Your gifts and prayers mean that this community of persecuted Christians are able to show Jesus’s love to their neighbours – in the form of clean water from a well.

Christians in Vietnam often face persecution from their neighbours, particular in rural areas where tribal communities are expected to follow traditional gods. Members of these groups who choose to follow Jesus face exclusion, discrimination and even attacks.

In the central highlands, one group of Christians have shown extraordinary forgiveness to the community who have tormented them. The local authorities and the villagers have persecuted these believers for years, but these Christians are following the example of Jesus and blessing those who persecute them – with clean drinking water.

Not enough water to drink

In this region, there is extreme water scarcity. There is hardly any rain for five-six months of the year, and this has a significant impact on many areas of life.  

Livelihoods suffer, because the crops need water, and sometimes there isn’t even enough water for drinking and cooking. There is seldom enough for washing, and this leads to health problems among adults and children. The scarce available water is a half hour walk away.

A well of clean water

The small Christian community were affected by this as much as anyone else, but only they knew where to turn for an answer: they prayed together to ask God for a solution. They came up with the idea to drill a well.

Nobody in this community has enough money to fund the project themselves, but they stepped out in faith to gather funding for the well, which costs 30 million Vietnamese Dong (about £1,000). At the same time, the leaders shared their project with other local church leaders.

Brother Dung*, one of these local pastors, is an Open Doors partner – and he was able to use Open Doors funding to provide the rest of the money needed by the church to build the well. And now it is built!

Blessing the whole community

Despite all they have faced from their neighbours and authorities, the Christians have shown Christlike grace. The well provides enough water for the whole community, and is open for everyone – Christian or non-Christian, whatever they have said or done in the past.

Since there was extra money raised, the church leaders used it to buy two big water tanks; they’re elevated it to a stand and attached an electronic motor to automatically store and release water.

The well is capable of serving about 150-200 people a day. The community can get water whenever they need - enough for cooking, drinking, washing and working. No more long walks just to get water down in the valley, nor skin diseases among the children.

Thank you

“The church was so blessed by their act of faith,” says Brother Dung. “They became well-known in the community. The local authorities stopped persecuting them, and so did the villagers.”

“On behalf of the community, we would like to thank you so much, to your church, for building this well for us,” said one of the villagers to Brother Dung. “Since we had this well, we haven’t gotten any skin problems at all. We don’t have to worry about the water we need during the hot season.”

This project is just one of several in the region – about 1,000 people have been blessed with access to clean water so far, thanks to your gifts and prayers. Every day they can see a testament to God’s goodness – and hopefully will also see that “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again”, but that Jesus is the living water (John 4).

*Name changed for security reasons

Source : Open Doors

Photo: Flickr