Running with the Story

When my teammate and I moved to a small border town in western Cambodia for a year, we spent a lot of time walking and praying. 

We soon earned the reputation around the area as “the foreign twins who always exercise.” At least people knew who we were, I guess! As we walked, we would ask God to show us if there was someone we should speak to, a heart ready to receive the precious gift of Jesus that we carried with us. 

One day, as we were walking, we saw a sign for a midwife. Both of us were interested in maternal and infant care, so we decided to investigate the little house next to the sign. The older woman who met us immediately welcomed us in, pulling up plastic chairs and offering us a cold drink. 

We shared our purpose for living in the town and learned more about her and her practice. “I heard about Jesus through a TV show!” she exclaimed, and she wanted us to share more. My teammate and I shared the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Her response: “Jesus is so smart!” 

Over the coming weeks we would stop in as we were out walking. The midwife was always out on a call or teaching classes on the other side of the border. Finally one day we found her at home. 

“Do you have another story to tell me?” she asked us immediately. As she gave us a snack of fresh fruit, she excitedly told us how she had been sharing the Lazarus story with her patients: pregnant women, new mothers, and others attending her health classes.

She became a storyteller of Jesus. 

The midwife’s hunger for stories reminded me of another woman who encountered Jesus in an unexpected moment, one whose story has echoed through generations.

Do you remember the story of the woman at the well in John 4? Jesus sat down at the well after a long day of traveling. He spoke with a Samaritan woman in an encounter that changed her life. She came in the middle of the day to draw water, perhaps out of shame for the way her life had unfolded and to avoid stares or gossip. Yet after her conversation with Jesus, she left her water jar behind and immediately ran to her village home. She had no shame in telling everyone that Jesus knew her whole story. 

The people in the village listened to her. Later in chapter 4, we learn that many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because of her testimony.

As I think about the midwife in western Cambodia and the Samaritan woman, I am reminded that Jesus meets us in the middle of our own stories. Are we paying attention to how God might want to show up in the weary or hidden places, in the ordinary moments? 

The woman at the well left behind her water jar, an essential part of her daily routine, to run with the story of Jesus. That detail stuck out to me. Water was life. And yet, in that moment, her heart overflowed with something even more urgent: the news that she had been seen, known, and loved.

I wonder what it might look like for us to do the same.

Are there things we’re holding onto—routines, expectations, distractions—that we might need to set down so we can more freely share the story of Jesus with others? What jars might we leave behind so that we can run with joy and freedom into the next chapter God is writing?

Whether we find ourselves walking dusty roads in Cambodia or navigating ordinary days in our neighborhoods, may we stay open to the quiet nudges of the Spirit. May we become storytellers like the midwife, like the woman at the well: people who share out of the overflow of our own encounters with Jesus.

Who in your life is ready to hear a story of Jesus? What part of your own story might you need to share?