1. Core idea : Could 2 Olympic medalists carry 20litres of water like Ugandan teenage girls ?
Slides 1 – 6 are Tim’s personal reflections
Slides 7 – 19 can be used by speakers for their AEIOU talk

2. 1. Holistic challenge
Physical challenge - Every day, twice a day, Doreen and Jouvllet walk down a 3 km mountain to collect 20 litres of water and take it back up again. They need it to drink, cook and clean. When Olympic silver medallist Richard Chambers carried water with the girls he described it as on par with one the ‘hardest training sessions he’d ever done’.
Educational challenge - As well as being incredibly difficult, they miss the equivalent of 3 months of school.
Emotional nightmare - As you saw in the film, the girls described that they had been attacked by drunk teenage boys. I will never forget the church leaders we were with taking us aside and telling us that what they meant by that – was they had been attacked in the worst possible way that teenage boys could attack teenage girls. As a father of two girls, I began to realise that these girls were living my nightmare….

3. 2. Scale of the problem
I met 5 year Cibette who was carrying 5 litres of water up the same mountain. I carried the water for 40 minutes up to his house. The physical effort, and the low oxagen level at that height, left me feeling shattered.
In this area, there are 200,000 people like Cibette who don’t have clean water

4. 3. Extraordinary Hope
Lilian’s story
With Tearfund’s help, members of the local church reached out to a 50 year mother of 7 called Lilian. They listened to her story and discovered:
The fear she felt as she sent her daughters to get water
The pain she felt as one of her children nearly died from a water borne disease (dysentery)
She could only afford one meal a day for her family
Lillian has become to flourish holistically
Materials life – With training from Kigezi Lilian was able to build her own water tank and her children no longer have to walk to get water
Emotionally - By establishing a thriving business, she has been able to feed them and even buy a house and land
Spiritually - She said that she began to think ‘ This must be an amazing God who supplied these tanks’. Having experienced God’s love from the church, Lilian came to faith.
Now, she’s helping others to flourish
With clean water and food for her own family, Lilian has been able to show God’s love to families in the area.  She’s now Chair of church women’s group which has helped to build 240 water tanks. The lives of these families have all improved and many now have come to church and to faith.  The group has been so successful that 12 women from the church have been elected on the local village council where they have been helping to improve the well being of the whole community

5. Transformational change

6. But there’s another 200,000 who need help…

7. Before I start, a thank you….
Note : If the church has already supported our work, please take the opportunity to thank them. This immediately communicates to our listeners how much we value their support, helps them see the impact their support is making and builds rapport.
Before I start this morning, I would like to sincerely thank you for your incredible generosity.
Your church has given £x over the last x years.
As you will hear later £14 could help two people to access clean water and lead a more flourishing life.
That means that your church could have helped x (amount given divided by £7) people – thank you!
On behalf of all the people you’ve helped, people who you may never meet this side of heaven, I want to say a huge thank you.

8. ATTENTION
Note: This is your opportunity to grab the congregation’s attention with something compelling they are not expecting. You can use or adapt one of the two options below to fit your style and that of the church you are speaking at.
Option 1
I’m delighted that x has agreed to help me – you will already have arranged for a teenage girl to answer some questions.
Questions: How did you use water this morning ? Where did you get it ?  
This morning I am going to tell the story of Doreen and Jouvllet, two teenage girls, who don’t have water at their house.
Doreen and Jouvllet have to go and fetch water using a 20 litre jerry can like this. You could ask the girl to carefully lift and carry it.
They walk down a 3 km mountain to collect 20 litres of water and take it back up again.
Question: Do you think you could do that ?
Option 2
I’m afraid to say we have a problem. The water in the area has been switched off. This means there’s no water for toilets – and even more importantly (!) none for tea and coffee after the service.
I am pleased to say however that I have a solution. ( Ask teenage girls to join you at the front with the jerry cans or buckets).
We’ve learnt that there is water 3 kilometres away. So, I’ve asked (two teenage girls) to go and get water for us in these 20 litre jerry cans.
Please give them a round of applause as they leave (the girls take empty jerry cans, leave the building and fill up the cans ready for their big entrance at the end).
Hands up - who thinks that sending teenage girls to carry heavy water container is crazy? Did anyone actually feel annoyed that I’ve sent the two girls from your church to do this?

9. EMPATHY
Note: This is your opportunity to draw out the enormous physical and emotional challenges which Doreen and Jouvllet face in carrying water. You can do this by showing the film or recapping their story yourself. Either way you might like to share with the congregation the ‘gleaming detail’ in the story which most resonates with you.  
It’s obvious that Doreen and Jouvllet, like any of us, will physically struggle to carry those jerry cans. And it raises lots of other issues - will they be safe as they go to get it ? What are they missing in church or Sunday school when they are carrying the water?
And yet, that’s Doreen and Jouvllet’s story. At this point you can show their film or recap their story as follows:
Every day Doreen and Jouvllet walk down a 3 km mountain to collect 20 litres of water and take it back up again. They need it to drink, cook and clean.
When Olympic silver medallist Richard Chambers carried water with the girls he described it as on par with one the ‘hardest training sessions he’d ever done’.
As well as being incredibly difficult, they miss the equivalent of 3 months of school.
Gleaming detail –  what’s your gleaming detail to draw out  which people will remember from this story?  If the children have left the service you might like to use the following one:
For me, the most challenging aspect is that both girls described the fear they felt when they were attacked by drunk teenage boys when they walked up the mountain in the dark.
Is that not every parents’ nightmare? Your young daughters chased by drunk boys in the mountains.
In this area of Uganda there are 200,000 people like Doreen and Jouvllet who don’t have access to clean water.

10. INSIGHT
In a hot country like first century Palestine, with no piped water system, wells had a central place in the life of a local community. While drawing water, people met, chatted and relationships grew.
Jesus famously meets a Samaritan woman at a well in her community. Three key points stand out :
1. By asking the woman for a drink of water, Jesus reaches out across huge divides:
Jews and Samaritans had a hostile relationship. By simply being in this village Jesus had crossed a huge cultural barrier.
Women had a very lowly place in this society. By asking this woman for a drink, Jesus communicated value and respect to her. In doing so, he crossed a huge gender divide.
Women normally got water in the cool of the day at dawn or dusk. The fact that this woman was collecting water at the hottest time of the day, along with the fact that we find out that she had 5 husbands, indicate that she was probably been ostracised by her community.  

11. With Tearfund’s help, members of the local church reached out to a 50 year mother of 7 called Lilian, in the same way that Jesus did with the Samaritan woman. They listened to her story and discovered:
The fear she felt as she sent her daughters to get water
The pain she felt as one of her children nearly died from a water borne disease (dysentery)
She could only afford one meal a day for her family
Like Jesus, by talking to her they crossed huge divides:
She lived in a remote, mountainous village - the church staff had to go out of their way to meet her  
She was a woman - as women have a lowly status in Uganda,  simply talking to her was radical
She wasn’t a Christian – the church staff had to reach out to listen to her

12. In a conversation which revolved around water, Jesus engaged the Samaritan woman in a conversation which challenged her to change her life (v.16) and invited her to taste Jesus’ living water ( v.10

13. Lillian has begun to flourish holistically
Materials life – With training from Kigezi Lilian was able to build her own water tank and her children no longer have to walk to get water
Emotionally - By establishing a thriving business, she has been able to feed them and even buy a house and land
Spiritually - She said that she began to think ‘ This must be an amazing God who supplied these tanks’. Having experienced God’s love from the church, Lilian came to faith.

14. In v. 28, we read that after this encounter with Jesus the Samaritan woman went back to her village and invited others to meet Jesus. As a result, many Samaritans from her town came to faith (v. 39)

15. With clean water and food for her own family, Lilian has been able to show God’s love to families in the area.  She’s now Chair of church women’s group which has helped to build 240 water tanks. The lives of these families have all improved and many now have come to church and to faith.  
The group has been so successful that 12 women from the church have been elected on the local village council where they have been helping to improve the well being of the whole community.
Diocese of Kigezi’s motto is – ‘Water is life, Jesus is everlasting life’. Lilian is the living outworking of that passage.
The Diocese of Kigezi, have helped an incredible 300,000 people like Lilian access clean water and have a more flourishing life. 300,000 people is the equivalent of (insert reference to village, town or city you are in).
So, If you’ve one of the people who support us – then thank you again!! Change is happening.

16. OPTIONS
Note: this is your opportunity to help your listeners to connect directly with what God is saying to them through this passage.
As we read this passage today, what is God saying to us about how we should respond to Doreen and Jouvllet’s story ?
Will we follow Jesus’ example and offer these girls life?  
Or will we turn and walk away …

17. You  
YOU
Star Moment – at this moment ask the teenage girl/s to come back into church from the back carrying the jerrycans or buckets.
In this area of Uganda there are still 200,000 people in the Diocese of Kigezi who don’t have access to clean water.  We want to help them to access clean water and lead a more flourish life.
Around the world we have a 10 year vision to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a worldwide network of 100,000 local churches. We want all of these people to flourish.
In Uganda, we’ve made real progress in addressing this mountainous problem. We need you to help us get on top of it in Uganda and in communities around the world.
As we speak, girls just like these two are carrying water – girls like Doreen and Jouvllet.  I’m going to leave this jerry can at our stand so you can try and lift it yourself.

18. £7 can help a girl like Doreen access clean water and lead a more flourishing life
YOU
You can help stop this! Praying with us and giving £7 a month over a year could help 12 people access clean water. In Uganda, The Diocese of Kigezi does this by teaching people how to build water tanks or water pipes. This not only provides clean water, but also gives people skills to help themselves and opens a relationship which leads lots of people to faith.
If you’d like to join us in bringing life:
You can start by taking one of our beautiful ‘Little books of growth’. It has 10 more stories of growth like Lilian’s which you can use to think and pray through how God helps people to grow.  Everyone can have a copy in order to receive one you simply need to  fill in you contact details on the card in your hands and give it in at our stand at the back. In return we will give you our book and we’ll keep you up to date with how you can pray and help us bring life.  I will give you some time to fill it in now
I would love to invite you to help girls like Doreen and Jouvllet by giving  £7 a month - over a year you could help 24 people access clean water and lead a more flourishing life. Giving regularly to our work helps us plan how to spend our money effectively and ensure our partners are supported long term If you would like to find out more about giving regularly to Tearfund Simply tick the box on the form and someone like me will give you a call to discuss it further.

19. FINAL SLIDE
The Diocese of Kigezi’s motto summarises this passage brilliantly ‘Water is life, Jesus is everlasting life’.
The Samaritan woman discovered this to be true when she met Jesus.
Lilian has found it to be true in Uganda. With our help our partner the Diocese of Kigezi has been able to provide her with clean water and introduce her to the living water which Jesus offers.
We need your help in bringing life to girls like Doreen and Jouvllet.
Join us as we provide clean water and share Jesus’ living water with them and  thousands of people like them in Uganda and around the world.
Finish with a prayer.