He shouldn’t have been there and he shouldn’t have been talking to her. She was living in sin. She was adulterous and a social outcast. Yet, He asked her for a drink. He should have let someone else come talk to her. She, a Samaritan woman, did not deserve a one on one conversation with the Messiah. As perceived by the world, this was a waste of His time.
Jesus saw her as more than a lost cause. He saw someone that needed his help, His love, His living water. How many times do we walk by these people in our lives? The people that some view as a ‘waste of our time,’ the people that need more than just water.
Jonathan and his family were on their way back from the beach when he saw a post on facebook that Jazmin was selling some of her artwork for food. He was completely caught off guard. Did she not have money to feed her family? What was the story behind this? He decided to ask if he and his family could buy her groceries. As the bags filled up their arms they walked into her house and were met with a heartbreaking sight. The house was incredibly small, dishes, trash, and clothes piled everywhere. In the midst of her battered home, Jazmin began to tell Jonathan her story.
A year ago, she had a job, was pregnant with her 4th child, and had borrowed money to add a second story to her home. She had the bare metal frame of the house in place when COVID caused a shut down, she lost her job and was forced to use her loan to buy food and diapers for her family. As the hole around her grew deeper, she fell into a deep depression.
The Costa Rican rainy season began to flood her unfinished home every night as her children gathered in the bedroom to share her cellphone for each of their online classes. She was lost and alone, in a hole of helplessness. She began to sell artwork on facebook in an attempt to put food on her table. This is where Jonathan and his family found her, coming to the well just to survive the day.
Their facebook friendship continues to be a mystery. There were mutual friends, and a school connection, yet they were strangers to one another. As Jonothan left Jazmin’s house he knew there was more than food to give.
“She never asked for anything, she never pushed me for anything. It was all me wanting to help her.”
Jonathan developed a budget for about $2,000 and brought it to his supporters. After receiving a donation for more than half the budget with the comment, “let’s build this house!” Jonathan took it to VidaNet where he heads up work projects. From October through December, Jonathan with friends and staff members worked to finish Jazmin’s house. As the walls of the house were built up, the walls in Jazmin’s heart began to crumble down. She opened up about the darkness and depression that she was living in and Delmys, our El Nido Director began meeting with Jazmin weekly for discipleship.
Slowly a visible change could be seen in Jazmin. Her house was cleaner and more organized, her children were happier and more full of life and she began attending a local church. Jonathan still had a fear of what would happen once her house was completed? Was she just here for a free handout? Would Jazmin and this house both fall back to where things used to be? Was this all worth it?
Months later Jazmin comes to VidaNet every week to meet with Delmys while her children play in the grassy area. Things are still far from easy, but as the Costa Rican rains fall down her family is safe and dry within the walls of her finished house.
“Discipleship happens at the speed of relationship.”
How many of us walk by people everyday who are hurting and in need of help but we ignore them. We say that they are a lost cause or they deserve where they are. We think to ourselves that someone else will come along or ‘only Jesus can help them now.’ However, we are called to be Jesus.
Jesus the son of God, with dirty feet and a parched throat asking for water from a woman at a well in Samaria. And this was not just any woman, this was an adulterous woman, so far from God in her life that someone like Jesus should not have asked her for water. Or maybe that is exactly why Jesus asked her for water because she was the last person anyone would have ‘wasted their time on’.
Let’s ask ourselves,“Who do we see waiting at the well, for Jesus to stop and talk with them?”
By Laura Miller
VidaNet Staff Member
Great story Laura! Vidanet is doing a great work!
Awesome story Laura! May we all do what we can to help those in need because we were all lost causes before we met Jesus.