Leadership Thought: Do You Have Any Woman at the Well Stories?

Dear Friends,

While I was chaplain and coach at Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale, I had the opportunity to meet  many wonderful people Among them was Mark Merrill, who with his wife, Robin,  had been missionaries in the Philippines. Mark was serving as an art teacher on the staff at the church, and he and I became good friends during our time together at the school.

In response to one of my devotional messages on loneliness-I was sharing the story of the loneliness of the woman at the well before  her  encounter with Jesus- he told me a story that I will never forget. He writes “Your words brought to mind a vivid memory. The most significant memory of my mission field experience in the red-light district of Manila, Philippines was to witness with my own eyes  a living picture of the woman at the well described in John 4. Robin and I, with the Lord’s hand, ‘plucked out’ a woman prostitute after many ministry encounters, only to receive a message from her that she was back at her old brothel and wanted us to meet her  there. Earlier in the year, we had driven  this woman far away from her home above the bar where she had sold herself into prostitution. The hardest thing for us to hear  was this that this ex prostitute who had given her heart to Jesus had gone back to her old business. It was a long hard drive to our meeting with her, and our hearts were heavy, and our imaginations were on overdrive.”

“But when we walked into this seedy bar asking for this woman, we heard voices talking and laughing upstairs. When Diana came downstairs, we could tell she had the Spirit of the Lord all over her. She was no longer lonely. She had come back to her old place to tell everyone about Christ and what He meant to her and how He had changed her life. I still remember her vibrant smile, and soon after I tried to paint a picture of it, but the painting could not begin recreate the extreme joy of that living scripture live moment.”

What an incredible picture of how the living Lord Jesus can change one’s life. If you have personally prayed to receive Jesus, you can identify with this story. The story brought me back to the time I knelt beside my cabin room bed at a Fellowship of Christian Athlete’s Conference in Lake Geneva, Wisc. in 1962 and gave my life to Jesus. If you have never made a decision to personally  commit your life to Jesus, I implore you to do so today. I promise you that your life will never be the same again. If you want more information on how to make this decision, please let me know, and I will gladly share more about how you can do this.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

P.S. If you have any “Woman at the Well” stories, please pass them along. I’d love to hear from you.