A Christian charity called The Bucket Ministry is providing clean water in more than 30 countries.
Founder Chris Beth said he heard God’s voice tell him to help people with their water while he was in the Amazon jungle.
The Texas businessman told CBN News he was accompanying his daughter on a missions’ trip to Brazil in 2012 when he witnessed first-hand what it meant to not have access to clean water after a local host in the Amazon asked if he was thirsty.
“I expected her to go into a refrigerator and get a bottle of water. But she went out onto this little plank on this house and bent down to fill two cups with river water,” Mr. Beth explained, adding that what happened next was something he never imagined.
“I’d never been in the business of hearing God’s voice. But I heard two words and He clearly said, ‘Help them,'” he revealed.
Chris Beth found the solution to helping them at a Dallas camping supply store where he saw a filter that uses the same technology as kidney dialysis that could be used to remove harmful bacteria from dirty water.
“It attaches to any bucket or receptacle. The filter is capturing all the dirt, the debris, the parasites, everything that’s making people sick from drinking unclean surface water.”
The Bucket Ministry was born as he returned to Brazil, supplying the filters to communities to access clean, safe drinking water.
“In the last 10 years we’ve probably distributed in excess of 250,000. So, we’ve helped 250,000 families. Just last year alone we distributed about 35,000,” Mr. Beth told CBN News.
One of its main outreaches is in the Kibera slum of Nairobi which is home to around 400,000 people. The ministry uses a filter supplied by Sawyer Products which adapted it from one used by backpackers and hikers.
Sawyer’s international director Darrel Larson told CBN News his company which gives 90% of its annual profits to clean water projects, donated nearly 100,000 filters for the Kibera project.
The number of people sick and dying from water-born illness has dropped dramatically in the areas helped by The Bucket Ministry.
“We are hearing reports that the number of patients coming through clinics are so few compared to what it was that clinics are having to close and consolidate operations,” Mr. Beth reported.
He noted that supplying clean water has led to many opportunities to share the Gospel.
“We use the water as a tool and it’s a tool to get to that point of sharing the Gospel. So for us it’s all about the Great Commission and going and making disciples,” said Mr. Beth.
“The filter itself for many of these people provides a miracle. And the miracle is they get to see the dirty water change to clean water. And the obvious connection of this is comparing the dirty water to the sin in our lives and the clean water is what we look like in relationship with Jesus.”
The ministry has also boosted Chris Beth’s faith walk.
“Prior to the last 10 years, I was not involved in the church. I wasn’t even a very good follower of Jesus. And now I get to see Him work every single day. And what it’s done for me is it’s given me a faith that I don’t think I would have ever had without seeing Him work like this.”
Nearly 800 million people cannot access safe drinking water according to the World Health Organization.
