Despair lurks near. I must keep my guard up. My children need me. When I was a child, I thought this could never happen to me. To my children. How naïve I was.
I thought there would be somewhere to run, somewhere to go, someone to help. But my friends, my neighbors…their children are dying too. I wonder if my eyes show my story as their eyes show theirs.
Each day, as I go to the pool I see her there, my friend Sasha. We don’t speak, but we linger as we wait.
For what we wait, I do not know. There is no one to stop us. We want, we pray, for someone to stop us. There’s no clean water here and praying did not stop Sasha’s babies from dying. She is mostly silent now. I miss her laugh.
With a quiet sigh, I take the first step. She follows, knowing that we must provide water for our families. She doesn’t know how sick my children, whom she loves dearly, really are. I don’t have the heart to tell her. Instead I must believe, no matter how hopeless, that there is someone out there, up there, to hear my prayers.
The preceding story is fictional, but the need for clean water is universal. Each year, if safe drinking water were available, 2.2 million children’s deaths could be prevented. The Water4 foundation is dedicated to help by digging wells—using hand-drilling technology, low-tech drill kits, and training. They also desire to produce jobs for nationals by training them to dig wells. When a well is dug, the equipment can be moved to the next location. Thus, they can reach remote, rural areas with water.
God created us to have a need for water. When it is absent, or polluted, we suffer. Those are the facts. He also called us to share His living water—the water that never fails. How can we share that spiritual water with those who are dying and those whose children are dying from lack of safe drinking water? By first providing for physical needs, we open the door to sharing about the spiritual well that never runs dry.
Water4 shows God’s love by providing water, which prepares hearts for the Gospel message. They have partnered with World Vision, which has a strong evangelistic emphasis. Together they meet mankind’s need for physical and spiritual water.
There are many who, as in the above story, suffer silently—with only God to hear their cries. But He does hear. Like the story’s narrator, I want to hear Sasha laugh again. That can only happen if families have access to clean drinking water. Prayerfully consider supporting Water4, a foundation that understands that eternal life can spring from a simple cup of water.
“For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” Mark 9:41 (NKJV)
Joanna's Words 