"Building Partnerships for Living Water" -- by Reynolds Whalen

In last week's gospel reading, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well and asks for some water. In the ensuing conversation, he compares spiritual fulfillment to the satisfaction of quenching intense thirst with a long drink. The "living" water Christ describes will not run out in the same way as water on Earth.

We as Americans forget that easy access to clean water is a privilege. For us, fifty gallons of water for a ten-minute shower is as easy as turning a faucet and lifting a lever. For the woman at the well, fifty gallons of water was probably inconceivable to gather in a day. Even five gallons would be a full day of hard work, making the journey from her home to the well then making the return trip with a heavy bucket. It also may be easy for us to forget that millions of people still collect water this way and that much of that water does not meet basic sanitation requirements.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that unsafe drinking water kills over 1.5 million children each year. In addition, more than 1 billion people do not have access to drinking water from improved sources. In the Mathare slum of Nairobi, Kenya women collect water from a river that also operates as a communal toilet for nearly half a million people. During my time in the area, I saw babies bathing in filth and small children lugging water jugs almost as big as themselves. In Sudan, I saw hundreds of elderly women balancing 30 lbs jugs on their heads with two more hanging from both arms. These could be carried up to 20 or 30 miles in temperatures soaring over 100˚F.

So what can one do to address these problems?

While there are many ways to get involved (as described on other portions of this site), I would like to focus on one and tell a brief story of a modern day miracle.

Often it seems that MDG #8 gets overlooked when addressing global poverty, probably because the message seems so obvious: develop global partnerships for development. Clearly, we need to communicate with the people we are trying to help. But this absolutely must extend far beyond getting permission to impose our ideas of how to develop foreign communities. As the Church, one way for us to enter these partnerships fruitfully is by engaging our brothers and sisters in Christ through companion diocese relationships. By listening to each other and being open to the Holy Spirit, both sides can assess the needs of the other and grow together in God’s plan. Sometimes, God has amazing ways of acknowledging these partnerships.

In late 2006, the Diocese of Missouri officially entered into a companion diocese relationship with the Diocese of Lui in Southern Sudan. After prayerful discussion and several international trips from both ends, both parties recognized an urgent need for greater access to water in Lui. After fundraising on the Missouri end and logistical planning on the Lui end, drilling finally began in the early spring of 2007.

On Easter Day, 2007, I sat down at my computer and read the following words:

"Christian greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The drilling of bore hole in Cathedral compound has finished this afternoon and now the hydrologists moved to Lunjine School this evening. The bore in Cathedral Compound is 65 meters deep and it has lot of water, I hope the problem of cathedral concerning water is solved. And thanks yours sincerely in Christ Jesus."

We had struck water together on Easter Day, in the middle of an intense dry season. The day of celebrating Christ’s glorious ascension brought with it a spring of life-giving water to the people of Lui. Nearly one year later, I still remember the tears that filled my eyes.

As we complete our Lenten journeys over the next few weeks and prepare to enter Holy Week together, let us consider ways in which we can use our resources to make Easter the blessed season it should be…a time of new life and hope for all of God’s people.

Reynolds Whalen is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, has traveled extensively in Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan. He spent fall semester 2006 in Kenya working with AIDS orphans -- read his blog on it here and is working on a documentary film on that experience.

"I thirst"

by Craig Cole

“I thirst.”

These two simple words are displayed next to the cross that hangs in many of the Missionaries of Charities homes around the world. At least, in the several I have visited.

The simplicity of the words are astonishing upon reflection. Yet, considering the King of Kings came wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. Little packages, or a few words, can have tremendous significance.

“I thirst.” The words make me tremble.

Before I became executive director of Five Talents, I worked for a relief and development organization that had projects in the Caribbean, West Indies and Latin America and many of those projects were with the Missionaries of Charity, the organization founded by Mother Teresa.

And, I was trembling the first time I walked into a Missionaries of Charity home. It was a home for the elderly in Georgetown, Guyana. I had never liked “old folks.” As a teenager growing up in suburban Chicago, Christmas time meant caroling at the elderly home down the street. I went, but I made sure I was in back of the group. I made no eye contact and when the singing was done, I shuffled my feet instead of greeting the men and women and handing out cookies. I was always scared.

Now, it was my job. I had to go in. I had to talk to them and find the stories to tell our donors.

I came into the room in the women’s ward in this old wooden 2-story building. I put on my best fake smile, which was really just gritting my teeth. They were so desperate for attention. They thought the smile was real. They were enthusiastic and so warm in their greeting.

I ended up sitting next to a woman, who was so frail she could hardly sit up. Her face etched with the lines of age, her mouth almost toothless and her hands wrinkled and thin. She reached out her hand and I had no choice but to take it. I was afraid her fingers might break they were so frail. I held it like a feather in my hand, caressing ever so gently. The next few minutes were so, gentle and peaceful, I knew if God had so much as whispered I would have heard him. We were generations and worlds apart sitting together enjoying silence.

Then she nodded and slunk down in her chair, mumbling quietly to herself. I was startled and instantly afraid she might die right there. The sisters quickly came and picked her up and softly put her into her bed and covered her with a sheet. Exhausted, I was told.

“I thirst”

I thirst for that moment of peace and serenity of God’s whisper of God’s connection with others.

Jesus thirsts from the cross, the poor thirst for a simple drink of clean water, and we in suburbia thirst for life-giving water that will quench our souls.

John 19:28-30- Jesus knew that everything was now finished, and to fulfill the Scriptures said. “I’m thirsty.” A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so a sponge was soaked in it and put on a hyssop branch and help up to his lips. when Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head and dismissed his spirit.

Craig Cole is the executive director of Five Talents International, an Anglican microfinance nonprofit. He is also a member of the Diocese of Virginia's Mission Commission and an EGR board member.

Tomorrow - Stephanie Rhodes