeria is massive, and a personal connection across the country is impossible, and need alone is not enough to guide that decision. Nearly every visit, conversation, and survey revealed real hardship. If we had relied only on emotion, we could have been pulled in a dozen directions at once. We needed a way to think clearly about impact, feasibility, stewardship, and long-term sustainability. So, over time, we developed a set of practical criteria—not as a cold formula, but as a disciplined way to honor both the communities we hoped to serve and the responsibility that came with limited resources.

The first and most obvious question was whether a community already had meaningful access to clean water. If people could reach a functioning safe and clean water source within a short distance—roughly a quarter kilometer—then, however imperfect their situation might be, they were not our highest priority. Streams, rivers, swamps, and other untreated surface sources were not clean and therefore did not count. The goal was not simply to place boreholes where water was absent, in the broadest sense, but to focus on communities where the absence of truly safe, dependable access was shaping daily life in avoidable, damaging ways.

We also had to ask whether a borehole in that location would meaningfully improve security, safety, and health. Clean water is never just about thirst. In many communities, it affects how far women and children must travel, the risks they face on the journey, which illnesses become common, and how much time is lost to obtain what should be basic. We gave priority to places where those shortfalls were severe, because that is where clean water could produce the clearest and most immediate improvement in everyday life. At the same time, we looked for opportunities where one project could create a broader range of benefits. If a borehole could serve not only one village but also neighboring communities, the impact would be multiplied. With finite funds and limited capacity, it made sense to favor projects with reach beyond a single point on the map.

Practicality mattered too. However compelling the need, a site had to be accessible enough for construction crews to reach it and for future maintenance to remain realistic. We understood that occasional exceptions might be warranted for especially underserved remote communities, but, in general, extreme inaccessibility increased the likelihood that a good project could become unsustainable. The same was true beneath the surface. Favorable geology matters in borehole work. If the local formations were known to be unusually difficult to penetrate, or if survey data suggested poor odds of finding a strong and sustainable supply, we had to proceed cautiously or walk away. Hope is not a drilling strategy. Community surveys and technical indicators needed to point toward a meaningful likelihood of success, and the expected capacity had to exceed anticipated demand. A borehole that cannot meet the needs of the people it serves is not a solution; it is a disappointment with concrete around it.

Just as important were the social and political realities surrounding a project. We avoided communities where the introduction of new water infrastructure could aggravate existing tensions or unresolved conflict. Even a well-intended project can become a flashpoint if people perceive it as favoring one group over another or disrupting a fragile balance. We also considered whether a community had been historically overlooked by government investment. Where public water infrastructure had never materialized, the need was often deeper and the opportunity for meaningful intervention more compelling. But need alone was not enough. A community also needed leadership—people with the credibility, responsibility, and accountability required to manage the borehole after installation. From the beginning, we understood that the community itself would be responsible for basic stewardship and minor maintenance. Without an existing leadership structure capable of carrying that responsibility, even a successful installation could fail over time.

Finally, we had to consider whether a project might create avoidable conflict with local, state, federal, or traditional authorities. A borehole is a practical intervention, but it never exists outside the web of politics, jurisdiction, and local influence. If we had reason to believe that construction would trigger government resistance or institutional tension, we treated that as a serious warning sign. In the end, selecting a community was never about finding the most dramatic story or responding to the most urgent plea. It was about identifying the place where need, feasibility, leadership, and long-term viability converged. That discipline mattered because every borehole represented more than a charitable gesture. It was a promise—and we wanted to make promises we could keep.

What began as scattered insights slowly became a coherent framework, which then became a policy. Not a bureaucratic document, but a living guide — the protocol we would use to vet every potential water project location moving forward. It arrived just in time, because as word spread about the projects we had completed, the requests began pouring in. At first, it was a trickle — a village elder asking if we could visit his community, a pastor calling on behalf of a congregation, a local official hoping we might consider a nearby settlement. But soon the trickle became a flood. Entire regions were reaching out. Every message carried the same plea: Come here. Bring clean water. Help us next.

It was overwhelming in a way that felt both humbling and heartbreaking. Each request represented real people, real hardship, real need. And without a clear process, we risked being guided not by strategy, but by whoever asked the loudest or reached us first. That wasn’t stewardship. That wasn’t sustainable. And it wasn’t fair.

The policy changed that. It gave us a way to listen without being swept away. A way to honor every request without making promises we couldn’t keep—a way to choose with intention rather than emotion. Most importantly, it allowed us to move forward with integrity, ensuring that every project we accepted was one we could stand behind, support, and sustain for years to come. In a season when the demand for help was growing faster than our capacity to meet it, that framework became our anchor. It didn’t make the decisions easier, but it made them wiser. And in this work, wisdom often makes the difference between a project that lasts and one that fails.

We had a plan, a process, a policy, then came 2020, and everything changed.

The Quiet Strength of Partnership

Some years pass quietly, slipping into memory without leaving much behind. And then some years carve themselves into you, years that demand to be remembered. For most who lived through it, 2020 was one of those years. 2020 was the year the world shifted. Borders closed. Streets emptied. Fear became a global language. Every assumption we had about how the year would unfold evaporated almost overnight. And yet, somehow, in the middle of all that uncertainty, our work accelerated, we completed 7 projects in 2020 and 11 in 2021.

Even now, when I say that number out loud, it feels unreal. Not because the work was impossible, we had done hard things before — but because everything around us was stacked against progress. Supply chains were disrupted. Travel was restricted. Communities were struggling. And our own team was navigating the same anxieties everyone else was facing. But the work didn’t stop. And the reason it didn’t stop is simple: we had a process, and we weren’t doing it alone. People often imagine progress as a straight line, a leader with a vision, a team that executes, and a result that follows. But real progress, the kind that lasts, is rarely that clean. It’s messy. It’s slow. It’s built on conversations, misunderstandings, corrections, and the willingness to keep showing up.

By 2020, our partnership with CFF had matured into something steady and dependable. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t loud. But it was consistent, and consistency is a kind of power. Everyone involved understood their role. Not because we held long meetings or wrote perfect manuals, but because we had lived through enough challenges together to know what was expected. Donors trusted us. Field teams trusted each other. Communities trusted the process. And trust, I learned, is the real currency of development work. When the world felt like it was unraveling, our partnership held.

Up until that point, I thought I was more important to the mission than I really was. After completing the first two projects, I returned to Nigeria every six months or so to check on the work, encourage the teams, meet with communities, and provide the kind of oversight that made me feel useful. Then travel restrictions stopped me in my tracks. I could not board a plane. I could not stand beside Samson in the field. I could not put my own eyes on every project site or reassure myself that things were moving the way they should. At first, that felt like a loss of control. In time, it became a gift, because it revealed the strength of what we had built.

The work did not depend on my physical presence in the way I had imagined. CFF continued leading on the ground. Communities continued engaging. Contractors continued working. Reports, photos, calls, receipts, and follow-up conversations became the bridge between continents. That season humbled me. It reminded me that if a mission only works when the founder is in the room, then the mission is too fragile. Real partnership should outgrow the ego of any one person. In 2020, I learned that our model was stronger than my need to supervise it in person.

That did not mean the year was easy. Every project carried new complications. Supplies were harder to obtain. Communication took more patience. Decisions that once happened across a table now happened across time zones, bad connections, and uncertain timelines. But the discipline we had been building, the community selection policy, the division of responsibilities, the reporting process, the insistence on local leadership gave us something steady to stand on. What had once felt like administrative work suddenly became essential infrastructure. The policies were not paperwork anymore. They were rails keeping the mission moving when the road disappeared.

A New Understanding of Leadership

Like so many experiences connected to Nigeria and the water projects, the COVID-related travel restrictions changed me. Until then, I had led most naturally from the front—showing up in person, encouraging teams on the ground, meeting communities face-to-face, and helping carry the visible weight of the work. I believed I understood how to guide people from a distance, but the pandemic exposed how much I still had to learn. Leadership, I discovered, is not proven by constant presence. It is proven by whether the people, values, and systems around you can keep moving when you are not there. When the mission continued to thrive without me physically present, I began to see leadership differently. I had to move beyond personal involvement as proof of value and learn to trust systems, outcomes, and people more deeply than before.

I had always trusted Samson as a man and as a leader, but I eventually realized that much of my confidence had stopped with him personally. What 2020 and the years that followed showed me was bigger than one gifted partner. I saw empowered teams work. I saw clear processes hold. I saw local leadership carry the mission forward with discipline, creativity, and accountability even when I could not be there to observe every step. That became one of the clearest leadership lessons of that season: trust cannot remain concentrated in one person, no matter how capable that person may be. It must spread into teams, practices, decisions, and shared responsibility. By 2022, we had completed nine more projects, bringing our total to thirty-three, an extraordinary milestone when I considered how small and uncertain our beginning had been only a few years earlier. If we were going to continue scaling responsibly, I needed to grow as a leader too. I had to become more competent at delegation, building trust without constant proximity, empowering others without withdrawing responsibility, and measuring progress by outcomes rather than by my own presence.

I returned to Nigeria in August 2022 with those lessons still unfolding in me. During that trip, I visited twenty borehole project sites, most of them completed during the travel restrictions and none of which I had previously seen in person. The trip was not simply a return to the field; it was a return with new eyes. I was no longer coming only to inspect, encourage, or reassure myself that the work was still moving. I was coming to listen more carefully to the systems we had built, observe how CFF was leading, understand what responsible expansion required, and test whether my own leadership could mature alongside the mission. The work had outgrown the early days of improvisation, and I had to outgrow them too. If we were going to keep expanding, I had to let the model prove itself beyond my direct control. I had to become comfortable leading in a way that multiplied others instead of centering myself, offered accountability without control, and trusted that shared ownership was not a threat to the mission but the very thing that would allow it to last.

Looking back, I count the experiences of 2020 as a blessing. What first felt like a loss of control became a lesson in mature partnership. Without that season, I might not have learned that true leadership is less about being seen at the center and more about building people, systems, and shared responsibility strong enough to carry the work forward. That realization prepared me for the next lesson: building boreholes was only the beginning; keeping them alive would require an even deeper commitment to maintenance, stewardship, and long-term consistency.