This past month has had me thinking a lot about water.
Approximately half of our bodies are made up of water.
Water is essential to our lives.
Only three days without it and we would die.
Living in Michigan, a State surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh water and containing so many lakes that around 45% of the State itself is water, it is easy to take water for granted.
But in many places around the world, water is a scarce commodity.
Last year, I read a book about one of the lost boys of Sudan called A Long Walk to Water.
The book follows a young boy named Salva who fled from his home in South Sudan, across the border into Ethiopia, and then down into Kenya.
As an eleven year old, he begins the perilous journey by foot across deserts and country lines. He faces lions and crocodiles. All because of a conflict over water.
Salva’s story parallels the story of a girl who has spent her life walking back and forth fetching water for her family. Two hours there, two hours back. Everyday. Twice a day.
This month, my team and I walked the seven kilometers to the nearest river one day. And, after carrying 70lbs of produce on my back from the market just a ten minute hike away, I find it hard to imagine the difficulty that women and children endure each day to provide water for their families.
When the young girl in the story was eleven, a well was built in her town that transformed her life.
The well meant she no longer had to spend her days walking, and she could go to school. The well had the power to transform her entire community.
This month, as we toured our ministry compound and I saw their well which supplies water to the community, I thought about all the opportunities it has brought with it over the past seven years.
During the tour, I had the lyrics of a Korean blessing song looped on repeat in my head:
In this dry land, living water May it flow through you, may His love be known through you To the thirsty, to the poor and weak, Well-springs of His love, May they flow through you alwaysAnd, this has been my prayer for the ministry.
I wrote it into the foundation of the learning center for disabled people we were making bricks for.
I sang it over the compound as they showed us the well they use to provide water for the community.
And, it is what I’ve hoped for each and every person who set foot on the compound.
Our first day here in Rwanda, we had to hike down to the nearest store to buy clean water after our hotel had run out. Parched from a long day of travel and low water intake, I felt weak and light headed as I lifted two five liter jugs of water and trudged back up the hill to our hotel, less than a ten minute walk away.
As my fingers groaned under the weight of the water jugs, I thought about all those who long for water, who earnestly seek it. People who are willing to walk hours for it.
As I’ve been reflecting on the importance of water, I’ve grown to appreciate the metaphor Jesus uses to describe himself: as living water.
The analogy carries a new weight to it. Jesus is just as essential as water to our lives.
Are we earnestly seeking after Him?
Psalm 63:1
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
