The doors of Faith Baptist Church are always open to the people of Twatasha, Zambia.
Their pastor, Blessings Ndhlovu, lives on the church property, and has been shepherding Faith Baptist for a decade. Most members live a few minutes’ walk along the dusty streets outside the walls. Most days Blessings walks them, greeting his neighbors and inviting them to church.
He describes the hardships borne by the community: many of the young are involved in drugs and HIV is rampant. Most adults do not work and survive by whatever means they find. Many turn to crime.
We love this community because the people are thirsty for the Word of God.
Pastor Blessings Ndhlovu
Deadly water
“I have been pastoring this church now for ten years, and by God’s grace we have seen the growth,” he says. This growth Blessings attributes to the faithful proclamation of the Word of God, and by reaching the community through friendship.
One of these instruments of friendship is the church’s water well.
“We have a well,” Blessings says, “and normally we open our gate for anyone from our community to freely come and fetch water.”
In this Zambian township, most families survive on water from hand-dug wells. These shallow sources hold stagnant water, in which groundwater and sewage pool together. The water consumed by most households is contaminated, often deadly: typhoid and cholera have killed many townspeople.
“This is a well dug by hand.”Pastor Blessings Ndhlovu
“You could just literally see the water. It’s just so shallow.”
“Waterborne disease like cholera, typhoid… people easily die.”
“That’s how we used to survive.”
In 2023, HeartCry Missionary Society provided funds for Faith Baptist to drill a well of their own. Reaching sixty meters below the surface and pumping up into a large tank, this water is pure and safe to drink.
“This has made life much easier,” Blessings says—and not only for the members of Faith Baptist.
The church opens their gates to grant the whole community free access to the well. The townspeople come daily for clean, drinkable water of their own. All of them leave with more than physical water.
Whoever is coming to fetch water, let them hear the gospel. Let them hear the true living water. Let them understand that God has sent His Son to die for them.
Pastor Blessings Ndhlovu
“God provided for us to sink the well,” Blessings says, “and that has been a blessing to the community.”
“As people are drinking this physical water … we are sharing with them the spiritual water, the living water, who is Christ Jesus, our Lord and personal Savior.”
Living water
One of the church members, a woman named Ruth, speaks about evangelizing those who come for water. She tells them to feel free, draw water, and then she asks them if they have heard of the living water. Do they know Jesus Christ?
Ruth describes the way of a typical conversation. Usually they answer that they attend some church, perhaps even sing in a choir, as evidence of their spiritual health.
“No,” Ruth tells them. “You cannot be saved through singing in church, being a choir member.” Your works will never save you, she says. But if you confess with your own mouth and believe that the Lord Jesus died for your sins and was raised from the dead, you will be saved.
Ruth says: “It’s the well of evangelizing.”
Pastor Blessings explains that the door is open to all in the community, including the Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He draws from the Gospel of John, in which Jesus offers living water to a Samaritan woman at a well.
That’s what witnessing is all about. It’s about you hearing, you repenting and changing, and going and saying, can you see what this Savior, this Messiah, has done to me?
Pastor Blessings Ndhlovu
Our church is just in the right place, and that’s what I love about it, because then it becomes so bright. The light becomes so bright.
Pastor Blessings Ndhlovu
Because Faith Baptist opens its doors to the community, in turn the community opens its doors to them. Many who first come for physical water have been saved, and are today members of the church.
