Life and water. Water and Life. One is necessary for the
other. Biology teaches us that water is the fundamental building block all
life. Cultures throughout history have long associated water with the creation
of the universe, life, and mankind.
It’s not hard to see why. Behind oxygen, it is the single
most needed resource in the world. Everywhere in the world people go to great lengths
to ensure an adequate supply of water for their purposes. We dig for water and
drill for water. We buy it and sell it. We build pipes, reservoirs, farms,
purifiers, and pumping plants all to bring us the water we so desperately need.
In Tanzania, water is plentiful in most places. Near Mwanza, Lake Victoria stands as the
second largest fresh body of water in the world. The rainy seasons bring plentiful waters to
the country, to people’s farms, wells, and lives.
Unfortunately, it’s a case of “Water, water, everywhere, but
not a drop to drink.” Though there is plenty of water in most places, water
that is safe to drink is not so easily available. The village of Nyakasanga, in
the Misungwi district outside of Mwanza is within walking distance of the vast
Lake Victoria. However, even though the water is fresh, it’s not safe to drink.
Disease, impurities, and sometimes even dangerous wildlife inhabit the lake.

Apart from the lake, people are required to gather water
from stagnant pools or shallow wells that gather water that isn’t much better
than that in the lake.
For the people of Nyakasanga, what they need is clean water,
water that brings life.
Jonathan Barbee brought a team in of people from Olive Grove
Baptist Church to bring two things to the people of Nyakasanga. The first
things they brought were water filters. These filters will allow families to
have clean water for years to come. With a little basic care, the filters will
provide countless gallons of water, free from disease and impurity. To those of
us living in developed parts of the world, this doesn’t seem like such an
important thing, but to those who live in places like Nyakasanga, it is truly a
matter between life and death.
The kindness and compassion shown by Jonathan and his team through
the water filters were only a small part of what they brought, because in
addition to filters that would provide clean water, they brought the Word which
brings living water.
There is a story in the bible, in the book of John, where
Jesus is sitting at a well in the middle of the day. A woman comes up to the
well and Jesus asks her for water. She’s shocked because of the obvious
differences between them (He’s a Jew, she a Samaritan, and for the two of them
to be talking in such a place and time was seen as improper. She questions Him
about this and He replies, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst
again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing
up to eternal life.”
Jesus explains speaks of a “living water” which if received,
becomes a source of eternal life. Jesus is telling us through this story that
just as water is necessary for our physical life, that living water is necessary for spiritual life.
Jesus knew that each of us are parched inside, we are
thirsty for a life that we have never known. Our souls are dry and dead,
withered at the very root. Apart from water for our very souls, we have no hope
of life.
Jonathan and his team brought the living water of Jesus
Christ to the village of Nyakasanga. They spoke to a people who were already so
acquainted with their need for something more that it was not hard for them to
understand that they needed something beyond the physical. They heard and
believed. The living water that Christ spoke of came and, for those who
accepted , became a well springing up to eternal life.
Our need is for something greater than just water. If we
drink the clean water that comes from our faucets or from bottles, we will
again grow thirsty. This water will not quench the thirst of our souls for that
something more. The living water of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can
bring life to the lifeless and without it, we are as dead as if we had no water
to drink at all.