Advent Conspiracy: Chacocente Video

On the first Sunday in Advent we shared a video to give people at Jacob's Well a tangible way of understanding why we are choosing to celebrate Christmas and worship Christ differently this year. The video is of a water project in Chacocente, Nicaragua, undertaken by the Ecclesia community of Houston, TX, in partnership with the Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International. As you can see in the first half of the video, the community lives in the town garbage dump. It is hard to fathom that reality. Friend and Ecclesia founding pastor Chris Seay sent me this last year and every time I see it, it still provokes emotion in me that is overwhelming.

The original version Chris sent me was almost ten minutes long (and though I haven't looked, I believe you can find the long version on YouTube). Beth Mercer edited that version down to the four-and-a-half minute one here and that was used in our worship gathering at Jacob's Well Church on December 2.

We have heard from several people that seeing that video allowed them not only to conceptualize why this is so important, but also share with others (friends, family members, co-workers) why they are choosing to engage Christmas in such a dramatically different way this year. We are trying to create an Advent Conspiracy page on the Jacob's Well Church site that has all of the different resources we are creating and using, but until we do I want to make it for people to access here.

So, without further explanation...

A final remark about this video. Yesterday we received an email from a man in our congregation, Clay Masters, describing his reaction to both the Advent Conspiracy generally and this video specifically. His words really affected me and so I asked his permission to share them here.

The Advent Conspiracy has been grace to us. I think we are more peaceful this year at Christmas than we ever have been. After watching the video last week, a thought came to me. All those recipients receiving clean water were also receiving a "baptism" of sorts. I am not sure how to describe the beauty and grace of what I saw....it was as if the people were getting a baptism into grace without words being spoken. Or another image comes to mind. Perhaps the water that they played in and so joyfully received was more than a channel of H2O, but also a channel of grace. And the only thing we can do in it (water=grace) is dance to the goodness of God!

What a beautiful reflection. The only thing that I would add to it is that it seems to me that it wasn't only those receiving the gift of water who were being baptized, but those who provided it, too. There seems to me to be a mutuality present in this exchange that can also be seen when Jesus (who himself is living water) asked the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar to give him a drink. What beautiful interdependence.

Finally, tomorrow I will post the video of the water project Jacob's Well is taking on in NW Kenyan region of Pokot.

Comments

[Mike Walden]

Tim,

Enjoying the links and updates through your blog. I have a rather random question..Do you know if there is a group going to the Amahoro conference this year? Or a group going to Africa? I have been thinking of such things. Looking forward to being back in the JW community come January. Blessings.

Mike Walden