Living Water

Do you see the man beside the little open window closest to the camera? If you do, you should know that he has come to that torquoise building with his big blue 5-gallon bottle to fill it up with water. There isn't clean clean drinking water out of the tap in the Dominican Republic, so everyone (poor or rich) has to purchase their water. Mark/I call our local colmado (little corner store that sells bread, rum, candy, soap, etc.) and ask them to bring us two full bottles of water in exchange for two empty ones. We pay 50 pesos for the two bottles, which is about $1.60. This is pretty much the norm.

The amazing thing about the above photo, though, is that this building is actually a church. The second floor is the sanctuary area of Iglesia Biblica de Consuelo (Consuelo Bible Church) and the first is a Compassion International school and the area where they sell water. About two years ago, the 30-year-old pastor of this church was approached by an organization about setting up a water treatment system in their church to be able to sell the water at a very affordable price to their neighborhood. (Before I go any further, you must understand that when I ask the girls on my soccer team why they didn't bring their own water to practice is because they don't have water at home - they can't afford it.) The church agreed and has been selling water at 10 pesos ever since - providing both jobs and fresh clean water to the community. In addition, the church has now copied the water system and installed it themselves in another location.

It was amazing! In the 15 minutes that we stood in the inside of the little window (photo at right), there was a very steady stream of people coming to get water. Little children with cups asked for water and paid 1 peso. Men on motorcycles came with more than one bottle to get water from the church. I could hardly ask the worker (who works from 7am-6:30pm) questions because he was busy the entire time!

Mark and I like to call the pastor who has implemented this program (at left) the Dominican Rob Bell. He looks like Rob Bell and has many of the same mannerisms. It's kind of freaky. We tell him that he reminds us of Rob Bell and he has no idea what we're
talking about... oh well. :) He's an awesome guy who has taken actions to turn a traditional closed church into an outreach focused church who is really meeting the needs of their community.

It was a beautiful site to see the steady stream of people walking to the church with their empty bottles of water to be filled at the church. The prayer and hope is that the people will, through this program, come to know what the living water is and find what they are really thirsting for.