Pani do

"Pani do" is a very important phrase here. "Water give" is the literal translation or, as we would say, "Please let me have some water." " Water is a precious commodity here. Multiple times a day I have to go fill up my pink water bottle with filtered water. Lots of little "friends" that are not so friendly to the tummy live in the water here and it is full of iron, which turns it an orangy-brown color and makes it unfit for drinking. The P's have a filter in the house and the mess (a "cafeteria" of sorts) has 2 large barrels of drinking water where we can go to frequently replenish our supply. It's starting to get warm here and so staying hydrated even more important.

Having to go frequently to get water reminds me of the story of Jesus with the woman at the well. You'll remember it begins with Him asking her for a drink of water and her confusion of why He, a Jew, would even be talking to a Samaritan woman. Jesus tells her that she should not be concerned with this but that instead she should be asking him for a drink of water. "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep," she replies, "Where do you get that living water?" Jesus answers her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him with become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

As nice as it would be to not have to fill my pink bottle so many times a day, it is a gracious reminder to me of how the people I am surrounded by each day need to drink from the fount of living water. They do not go to fill up their bottles but just drink from the river or hand pumps (like the ones you've seen on "Little House on the Prairie"). While they do have this water to drink, it is filthy and polluted and does not ultimately satisfy. Their teeth are rotting out and they are often sick because or the quality, or lack thereof, of their water. Their skin, much like their souls, are shriveled and dried hard because of lack of water. But were they to drink of Him who offers this living water, the ultimate thirst of their souls would be quenched .

Jesus finishes by telling the woman, "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him." May the precious people in this village drink of His living water and become spirit-and-truth worshipers of the only One who can satiate their souls.

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…" -- Isaiah 55:1