She has a Name

You know the story in the Bible about the Samaritan woman Jesus met beside the well in John 4? Long story short, Jesus meets a woman by the town well and tells her that He is offering eternal life in the form of living water. She was a little skeptical, considering Jews and Samaritans meshed like Ke$ha and Frank Sinatra. She had been used and abused: promises were typically scams in her world. What was His agenda? But before she even has time to question His motives, Jesus starts listing off her worst secrets one after the other. It didn’t take long before she bolted back to her own town telling everyone that she had just met the Christ they’d been waiting for.

I met a modern-day Samaritan woman this week, and her name is Rosemary: Rosemary Chembee.

Road leading up to Rosemary’s village.

It was a hot afternoon in the Zambian bush when I met Rosemary. The breeze kicked up thick African dust, and I peaked through squinted eyes at yet another enigmatic village rising up before us. No sooner had we entered the edge of the clearing than a peal of excitement and terror rang out from the center of the space. “Maguwas!” (“white people”) half a dozen children screamed as they darted inside the ambiguous huts dotting the village. The wave of children parted, and a perfect triangle of women sat before us. These were the ones we had come for.

They were expecting us. Sure, proud: they sat sturdy as tree trunks in the blazing sun. They looked more like ancient Amazonian women than common Zambian housewives. Their husband, Cornelius, had accepted Christ as his Savior the day before, and had asked that we come share the Gospel with his wives as well.

Rosemary sat at the point of the triangle, and motioned for our group to take a seat on several hand-carved wooden stools they placed for us. We sat down and casually began to introduce ourselves. It was awkward: they knew there was a reason we had come, and we knew why we had come, but the business of actually bringing it up was still in the works.

As everyone got to know each other, I watched the faces of the women. I love people’s faces. If you look closely, they give away more about a person than they could ever say with their words. The miniscule flashes of emotion; the wrinkle in the nose, a tightened lip, the beautiful way the eyes crease in the corners from a true smile… these are the things that give people away. And as I watched the faces of the women, I saw the patterns emerge.

One of Rosemary’s little girls.

These were not the women of stone we made them out to be. Slight slips of weariness fell through their sturdy façade the longer we sat with them. The crease on Rosemary’s brow, and the way she continuously rubbed her arms, the wide eyes, the way she leaned into her hand: she was nervous, and she was tired. And the heaviness she carried was not the kind that came from working the fields.

That was enough to get me talking. I said, “Your husband heard the Good News yesterday. This is news that will change His life for eternity. Your husband met Jesus Christ yesterday; I have come that you might meet Him as well.”

Now, there are two responses to hearing this kind of news. Some people, like the other two wives, might sit, respectfully and politely listening to what you have to say. They’re listening, but as far as any human eye can see, they’re not digesting what is being said. On the other hand, you have Rosemary, who sat hinged forward on the edge of her seat; eager-eyed, hanging on every word I said like it was the lifeline she’d been waiting for.

I told them the story of the Samaritan woman and explained that Jesus had come to offer water from the well that would never run dry. This “water” was the same eternal life Jesus had come to offer the woman from Samaria.

At the end of my story, I paused, and I tried to embrace the thick silence filling the area. My arms fell in front of me, and I spread my hands towards the women. Though I know my words tumbled out like awkward toddlers’ steps, I could feel something inside of me glowing and alive: something like atmosphere was spilling out of my mouth. These words were alive, and I was not their source. “Jesus Christ came into this world to offer you and me that same living water that He offered that Samaritan woman so many years ago. Because of our sin, we have been separated from God. But we were created to love God and to be with Him, so He sent His perfect Son into the world to live a sinless life for us. He died a horrible death, was buried, and was brought back to life. And He is sitting beside His Father in Heaven, even now. God loves you, and He wants you. He has always wanted you. He is offering you a free gift: this living water. But you must reach out and take it. Your husband, Cornelius, drank of that water yesterday. And God offers you the same gift. But you cannot do this because of your husband. You must make your own choice: you must choose.” And with that, a heavy sigh from Rosemary came barreling out through the silence.

I saw it in her eyes. I saw the release. The weariness and frustration, the anxiety and the fear: finally. She knew it in the depths of her soul. The Redeemer had come for her: and she had waited a lifetime for His arrival. “I want this water,” she said. And so she prayed.

It was a strange feeling, when we stood to leave her. She had no discipleship, no Bible. How was her faith going to survive? I heard God whisper to me, “I will not leave you orphans. I will come for you.” And I knew it was true. I turned and said to her, “You have to understand. Because of what you have done, Jesus Christ is living inside of your heart now. He has said that He will send you a Counselor that will guide you, and speak to you, and teach you how to live as Jesus lived. This is His Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. You have a responsibility. You must share what has been done for you. The people around you; they have to know what Jesus did. They have to know that He lives in you now.” And with that, our time was up.

We began walking down the same dusty path towards the next village, and away from an emotion-filled Rosemary. Tears spilled over my eyes as I prayed for her: “God, you promised you would come for her. Be with her always.”

We pushed on through the day, praying with several other villagers, eventually making our way back to the truck, exhausted. We loaded up as the sun slowly began to sink down over the endless plains. The same prayer had been rolling around my head all day, and I prayed it again as the Zambian bush faded away in that thick wave of dust, “God, You said you’d come for them…”

Rosemary’s children worshiping with us.

Several of Cornellius’ 15 children.

We had driven through the Bush for several miles, weaving our way through the narrow footpaths-turned-roads when a woman came tearing out of the grass towards our car. Low and behold, ROSEMARY came sprinting out from behind—wait for it— the local WELL. She was breathless and sweaty, sucking in air and pointing frantically as she tried to speak. “I have been everywhere!” she said. “I have been telling my neighbors, anyone I could find, all day, what Jesus did for me. I have told them what has happened in me. I have told them that He lives here now.” She took off back into the bush, probably trying to reach another village before the sun set. And our group just sat there: open-mouthed in shock. This woman… was on FIRE and was consuming everything in her path.

Since that day, we have returned to that village multiple times to find the Holy Spirit alive and active in that area. What God did in Rosemary’s heart has spread to many of the local villagers through she and her husband Cornelius’ witnessing. Each time we returned to her village, she would beckon to us, telling us, “Come! There are more villages that need to hear.” She was desperate to share the life she found in her Savior.

Rosemary and me

What would you do if you met a man that offered you water that would never run dry? What would it be like to taste its sweetness? It’s something you don’t recover from. And honestly, you were never meant to.

This is not just another sweet story to make you tear up and then move on with the next thing in your life. When Rosemary went through this, her world turned upside down, and she is never going to recover from what happened that day. The Holy Spirit is alive and present and moving across the globe, and there isn’t time for our fear of awkwardness or discomfort in sharing Him. God has done so much more than save me from Hell after I die. You have to understand, before Jesus came into my life, the darkness, the endless cycle of fear and anxiety, the hopelessness: my life WAS Hell before I knew Him. He literally reached into my heart and took me out of that place through His grace. And Rosemary’s testimony put me on my knees in shame over my silence in America. I can blame it on the culture: most people are hard-hearted and aren’t open to hearing about a man that could name off their sins one by one. But this same man moved in my life, and lives in me, and loves me, and saved me from my myself; and there is an entire world in front of me that needs to know.

I am praying for boldness and humility in myself, and especially the Christians back in America today. I often pray that God will break my heart for what breaks His, but what does it matter if I never tell anyone what happened when He did? Yes, faith without action is dead, but the reason we were created with a voice is to speak. So go! And as you go, tell about what has been done for you. Tell the hairdresser, the man at the office, your children, your father, that friend: there is rest. There is grace. There is hope. You don’t have to drag around the sins of your past, crawling through desert to punish yourself for what has been done. Jesus drug Himself through that misery. All you have to do is accept what He did for you. And believe Him when He says it is finished.