Bibles & Wells in Uganda Update

Jun. 24 2008

---

This year at Na we gave all the shirt profits to build wells in Uganda and then sold $10 bookmarks and gave the profits to send Bible to Uganda. Your response was amazing. We raised $3,000 to build wells in Uganda and, get this, $19,000 to send Bibles to Uganda.

Doug Hayes leads the ministry, Covenant Mercies, that will be building the wells and getting the Bibles to Uganda. We asked him to give you a better idea of what these funds will mean to the people receiving clean water and Bibles.

______

As I was thinking about well-drilling recently (what, doesn’t everyone?), I was reminded of Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman who came to draw water from a well where he was resting (John 4). As they talked about their need for water, Jesus correlated this physical thirst with a spiritual thirst that was not so apparent to her on the surface: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

In the world where we live, our acute spiritual need is frequently veiled and overshadowed by our more obvious physical needs and material desires. Even those of us who passionately proclaim that our greatest need is for God must come to grips with the fact that we live in a material world, with material needs that demand attention. If faced with the decision to buy food for our families or buy a Bible, most of us would buy the food. This isn’t necessarily because we consider spiritual food less important, but simply because our need for physical food is more apparent and seemingly more urgent. 

This is the situation in which many of our brothers and sisters in the developing world find themselves. Many Christian households are without a Bible, simply because of the intense struggle to provide for physical needs that cry out for attention with the loudest voice. 

When I learned that the New Attitude conference had raised over $3,000 for well-drilling projects and over $19,000 for Bibles, I was overjoyed at the generosity of folks who lined up to buy T-shirts and bookmarks as if they were vying for the hottest concert ticket in town. What a joy it will be for Covenant Mercies to present Bibles to Christian households (and to churches for use in outreach) in Uganda on behalf of Na, even as we continue to meet material needs in the name of Jesus. As we provide water to meet intense physical needs, we will also provide living water – the words of life – to minister to the soul as well as the body. 

Covenant Mercies has launched a new program this year in a little rural town called Kiburara, in Uganda. Kiburara has no working water wells. Thousands of people living in this area flock to a murky spring as their only available water source (see photo to right).  While their thirst requires them to partake, their use of this water puts them in grave danger. With every mouthful they are exposed to countless contaminants and waterborne diseases that could be present at any time. Thanks to funds raised by the Singles Community at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD, we are planning to drill three clean water wells for this community in July. The funds raised at the Na conference will help us continue to meet similar needs in other communities we’re working in. 

In meeting the need for safe, clean water, we gain a unique opportunity to speak of the living water found only in Christ. This is the primary reason that Covenant Mercies always collaborates with indigenous local churches in the communities where we work. As physical needs are met, our indigenous partners on the ground have an occasion to address spiritual needs as well – an occasion made all the more compelling by the fact that physical suffering is alleviated and no longer perceived as the most urgent problem. And since God is the source of all our provision, each blessing is an opportunity to magnify his mercy and kindness, and make a connection to his mercy in the cross. The same One who gives us bread is Himself the bread of life. The same One who gives us water is Himself the source of living water, from which we can drink and never thirst again. 

When Jesus fed the four thousand (Matt. 15), Scripture tells us he had compassion on the crowd because they’d been with him for three days and had nothing to eat. He was unwilling to let them go away hungry, and he met their physical need. When he fed the five thousand (Mark 6), we’re told that Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” – they were spiritually lost – so he taught them many things. In both cases, it’s the physical and the spiritual need of the people that evokes the compassion of Christ. And in both cases, he ministers to them on both levels.

I’m so grateful to the New Attitude leadership, and to everyone who bought a bookmark or T-shirt at the conference, for helping Covenant Mercies to follow Jesus in this regard. We are committed to meeting people “where they live,” addressing their needs in the material world in which God has placed them. And though they may be more aware of their physical thirst, we will remind them that they have been created to thirst after God and worship him in spirit and in truth. We will drill them wells. But we will also give them living water, and pray that they will drink deeply and never thirst again. 

-Doug Hayes

---

Comments

---