As I worked with my neighbors, yesterday, trying to drill a well with the primitive, yet ingenious tools and motors that they had adapted for the job, I had a few moments to watch them and consider them as they worked.  Sergei, Vladimir, Leonid, Vasiliy... They’re good, hard-working men who can do about anything - weld, build, lay bricks, electric, plumbing.

  But as I looked at their sweaty faces, and thought of the problems that we’ve all had with lack of running water, I also thought of the conversations that I’ve had with these men about the Lord.  Some of them have been more open than others, but their real need is still something more than the liquid water that they are trying so hard to get.  Jesus said, in John 4:13-14, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

  My prayer and desire for them, as for so many of our friends and acquaintances here in Ukraine, is that they would experience the satisfaction and fullness that can only come from Jesus Christ, the Living Water, who alone can bring them and their families the salvation and hope that they desperately need.  

  From time to time, as we worked in Sergei’s basement, pushing down on the drill as we dug through another inch of clay, one of them would look at me, grin, and say, “Wow!  Scott!  What kind of country did you get yourself into?  You’d better record this on video because they’ll never believe it in America unless they see it!”  

  There’s no question that the conditions of life here are vastly different than those in America.  But the reason we’re here is because the truth of John 3:16 is about Ukraine as well as the U.S.  “God so loved the world...” (and that means all people, everywhere), “...that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  How I pray that God would draw these dear people to Himself, that they might believe on Him and not perish but have the Living Water that brings everlasting life!