New Director for Living Water Community

As she prepared to begin her last full day as Director of the Living Water Community (LWC), an organisation she co-founded with Rose Jackman five decades earlier, Rhonda Maingot heard the words, “I called you to birth this Community. You will always be mother.”

With a Scriptural confirmation from Isaiah 55:1, “All you who are thirsty, come to the water,” Rhonda knew that she had made the right decision in not offering herself again for the position of Director, when the LWC met for its Chapter of Affairs and Elections in the week of November 16, 2025.

Rhonda explains: “The decision was not an easy one to make. Transition is always a difficult time—a sense of fear but also of excitement, a sense of joy and but also of some sorrow. I am happy where the Community is after 50 years and I owe every single day of these 50 years to the grace of God, to Rose and to my amazing Household. I am immensely grateful. I know that it is the Holy Spirit who is the protagonist of this Community and so I look forward in faith to the direction of the new leadership.”

And it is with faith that the new Director of the LWC, Rosemary Scott, steps into the role.

Rosemary may be new to the role, but she is far from new to the Community as she has been a Consecrated Household member for 42 years and Assistant Community Director for the last 15 years, working very closely with Rhonda and the team in Trinidad and Tobago and those on mission abroad.

Before formally joining the Community, Rosemary and some of her friends were part of the LWC’s youth group. On retreats with this group, she would often hear in her heart the words, “I am calling you to give yourself,” with the accompanying Scriptural verse Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb…I consecrated you”.

“But I always resisted, feeling that I was too young. It was at my 21st birthday party to which I had invited some people from the Community, including Rhonda—who could not come but who sent a card saying that she was praying for me and she quoted the Scripture passage from Jeremiah—that I really stopped and paid attention to God’s call on my life.  And in six months, I gave up my job and joined the Household of the Community,” Rosemary recalls.

Asked about how she feels being at the helm of the LWC, Rosemary very quickly answers, “I am overwhelmed, but I know it’s not just me. There needs to be one leader, but it is a team led by the Holy Spirit that leads the Community. We have all worked as a team to keep the Community alive for the last 50 years and it will be a team of us that will take it forward, learning from each other. I have a strong belief that this is God’s Community and so I am very encouraged and strengthened as I take on this new role.”

So where does Rosemary want to take the LWC under her leadership? “I reflect on the theme we used for our Chapter this year, Thanksgiving, Hope and Renewal—a future rooted in the past. I think this is a definite time for renewal and this has been a Spirit-led discernment coming out of our preparation for Chapter. My focus will be on creating a new empowerment, a reshaping for today’s challenges and opportunities where all members, regardless of their age or stage, can give the gift of themselves.”

Rosemary adds: “The last 50 years won’t be the next 50 years. I have learned so much and I know I have so much more to learn. We have challenges that we have to manage that were not around in the last 10 or 15 years but, time and time again, I have experienced God’s miracles when we place Him before any task, and it is with that strong sense of faith that we forge ahead. I have always told the Lord, ‘Whatever You ask of me, I will do’.”

Rhonda, too, remains committed to doing whatever God asks of her: “A mother is always around. There are still some things God needs me to do as part of my mission at the Living Water Community, and I continue to listen to Him to lead and guide me. I have the utmost faith in Rosemary, with whom I have worked for more than 40 years, including as my Assistant Director for the last 10 years. Rosemary helped to build the beautiful culture of the LWC for the last 40-plus years, and I am filled with gratitude that she will be taking the baton from me and building on a strong legacy.”

That legacy began with God’s call to Rhonda “to love and show the world how to love” and Rose to “share the fruits of your contemplation”. Since its founding in 1975, the LWC has grown significantly.

“We now have more than 500 covenanted members, benefactors, volunteers, participants in our programmes, our coffee and book shop patrons, our loyal Trinity TV viewers and our worshipping community—we consider them all part of the Living Water family,” explains Rhonda.

The LWC grew from a simple programme of feeding persons living on the street to 15 social outreach ministries, including caring ministries such as a halfway home for children in crisis situations; outreach ministries which provide food and other supplies to 200 communities throughout Trinidad and Tobago; and developmental ministries such as Marian House which offers a holistic programme for at-risk teenage boys. The LWC also has a mission in Barbados, having previously had missions in other Caribbean countries and Russia.

In 2025, LWC celebrated its 50th anniversary—a milestone that Rhonda attributed to God’s grace and the collective ‘yes’ offered by its Covenant members: “And it is this collective ‘yes’ and the guidance always of the Holy Spirit that will see this Community to the next 50 years and beyond.”

— Candice Clarke-Salloum