Imagine seeing children drink and play in filthy water — water you wouldn’t even step in because you know it contains water from toilets, sinks, pastures and all manner of runoff. Imagine living in a place where the closest thing you get to clean water is the rainwater you can catch — rain that comes in torrents from the sky during the monsoon season, causing flooding and muddy, unsanitary conditions. Or imagine waiting for the rain that may NOT come for long periods of time because of the intense heat and climate.

One of our key leaders brought a man to a rural village in Creative Access Asia-PN. This man had recently begun to follow Jesus. This village of about 1,000 people had no well. The man was brokenhearted by what he saw, so moved that he sold his motorbike and one of his cows to raise the $700 necessary to dig a well. Now imagine the joy this village experienced when the well was complete. People worshiped! Everyone lined up to taste the clean water from the well. And our Free Methodist pastors helped people make the connection between this new clean water and the Living Water that is Christ Jesus. Remember that story?

“If you knew who it was that was asking you for a drink,” Jesus said, “you would ask him for living water … and when you drink this water, you will never get thirsty again”
(John 4:10).

The woman had come to the well, but little did she know she had actually come to see Jesus.

Can you see Jesus in the face of this little boy? Imagine his invitation to other children in the village to come and taste the clean water. That invitation parallels our own as we invite others to taste the Living Water. As Christians, we believe everyone is created in the image of God to bear and reflect the image of their Creator. Every person is worthy of the respect and dignity that honors God’s image, even if the image is marred by a person’s sin and brokenness. Even in the least of these, we can come and see Jesus.