A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

If a picture is worth a thousand words, are two pictures worth two thousand words? 

 

I’m not sure, but during my recent trip to Africa, I was fortunate enough to take a picture that, when juxtaposed with another photo might combine to be worth a few hundred thousand words.

 

One picture is an image of joy and hope. The other is of despair and pain.

 

One is flowing with beauty; the other is stagnant with mud and dirt.

 

Two boys are drinking water. One from a new clean water well. The other from a brown puddle of sludge.

 

Both were taken in Mozambique.

 

In early August, I was in the rural Mozambican village of Nhangulo along with a team from my church (that included my wife and stepson). Our American missionaries Alex and Melanie Viana accompanied us, and our Mozambican Covenant Church leaders, pastors John and Maria Jone led the way. We were there to provide a hot meal, lead a VBS with the children, and inaugurate a recently installed clean water well. After all of the above was done, including serving heaping bowls of rice and beans to approximately 800 people, we were able to take a break and sit down for our own lunch. Serving hundreds of meals to people who struggle to eat that much food in a week was emotionally powerful. But seeing the new water well brought me the most joy. A main purpose of this trip was to capture photos of the well and video interviews with local Mozambicans about the water crisis they face.

 

The ministry I help lead, Life for Mozambique, has formed a new branch of focus called Water for Mozambique. WFM has been working, and more importantly, asking God for wells in Mozambique. We have a presence in nearly 600 Mozambican communities, and it is our desire to see each one have its own well. This was my first opportunity to see a water well in action, up close, and in person. I couldn’t have been more pumped. 

 

John kicked off the well’s inauguration ceremony by talking about how our goal isn’t to just take care of spiritual needs, but to also care of physical needs. Alex encouraged the community members to receive the well as a gift from God and to pause and express thanks to Him for remembering their physical needs. I then issued a charge for the people of the community to take good care of the well and to make sure it is in fine working order for a long, long time.

 

We were relaxing after our team lunch when I noticed some community women at the well washing dishes. This was my chance for some epic photos. I got some great close ups of beautiful hands under the clean water doing an everyday task in a now easier-than-before manner. I was excited for my photos. But then, shortly after returning to our table, I saw some children at the well. 

Photo op number 2, I thought.

Click. Images of little boys and girls filling buckets and washing dishes instantly saved to my phone. I was about to turn away, when a little boy of about four, sauntered up to the spigot like an old western cowboy bellying up to a bar. We locked eyes. 

 

He placed his left hand on the horizontal pipe. He bent at the waist, still staring at me. His bright pink shower shoes wet with the dripping water. Looking down, he cupped his right hand under the faucet and then he bent over even lower to drink directly from the water well. As he drank, he smiled, and he looked up at me again.

 

And I snapped his picture.

 

It reminded me of being kid myself, drinking from the garden hose after a fun day of sports and bike riding around the neighborhood. I thought about the millions of kids, not just in Mozambique, but worldwide who don’t have that privilege. But this little boy and the hundreds of others in Nhangulo now do. I thought he’s why we’re asking God for as many water wells as possible.

 

“Thank you,” the look in his eyes said. 

 

“No, thank you,” I whispered back.

 

On the bumpy ride back to town, I reflected on the photo of the boy and instantly thought of another picture, taken months ago by Pastor John. In it, another young boy, skinny and filthy, surrounded by dirt, is squatting before an orange-brown mud hole of a liquid that’s a stretch to call water. He’s in the process of bringing a white container to his lips. His hopeless stare is fixed on the distance, not at the camera or even at John. He looks lonely and afraid.

 

It's hard to look at. 

 

I thought, no, he’s why we need God to provide as many water wells as possible. 

Two pictures. One is a call for gratitude; the other is a call to action.

 

Seeing the water well in person was monumental, but it gets even better. The well is strategically placed next to our Covenant Church in Nhangulo. And what we learned from being there is that people are coming to the church because of the water well. To me this was completely unexpected. We just wanted to bring physical water to the thirsty people of Mozambique and God is using it to bring them to the living water of Jesus. Meeting physical needs is leading to opportunities to satisfy spiritual needs.

 

The day in Ngangulo was fantastic, but it was just one highlight of our trip. Another highlight was visiting a second community called Ceramica, which is next up to receive a well. I got to stand on the ground where the well is going to sit. We served another hot lunch and took some great videos of community members talking about how hard life is without water.

 

God has continued to provide in the seven weeks since returning from Africa. A well that was funded last year was installed in mid-August. The well for Ceramica is now funded. Another, slated for a community called Messica is also funded. And just this past weekend, a church in Duluth, MN held a one-day fundraiser for a well to celebrate its 135^th anniversary. Not surprisingly, because we have such a good God, the church gave enough to fully fund a well. 

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s two wells installed this year, and three more ready to break ground.

 

Lord willing, I’ll be able to visit these wells in 2027. 

 

Because I’ve got a lot of pictures to take.

 

Bringing Water to a Dry Land

The new water well in Nhangulo.

A recent New York Times article about Fine Water gave me quite a chuckle. But it might not be a laughing matter to the 700,000,000 people worldwide who don’t have access to clean water. 

According to the article, Fine Water is a new, and expensive, way to get those all-important liquid hydrogen and oxygen molecules into your bloodstream. The Fine Water scene is flowing with water tasting contests, designer water bars, home water cellars, food and water pairings, and water sommelier courses. Some examples of Fine Water include melted snow that has been filtered through Peruvian volcanic rock, deep sea water collected off the coast of South Korea, and H2O gathered in nets from a Tasmanian pine forest. I’m guessing the water I drank from the backyard hose in the hot Michigan summers isn’t winning any awards. 

Nor would the muddy, bug-infested water that many Mozambicans spend hours collecting for their daily drinking, bathing, and cooking. The ministry I help lead, Life for Mozambique (LFM), is trying to change this. It’s our dream to see 500 clean water wells built across Mozambique.

 

LFM is headquartered in the city of Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique with about 650,000 residents. U.S. cities of similar populations are Seattle, Denver, and Memphis. At first, driving out of Beira into the country isn’t much different than driving through rural America. Paved streets become dusty and bumpy dirt roads. Suburban neighborhoods give way to fields, marshlands, and forests. Suddenly it feels like you’ve landed in the middle of nowhere. But it’s not nowhere. It’s somewhere for many, many Mozambicans. Because hidden from view and dotted throughout this rural countryside are communities filled with thousands of people. 

 

Head east on I-70 from Denver and the grasslands and the prairies quickly takeover. I once drove across Nebraska. It too felt like the middle of nowhere. Use your maps app to zoom in on eastern Colorado and it’s shocking how few tiny black dots there are. But those dots are there. It’s a somewhere to many Americans. For example, a hundred miles from Denver, there’s Limon, Colorado, a black dot town of three-square miles and 1,800 people. They have a La Quinta, a bowling alley, and an IHOP. There’s a golf course and Municipal Airport too. 

 

Zoom in on the area outside of Beira and there are few black dots as well. But here’s where the similarities stop and the differences take over. While the American Great Plains are peppered with single-family farms and ranches, rural Mozambique is filled with secluded villages and communities each populated with hundreds or even thousands of families.

 

I don’t have stats to verify this but there might actually be more people living in rural villages outside of Beira than in the 500 miles along I-70 between Denver and Topeka.

 

Another difference is that entering one of these villages is like going back in time or visiting the set of Gilligan’s Island. People live in straw and grass thatched huts, cook on fires outside the front door, and walk for hours to collect water. Limon, Colorado might be rural, but I don’t think there are any residents without running water. Every room in the La Quinta has a hot shower and you can easily request a glass of water with your flapjacks at the IHOP.

 

What’s amazing is that the Mozambican Covenant Church, which is supported by Life for Mozambique, has established churches in over 570 rural communities and villages. And each of them needs a clean water well.

 

Communities like Ceramica, which is home to over 850 families that use unreliable, impure hand-dug wells while hoping for a good rainy season to top them off. Or the village of Tica that has over 2,000 families. There, women and children walk for miles to collect dirty lake water. A similar plight is felt by the 1,000 families in a village called Lemego. Same goes for the 900 families in Nhangau. The list goes on and on.

 

I'm digging this digging rig.

There’s one community that can now be crossed off of the list. It’s a big community, not far from Beira, called Nhangulo. Over 3,800 families have been given a gift. The women are no longer walking 10 hours to collect water or contending with venomous snakes while traversing through the jungle. Because in April of this year Nhangulo received a deep, professionally dug, clean water well. Thirst is being quenched. Water is flowing where it was once scarce. 

Later this year the community of Marromeu will be receiving a well. Two wells a year is a great start, but it’s not rapidly moving the needle toward the goal of 500. It’s a scary dream, but dreams don’t work unless I do. So, I’ll keep working. And praying. The Nhangulo well was funded by a single generous donor. The Marromeu well was primarily financed by a couple at a partner church. They sold off some stocks and, instead of birthday gifts, requested money for the well from friends and family. The Ceramica well will be funded by year’s end, helped by a $2,500 gift from a couple in northern California. They saw a mention of Life for Mozambique’s water well projects in a prayer calendar and inquired how to financially help out. 

 

In August I’m going to Mozambique. I’ll be able to visit Nhangulo and we’ll inaugurate its well with prayers, food, and a ceremony. Then we’ll be heading to Ceramica. What a priceless joy to meet the people who will soon receive a well. 

Each well costs about $10K to install. Multiply that by 500 and we need to raise quite a sum. Water from a deep, professionally dug well is clean and pure enough to drink without any additional treatment. It doesn’t have to be boiled or filtered through Peruvian volcanic rock. How amazing that something so vital is directly underground. It just needs to be brought to the surface. 

I doubt it will win an award at next year’s Fine Water competition, but to the people of Mozambique, it will be the best thing they’ve ever tasted.

The finished well.

Walk-ins Welcome

Imagine your driverless ride-share vehicle drops you off at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There’s a long line, but you decide it’s worth the wait. Eventually, you climb the front steps and stand between the white-washed pillars. Finally, you’re through the front doors and few minutes later you’re shaking hands with the leader of the free world. 

 

No appointment needed. 

 

Of course, today, this scenario is ludicrous, but meeting the president was once a reality. From 1801 to 1932 the White House opened its doors to the public every January 1^st. It was known as the New Year’s Reception at the White House. Everyone from the common citizen to the highest-ranking diplomat was welcomed. Thousands of people waited in lines that snaked around the block before President Hoover canceled the tradition in 1932.

 

Today, appointments are crucial. Doctors, barbers, and especially the DMV all require appointments. I don’t leave the dentist without booking the next appointment. I recently bought new tires at Costco. After paying, I had to make an appointment five days later for installation. Appointments are necessary for order, efficiency, time-management, and peace of mind. Without them, chaos would reign. 

 

My favorite appointment involved a famous college football coach. It was the early 90s and I was traveling with the Long Beach State women’s basketball team to the University of Colorado. The Colorado football coach at the time was Bill McCartney. He was massively successful and very well-known for his Christian faith. Weeks before the trip I phoned his office and set up a meeting with him. I’m not sure why I did this. And other than being super nervous, I don’t recall anything from the appointment, other than receiving his blessing of prayer before I left. 

 

All of this brings us to Good Friday, and three very important words in the Bible: 

 

Torn in two.

 

Once upon a time, in ancient Israel, appointments were needed to seek atonement for sins. And it wasn’t just the average farmer or merchant who booked the appointment, it was the high priest, who was like the head pastor for the nation. After the Israelites high-tailed it out of Egypt and began a 40-year lap around the desert, God set up a system of sacrifices, holidays, and rituals. 

 

God instructed the Israelites to set up a mobile temple called the tabernacle. It featured two important rooms, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Separating these two rooms was a curtain. Priests were allowed to regularly minister in the Holy Place but only the high priest could go in the Most Holy Place once a year into the immediate presence of God. Behind the curtain the Most Holy Place, was considered the earthly dwelling place of God’s presence. God was separate from where men dwelt. The curtain was a barrier between God and man. It symbolized the separation between a holy God and sinful man because sin renders man unfit for the presence of God.

 

The day in which the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place was called the Day of Atonement (known now as Yom Kippur). At this time, he would offer sacrifices for the sins of the people. It was day of repentance, purification, and reconciliation with God. A goat was sacrificed, and its blood was sprinkled on the altar for the sins of all the people. However, the fact that sin offerings were given annually showed that sin could not be truly atoned for by mere animal sacrifices.

 

Fast forward some 300 years and Israel is now an established nation. King Solomon built a temple; a gigantic, permanent replacement for the tabernacle. In his temple, the curtain was enormous, roughly the size of a vertical tennis court. It was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and four inches thick. It took 300 priests to manipulate it on cleaning day. 

 

Move ahead another 1,000 or so years to Good Friday and Jesus hanging on a cross. At the moment of his death, after uttering the words, “It is finished,” and after giving up his spirit, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.

 

It wasn’t ripped from bottom to top. Nobody snipped the center of the curtain at the bottom and then pulled it apart with an accomplice. It took the mighty hand of God himself to rip it. Something that wasn’t possible by human strength was done by God alone. 

 

Clearly the spiritual implications of this are staggering. God ended the need for temple sacrifices. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, and his death earned a forgiveness that is assured and permanent. No longer do our sins separate us from God. Furthermore, because of this, there’s a new, unparalleled access for all people to the Father. Jesus himself is the new high priest. Jesus is the permanently accessible new temple in whom all are reconciled to God.

 

Even though the curtain was vertical, our separation was also horizontal. The curtain’s removal is not just about him symbolically allowing us into the Most Holy Place. It is equally important about God lowering himself positionally to be with us and entering our hearts and our world as Immanuel, … God with us. It’s about him elevating us as his children to be on level footing with Jesus himself. Our status has changed from structured rituals to intimate relationships.

 

Though we still sin, we are no longer unfit. And because our sins no longer separate us, we don’t enter his presence as a common citizen having to wait in line to meet the president, or a nervous sports information director waiting to see a famous football coach. We are now God’s holy, adopted, righteous children, able to climb into his lap and receive all the tenderness his love and grace offer.

 

We can go to God as the president’s son barging into the oval office or a coach’s daughter interrupting a pre-game meeting at the Rose Bowl.

 

Without an appointment. 

 

Happy Easter!