The First Jesus Well: Still Going Strong for 20 Years

The first GFA Jesus Well was sponsored in 1999, and drilled in a struggling community in South Asia in the year 2000. Before the well was drilled, people regularly walked miles to collect water, primarily moms and kids. This caused children to miss out on getting an education, and their parents sometimes missed work. On top of all of that, the water they gathered from ponds or rivers wasn’t pure or safe to drink. The people would wash dishes, clothes, animals, and take their baths in the same water. Then they would drink from that same contaminated water, often getting sick! It sounds crazy, but they literally had no other choice.

That all changed when the Jesus Well was drilled! God has blessed the entire village through this Jesus Well. Men, women and children can get clean water for drinking, cooking, bathing and watering their livestock.

“I feel very happy to know that this is one of the first Jesus Wells,” Pastor Sameen said. “It’s not easy to have a well maintained for this many years; because anybody can install a well, but maintaining it for almost [20] years, where it still gives clean and good drinking water, it is not easy. That makes me very proud and happy, and I am so glad that this well is [by] our church.”

The Jesus Well has brought stability and health to this village and surrounding villages, serving hundreds of families. The children now have the option of continuing their education and no longer have to give up their dreams in exchange for the daily struggle to survive.

Each person that comes to the well is presented with the Scripture declaring Christ as the Living Water:

“Jesus answered and said to her: ‘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.”

John 4:13–14

“We would like to thank all those who contributed to install this Jesus Well . . . Because of their contribution and their help, we are able to have water for every family here in this village.”

Pastor Sameen