The Gift of Water: A Well That Keeps Going

The Gift of Water: A Well That Keeps Giving

Sometimes the most extraordinary expression of love is something as ordinary as a glass of clean water.

This morning, somewhere in a small village in Pakistan, a mother turned on a faucet and filled a container with water. Perhaps she washed her children’s faces before school, prepared breakfast, or filled a pot for the day’s cooking. It was probably an entirely ordinary moment, one she barely thought about. But two years ago, that same simple act would not have been possible. The water she needed for her family was not waiting just outside her door. Someone had to go and find it, carry it home, and hope that it was safe enough to drink. I think about that often. How something so ordinary to us can be something so extraordinary to someone else.

In November 2024, during one of my ministry trips to Pakistan, I had the tremendous joy of helping provide two water wells for impoverished Christian communities. One of those wells was installed in Nasrat Town, Girja Colony, in Sheikhupura, where hundreds of families were living without reliable access to safe drinking water. The project included a pump and a rooftop storage tank capable of holding more than 200 gallons of water. Together, the two water projects were intended to serve more than 840 families. I remember standing there, looking at the newly installed pipes, the storage tank, and the simple faucets coming out of the walls. Nothing about it was particularly beautiful by the world’s standards. There were unfinished bricks, patches of fresh cement, exposed plumbing, and a large water tank perched above the rooftops. But to me, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Because I knew what those faucets represented.

In many of the impoverished communities where I serve in Pakistan, access to safe drinking water is a daily struggle. Some families must travel considerable distances to collect water, often carrying heavy containers back to their homes. Children accompany their parents on these journeys, sometimes carrying water themselves. Hours that could be spent learning, working, resting, or simply being children are consumed by the most basic task of survival. And finding water does not necessarily mean finding water that is safe. Across parts of Pakistan, groundwater contamination is a serious concern. Depending on the location, water supplies may contain dangerous levels of arsenic, fluoride, salts, or disease-causing microorganisms. Long-term exposure to certain contaminants can damage the kidneys, affect bones and teeth, and contribute to other serious health problems, while contaminated drinking water can spread debilitating and sometimes life-threatening illnesses. Families living in poverty are often the least equipped to test their water, treat it, or seek medical care when someone becomes ill.

For women and children, the burden can be especially heavy. Long journeys to collect water mean physical exhaustion, lost time, and sometimes greater exposure to unsafe conditions. In vulnerable communities, traveling long distances can also expose women and children to harassment, exploitation, and other dangers. A child should not have to spend part of her childhood carrying heavy water containers for miles. A mother should not have to wonder whether the water she gives her family will make them sick. Yet these are realities that many families live with every day. This is why providing a source of verified safe drinking water within a community means so much more than installing a pump or filling a storage tank. It can change the rhythm of an entire household, relieve burdens that have been carried for generations, and restore something of the dignity and freedom that every family deserves.

Before leaving for Pakistan that November, I had prayed a very simple prayer. I told the Lord that if the only thing I accomplished on the entire trip was helping provide these two water wells, purchasing the necessary supplies, and overseeing their installation, that alone would make the journey worthwhile. There were so many other things planned: visits to churches, gatherings with children, opportunities to teach and pray with families, and time spent encouraging communities that I have come to love deeply over the years. But the wells occupied a particularly tender place in my heart. I knew that long after I boarded the airplane home, long after the meetings ended and everyone returned to their ordinary routines, those wells could still be serving the people I loved. And then the day came when the second well was completed. I stood looking at the finished project, overwhelmed by the realization that hundreds of families would now have a source of safe drinking water close to home. Between the two installations, more than 840 Christian families were expected to benefit. I could hardly take it in.

It is difficult to describe the joy of knowing that something so practical could make such a profound difference in the everyday lives of so many people. There was no grand ceremony required. No elaborate building or impressive structure. Just clean water flowing through pipes, filling containers, and making life a little easier for families who had already carried so much. And somehow, that felt sacred. I remember thinking about how much of our lives in America we spend pursuing things that ultimately matter so little, while in another part of the world, something as simple as a working faucet can represent an answer to years of prayer. I thought about the mothers who would no longer have to worry quite so much about where the next day’s water would come from, the children who could spend more time being children, and the families who could finally drink water that had been verified safe. It was one of those moments when the distance between the abundance of my own life and the daily struggles of others became almost impossible to comprehend.

And now, two years later, that well is still functioning beautifully. I cannot tell you how much joy that brings me. Because the real story of a water well is not simply the day it is installed. The real story is everything that happens afterward. It is the mother who no longer has to travel so far to collect water. It is the child who has more time for school or play. It is the grandmother who can fill a container without making an exhausting journey. It is the family preparing an evening meal, washing clothes, or offering a visitor a drink. It is hundreds of small, ordinary moments made easier by something that was once out of reach. And those moments continue, day after day, year after year. That is what I love about investing in projects that strengthen communities for the long road. A mission trip may last only a few weeks, but the good that comes from it does not have to end when the visitor leaves. Sometimes the most meaningful work is the work that continues quietly, long after anyone is there to photograph it.

My faith has taught me that love is not merely something we speak about. It is something we are invited to make visible. Jesus spoke of giving even a cup of cold water to someone in need, and I have thought about those words many times while standing in villages where clean water is difficult to obtain. There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about that picture of love. Someone is thirsty. Someone offers water. No grand explanation is necessary. Over the years, I have had the privilege of teaching the Bible, praying with families, helping establish schools, supporting sewing programs for women, and walking alongside Christian communities facing tremendous hardship. Each expression of ministry has its own beauty. But providing water has become one of the most tangible ways I know to communicate something that is very close to my heart: You matter. Your children matter. Your daily struggles are not invisible. And you have not been forgotten.

I never want the families we serve to feel like projects or numbers on a page. They are people with names, stories, hopes, and dreams. They are mothers and fathers who love their children as fiercely as any of us love ours. They are grandparents, students, teachers, laborers, and neighbors. They deserve to be treated with dignity, tenderness, and respect. And sometimes that dignity begins with something as simple as being able to turn on a faucet. I think this is one of the reasons I have come to love these communities so deeply. I have seen extraordinary faith, generosity, perseverance, and joy in places where material resources are painfully scarce. I have been welcomed into homes by families who had so little and yet insisted on sharing what they had with me. I have prayed with mothers, laughed with children, listened to stories of hardship, and witnessed a kind of hospitality that has humbled me again and again. These are not people whose lives are defined by what they lack. They are beloved people with so much to give, and it is an extraordinary privilege to walk alongside them.

There are still so many communities in Pakistan waiting for access to reliable, safe drinking water. Some have approached us asking whether we might help provide a well for their village, too. I wish I could say yes to every request immediately. I wish the resources were endless and no family ever had to make another long journey for something so essential. Recently, a wonderfully kind and generous couple here in my hometown made a beautiful gift toward my ministry in Pakistan. One of the greatest joys of receiving their generosity has been the opportunity start doing research with my team on the ground to see how to use a portion of those funds to begin working on a project to provide two new water wells in two rural Christian communities in Pakistan, where families have long struggled to access safe drinking water. I can hardly express what it means to know that an act of kindness will soon become a source of clean, life-giving water for families thousands of miles away. My hope is to see both wells installed during my upcoming November 2026 ministry trip. I love thinking about how a single act of generosity can travel across oceans, reach people the givers may never meet, and become part of the ordinary rhythms of their lives for years to come. Long after the gift has been given, the water will continue to flow, and families will continue to be blessed by a kindness that began so far from home.

Every new well represents more than another completed project. It means children spending less time carrying water, mothers having one less daily burden to shoulder, and entire communities gaining access to something essential for their health and well-being. I have learned over the years that we do not have to solve every problem to make a meaningful difference in someone’s life. We can begin with the people and opportunities God places before us, and faithfully do what we can. One village. One well. One family at a time. And perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things about this work. The impact is not measured only in the number of people who gather for a meeting or the photographs we bring home. Sometimes it is measured in the quiet sound of water filling a bucket, in a mother’s relieved smile, or in the knowledge that a well installed two years ago is still serving the families who depend upon it. I often think about the people whose names I may never know, whose lives have been made a little easier because someone thousands of miles away chose to care. That is one of the beautiful mysteries of generosity. We rarely get to see the full story of what our kindness sets into motion. A gift given today may still be blessing a family years from now, quietly weaving itself into the ordinary routines of people we may never meet.

Two years later, the water is still flowing. Children are growing up with access to something their families once struggled to obtain. Mothers are filling containers with water they can safely give their children. And somewhere in a village in Pakistan, an ordinary faucet continues to tell an extraordinary story of what love can do when it takes a practical shape.

Some of the most beautiful things we can leave behind are the things that keep giving long after we are gone.