Nearby, Lars Engeberg, Digital Video teacher at Pacific Union College, lowered a shiny black and yellow spider over the side of the boulder to show our companions. I watched fellow students Tim DeLaTorre and Paul Kim, feeling happy for the privilege to be on this adventure. We had come from PUC to the Philippines, carrying digital video equipment to document the missionary work of Laymen Ministries in remote villages. Our goal: to take to America stories that would challenge hearts.

Also with us were Jim Webb, Laymen Ministries Philippines Director, and Julius Betoya, the Filipino missionary who led in the building of this canal. Julius, his sweet wife Ann, and their two beautiful children, have been living and working in Pinagbayanan for two and a half years. In addition to teaching the village children, giving medical care, and sharing Jesus, Julius has been teaching the villagers how to grow rice to sell to the national Tagalogs. Where once the villagers cut and burned the jungles in search of food, and often were in debt to the wealthier Tagalogs, they now have a better food supply—and a profit. This day Julius had brought us up the mountain to see the source of this change in the villagers’ lives.

I thought how different this place was from the village we had seen that did not have a missionary. There the little stream, used for everything from toilet to laundry water, is discolored and foul smelling. The small huts and the ground around them are cluttered with debris. Afraid to release spirits from the earth, the villagers do not bury their feces, which spread all kinds of disease, as you can imagine. Children have dirt-smeared faces and protruding abdomens, home to intestinal parasites. Some have pinkeye, and all have scarred legs where they have scratched bug bites until they festered.

The children from the unreached village watched us with big, terrified eyes, and hid their dirty faces when we smiled and spoke to them. I saw tags tied around some necks, bearing the name of an alleged Christian organization. “These have been sold to the villagers,” Jim explained, “with the understanding that if they wear them, they will not get sick, and God will recognize them when He returns for His own.”

Soon we began our trek back down the canal on a pleasant path. Below the dam, we pushed through sharp grass and twigs that clawed our bare legs, and soon came into the clearing where the bright blue sky shone off the shallow water in small rice paddies. In my mind’s eye I saw wiry brown men bent, digging and sweating to bring a new life to their families. I saw men clearing trees and hauling rocks, building dirt dikes and plowing stony soil. I saw water—fresh, life-giving water—from the source on the mountain, rushing headlong down a shallow ditch, lending a bit of itself here and there to fill these small fields. I saw little green sprouts, touched by this source of life, pushing their way to the sky, sprouting heads of fruit that would be harvested, eaten, and sold. I saw life, growing, thriving, spreading—all from the one little mountain stream.

We continued down the mountain to where Ann was teaching in the schoolhouse. The children had come at the first ring of the bell, and I watched as about 15 students swept and gathered the leaves from around the mission house and school. I marveled at how well they did their work, without direction, and with their eyes fixed on the strange white people. Their eyes were big, but not frightened, and when I said, “Good morning,” they replied with smiles on clean faces, “Good morning, Ma’am!” Their clothes are clean, and most of them are free of lice and parasites.

Today Jim was giving the students their incentives. Because of the nomadic tendencies of the natives, it has been difficult keeping the children in school on a steady basis. And so the students receive different prizes depending on how long they have had perfect attendance. “Jaquelynn, a comb,” calls Ann, and a child timidly rises from the rough, hand-hewn bench to face Jim. “Good afternoon,” he says, and waits for a response. Then he asks a math question, and when she answers correctly, he hands her a comb. This explains the groomed hair. “Jomel, a towel,” Ann continues, when Jaquelynn sits down. This is incentive for the children to bathe themselves. Jomel beams as he returns to his seat clutching the brightly colored towel. “Arona, a spoon.” Eating with utensils rather than fingers (which are okay if they are clean) helps decrease disease in the villages. Others are given plates, fingernail clippers, and cups. I watched them return to their seats, clutching their precious treasures.

The Source of Life, the Living Water flows through living channels, and distributes itself among these young Tagalog missionary families, who in turn carry it into the jungle villages along the coast. In Aglimasan village it flowed from missionary Emily Rimandiman into the heart of a quiet Mangyan girl, Melkie Tobias, who now says, “When I learned [that God was my Friend], I knew there was hope for me.” Melkie now lives with Jim and Moni Webb, attending public high school, pursuing her dream of being a teacher. She plans to carry the Living Water back to her village and share it with more people. From the students this Water flows into the tiny grass huts and warms the hearts of the parents. It distributes little bits of itself along the way in every kind act of the missionaries. It touches dry hearts and starts life wherever it pools.

In other villages I saw more signs of the life springing from the Source. The ground around many of the huts had been swept, and each time I saw this I asked Jim, “Does that family have children in the school?” Without fail his answer was affirmative. Because the villagers know about Jesus, they are no longer afraid of the spirits in the ground, and they are building themselves little grass outhouses they call “comfort rooms.” In the village of Hinugasan we saw two little girls, perhaps three or four years old, scrubbing their clothes at the pump the missionaries had installed. A little later one of them was bathing from a five gallon bucket, pouring water over herself with her prized cup.

We spent the weekend near the city of Sablayan, where Luie Benitez and his assistant, Abel Miralles, conduct prison ministry. We attended Sabbath services in four separate locations, and it was clear that the River of Life is flowing through the Sablayan prison as well as the jungle villages. In the first service Tony, a young man who is a new attendee, shared what he had recently learned in the Bible. He was so glad, he said, that he had learned about Jesus in prison.

“If I had not been put in prison I would probably be dead now,” another inmate told those gathered, “I’m so glad I came to prison so I could learn about God.” At one point Melkie stood to share, and I could see the Source flowing through her to the eager, upturned faces of the men before her.

How incredibly beautiful it is when the Water of Life touches dry roots and causes such growth and joy in the Son—like the rice plants that reach their joyful faces to the sun. Another inmate stood to sing. His face was wrinkled and leathery, but behind thick glasses his eyes sparkled with life. Most of his teeth were missing, and he lisped a little when he sang in a thick accent, but I would not have been more touched to hear an angel sing:

“God sent His Son, they called Him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon, and life is worth the living just because He lives.

“Because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.”

High up a jungle mountain the electric blue sky peeks down at butterflies dancing among the bright green leaves. A shiny black and yellow spider sits in the sunshine on top of a boulder, overlooking a clear splashing stream. Not far away, perhaps even as you read this, heaven looks down on small heads bent over schoolbooks, or a gathering of tough inmates singing, as I heard it, “I just keep trusting my Lord, as I walk along....” And so the Water flows on from its Source, never ceasing, always seeking empty places to fill and overflow with new life.