Chris - Bucket Ministry 2 Audio

[00:00:00] The Missional Life Podcast, inspiring Kingdom-minded believers around the world to live the mission of God in their lives.

Dan: All right. Welcome back to Mission Light Podcast. Today we have Chris Beth on the show. Chris is the founder, chief storyteller, and Director of the Bucket Ministry, a nonprofit that brings the love of Jesus and the gift of clean, safe drinking water to underserved communities around the world. His journey.

From the business world to the rivers of the Amazon and then to over 20 nations shows how an ordinary man with a heart form mission can answer an extraordinary call. Chris, welcome to the show.

Amanda: Welcome,

Dan: Dan.

Christopher: Amanda, thank you so much. This is a blessing to be with you guys and just excited to unpack a few stories,

Dan: man.

Speaking of stories, let's dive right in. Your story begins with a single moment on the Amazon River. It's [00:01:00] amazing how God uses those unexpected moments to sometimes redirect our entire lives. So let's rewind to that pivotal moment when you were on the Amazon with your daughter and God spoke to you.

Christopher: Yeah. And going back a little bit further, I have no experience with missions, with ministry, and in fact, I got saved at the age of 40. I'm 57 years old now, so I consider myself a little newer to the party than many. And so my daughter came home from school one day and she said she wanted to go on this trip to the Brazilian Amazon, and she had made mission trips before to South Texas.

We live near Dallas and even South Texas seemed pretty far away, but. The Amazon that's a lot further away. So I did this little reverse psychology move on her and I said, well, hey, listen mom, and I think you could go. If you're gonna go, you gotta raise all the money [00:02:00] yourself. And, you know, secretly, I was sure she wasn't gonna be able to raise the $3,500 for this trip.

Right. And so I thought this is the end of conversation. Three weeks later, she's got $3,500 raised. It is the craziest moment where my wife Sherry and I look at each other and we're like, oh. Well, I guess she's gonna have to go now, but one of us wanted to be there with her. I mean, that's too far away on a trip she'd never been out of the country before.

So, we draw straws and that becomes my job to go and to accompany her. But I want to just make it super clear. I only went to be her dad. I did not go because I had a love or compassion for the Brazilian people. This was in 2012 and I had started a relationship with Jesus three or four years before that and really didn't even understand that [00:03:00] relationship fully.

I hadn't been discipled yet, so I didn't go to Brazil because I felt some calling to be the hands and feet of Jesus, just the opposite. The only reason I went is to bring my kid home. So I end up going on this trip with my daughter Savannah, and we board this airplane from Dallas and we fly into Manas, Brazil.

And then a few minutes later we're on the banks of the Amazon River and we board an open Air river boat with 12 other people that we barely knew. And we started making our way out of Manas Brazil and into the interior. Of the Amazon Basin and we're winding through things that really, I would say maybe would be closer described as being in the pages of National Geographic and we saw a giant parrots and, crazy fish like piranha and these aima fish. [00:04:00] And then we saw huge snakes and other reptiles and bugs, bigger than my fist. And we're just in this. Crazy environment. And so it takes us 18 hours to get to the place we're gonna start working. And on the next day, the trip leader sends out these faith teams and we were doing multiple things in each village, but I was assigned to this faith team and, which meant I went door to door with an interpreter, with another pastor, and we told people what we're gonna do in their village that day and then prayed over them.

For two days, I did not say one word. I was so out of my comfort level and there was people speaking in a language I didn't even understand. And I'm not even talking about Portuguese. I'm talking about a language of having a relationship with Jesus for a long time and speaking like they did and you know, talking about being the hands and feet.

And so the third day of this trip comes and I get [00:05:00] assigned to this faith team again. But this time the pastor that I was with said Hey, I'm not gonna go and I want you to do this by yourself. And I was immediately terrified. Because I didn't know if he remembered, but I didn't even talk the first two days.

And here he wants me to go lead this and to pray over people. So we go across this little river in a small boat and meet this beautiful Brazilian couple. Their, names are Olivia and Marlene. And they invite me into their home very warmly. I'm there with my interpreter and this little Brazilian woman looks at me and she goes, are you thirsty?

And I'm looking around this house and I don't see a refrigerator, I don't see a bottle of Ozark laying anywhere. And I said, yeah, I'm thirsty. So I'm half expecting her to go outside and she's got a cooler with bottled water or something because what do I know about a world water crisis? [00:06:00] I'm just a dad trying to bring my kid home from a crazy trip in the Amazon.

So this woman goes to her kitchen and she gets two cups and they were mismatched and they were cracked. And at that point she walks outside and I'm thinking, I did not see a water cooler outside. And she walks out into this little dock. Bends down and puts these two cups in the water and she fills 'em up with river water and I'm standing in the doorway behind her thinking this lady's nuts.

What does she expect me to do with this? And sure enough, she comes back, she hands one cup to me, one cup to my interpreter. So there's these points in life where you have to make some pretty quick decisions and it's going to affect your outcome. So I knew if I drank this dirty water that had stuff swimming in it.

I'm gonna get sick. I'm gonna spend the rest of the trip in the bathroom. If I don't, she's gonna think I'm rude [00:07:00] because I just got done telling her how thirsty I was. I look outta the corner of my eye at my interpreter and he's wagging his finger. No, don't do that. So now I realize I can't drink it.

Also the gravity of this situation sets in and I realized that this is, all these people have to drink again. I didn't know anything about a world water crisis. It didn't even cross my radar that people had to drink out of a river. And then I realize they think that's normal. They think it's normal to drink out of a river.

So as I'm pondering this big thought, I heard something I'd never heard before, or I should say I heard something maybe I didn't ever listen to. Now I'm, gonna admit to you both right here, that I'm not proud of this moment. It actually happened. And so prior to this day in 2012, if I would've had a friend [00:08:00] tell me, Hey, I just got a word from the Lord today, or I got some instruction from God on what I should do in this situation.

I was skeptical when I heard that. In fact, I might've given him one of these looks. Well, really, he stopped his day to give you some instruction. But what actually ended up happening in this situation is I heard two words as I'm holding this glass of dirty water. And the two words were crystal clear and they were in English and he said, help them.

But it came with no instruction. I didn't know what help them meant. I didn't even understand the reference. Am I supposed to cook 'em dinner? Am I supposed to give 'em 20 bucks outta my wallet? Am I supposed to repair their boat motor? I don't know what help them means. So I left there that day in 2012 with this incredible burden of what I saw that I couldn't reconcile.

I saw people drinking water out of a river. They thought that was normal. I saw people [00:09:00] without hope and that seemed to be like every other day for them as they felt that way. So that day in 2012 is where I like to say God breathed life into the bucket ministry. And that day in 2012 is where he showed me why he created me.

Dan: Wow. Such a powerful story. And it means so much to me too because much like you, why we're doing what we're doing in some ways goes back to the Amazon rainforest as well. I was there, I heard the Lord and said, this is what I've called you to go to nations. And so I love how you went there and you were trying to do one thing.

You wanted to bring your daughter home, but God left you. With something different. There was a burden and I wanna hang on that word for a minute because oftentimes that's how God speaks to us and leads us into the thing that he wants us to do. He gives you a burden and you really kind of come to yourself and you say, if not me, then who?

If I don't help them, who will help them. And the [00:10:00] Amazon is such an amazing place because like you said, it's out of the National Geographic magazines, right? Like you go there and it's a beautiful place. There's beautiful wildlife, there's beautiful cultures there.

But even though it's this amazing area and it has this amazing biodiversity. It's one of the most underserved areas in the entire world. Why? Because it's so difficult to get there. You had to fly from, you know, north America to one of the major cities in Brazil. Then you had to fly to the capital, which is, you know, three or four hours inland.

Then you had to travel on a boat. It's hard to get there and when things are hard to get to. Oftentimes you find the people that are most underserved and those are the people that most need help. And I love how God put that burden to this ministry called the Bucket Ministry.

So tell us about what God began to show you and reveal to you in the Bucket ministry and what he created through you.

Christopher: Yeah. So I just need to emphasize I was a business guy. I had no background in ministry. I [00:11:00] didn't know how to start a ministry. I didn't even know what the word ministry meant, if I'm being honest.

So I came back home with this burden and tried to start understanding. More about what I saw. So I started researching the water crisis around the world, and I found out that 785 million people around the world don't have access to something I've taken for granted my entire life. If I'm thirsty, I go to my refrigerator with a cup or I go buy a bottle of water.

And I think that's like what most Americans probably think of. But what I learned is more than twice the population of the United States doesn't have something so fundamental for life. The only thing of greater need is oxygen. I wasn't called to help people with oxygen, just water.

So I learned how big the problem was. Then I started researching solutions and I wasn't even really too terribly Sure. About [00:12:00] anything other than what I saw in Brazil. This flooded river Bank. And I started researching solutions to give people clean water there. And I looked at wells, I looked at bio sim filters.

I looked at hundreds of other great filters to be able to provide clean water. And they were all fairly complicated. They had a short lifespan and they were very costly and non portable. So one day my family and I are at this camping store in Dallas and I'm just perusing the water filter aisle for backpacking and camping.

And I come across a company called Sawyer Products out of Tampa, Florida. And they manufacture this filter that attaches to any bucket or receptacle and it will filter. 350 to 500 gallons per day and this thing will last for over 20 years. And I thought, holy cow, this could be exactly [00:13:00] what helped them meant.

So I bought a few of these filters, brought 'em home. I made my family drink out of Lake Ray Hubbard here in the Dallas area for a week through this filter. And we all survived. And then also at the end of that week, none of us. Could tell the difference between filtered water and Ozark that we were having delivered to our house if it was the same temperature.

We couldn't taste any difference. So we considered that experiment passed. So then shortly thereafter, I went back to the Amazon. We brought 80 filters back and God showed us really what this filter was is this filter becomes a key. That starts a relationship with people in homes and our indigenous missionaries and pastors earns us the right to be able to share the gospel and those that respond then starting to teach them discipleship lessons.

So while all that [00:14:00] started in the Amazon basin in 2012 here we are at. 2025. And since that very humble beginning this is now my full-time job as leading this organization. We currently work in about 20 countries. We have worked in probably 30. Different countries and we're now serving somewhere around 42,000 families per year with clean, safe drinking water, preaching the gospel in every home.

And those that come to believe that don't have a church home, we're starting to teach patterns of discipleship in their homes and redirecting them to local like-minded homes. Or planting home Bible study fellowships in a place of peace in near their home

Dan: that filter the Sawyer Point one filter.

I was doing the research. It says it removes 99.99999%. [00:15:00] Five nines. Yeah. Five nines. Of bacteria. And it's the most effective. What is POU

Christopher: point of use?

Dan: Point of use filters. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the thing goes for 20 years and it says it has a lifespan over 1 million gallons.

That's absolutely incredible and such a game changer in providing clean water, but amen. The weird thing, and I say the weird or the strange, or the amazing thing to me is, you know, when we talk about providing water to underserved people and in responding to this, what we would say, a water crisis, we would normally list that as a relief organization.

Hey, we're bringing relief. We're bringing something that's a necessity to people. And you're doing that, but you don't describe. Your organization as a relief organization, but rather a discipleship organization, and that is a. Really incredible. And I know you shared a little bit about that, but can you go a little bit deeper with us?

Why are you a [00:16:00] discipleship organization?

Christopher: Yeah, and great question. And really the heart of what we do in my Heart in the beginning with this is, I did not want to leave clean water and walk away because people die every day and they end up in hell. That have clean water. Amen.

Yeah. In this case what God showed us specifically that this filter was an entry strategy or a key that opened a door into people's lives. So there's very little tools that we use in ministry that will gain us unrestricted access to every family's. Personal, private home, and no matter what the culture is, it could be Muslim, it could be Hindu, it could be Buddhist.

In the 13 years of doing this, we've never been denied access to any home or any place when we lead with water. So water is the entry, but [00:17:00] water also gives us a mechanism to cast a vision. Of what a relationship with Jesus looks like. And we'll hold up a glass of dirty water. This isn't dirty water.

It's tea, but you kind of get the point. And we'll show a glass of dirty water like this and say, you know what, if I drink this dirty water right now, I'm gonna get sick. If I keep drinking it, it could kill me. It's a lot like the sin in our lives. But this water filter, this beautiful water filter if I run this water through this water filter, it will purify, it will renew, it will restore this water.

And it's just like what Jesus did on the cross for us. He, by that single finished act. He did on the cross, allowed himself to be crucified. He allowed us to be restored, renewed to the father because we were separated by our sin. [00:18:00] So what this filter does at the end of the day is it provides a mechanism for us to share the gospel in a meaningful, tangible way because we're addressing a major physical need.

And when you do that. People want to hear what else you have to say. When you walk into a family and you tell them, your children are never gonna get sick from drinking that river water again, it gets their attention. And then we earn the right through relationship to be able to share the gospel with them and disciple them if they come to believe.

So we see our identity as a Matthew 28 18 through 20 organization. We're a great commission organization, and that's how we measure our success.

Amanda: Wow, that's so beautiful. Just talking about. Providing an entry point to get to families. Something that really stuck out to me when you were sharing earlier, [00:19:00] when the woman initially got you the glass of water, from the river, was that.

This is just what they did every day. They didn't know any better. They didn't know there was a different solution. And as you were sharing that earlier, I just thought, how many people in the world just don't know any better? They don't know the gospel. They don't know that Jesus is the living water that gives us life.

They just are drinking the dirty water that. Whatever culture that's not infused with the gospel is giving them whatever has been handed down. So it's just such a beautiful picture. Jesus just gives of himself to be the living water and how he called us to go and make disciples.

It's so amazing

Dan: and what stood out to me. What you were saying there too was that last statement that you measure your success based off of that principle of go e and make disciple measure their success and their expansion. By how many communities can we serve? How [00:20:00] many are we serving?

And your measure of success, your benchmarks are not. Necessarily world benchmarks, but they're kingdom benchmarks, although you do have that. And so you have this term called mission mapping. And so how does that help create accountability and effectiveness within your mission as organization?

Christopher: Yeah, great question. Every single filter that we distribute has a unique barcode or QR code on that. And at the point of distribution, that barcode is scanned by a local indigenous missionary air pastor with an Android smartphone. They scan that barcode and then at that point of distribution, they collect.

Baseline data from the family, asking questions like, how many in your family what are their ages? Do they attend school? Do you attend church? If so, what's the denomination? And then [00:21:00] what kind of symptoms do you have of waterborne disease now? So that becomes. A, a baseline, and then we take a picture of that family with their new filter.

And then when we distribute these filters, our indigenous teams will go back three times in the first six weeks of them having their filter to do an in-home follow-up. And in those in-home follow-ups, we check the filter functionality. Make sure it's running properly. And we do a spiritual assessment of the family and then share the gospel when appropriate and disciple when appropriate.

And when we do those follow-ups, we also scan the barcode and we collect updated data and put a GPS pinpoint on their home. So realistically, what we've done through this mission mapping platform that we have. Is we have developed an accountability system to be able to see each of our missionaries, what they did every single day, [00:22:00] and we get this data live.

So let's say we're supporting a missionary in Uganda we can tell. Exactly what that missionary did, because within our internal organizational structure, the accountability for our teams is if you do anything in the field, you have to scan the barcode of the filter and you have to collect data and identify what you've done.

So when you have that kind of accountability structure. Then we can receive that data and we can monitor it, we can evaluate it, and then we can show it to our donors to prove what's happening in the field. Because the old way of doing ministry was me sitting here in America texting somebody on WhatsApp saying, Hey, what did you do today or this week?

And them replying back and maybe including some pictures that I cannot verify. But what we've done through this mission mapping platform [00:23:00] is we're verifying every action that happens and we're able to show our donors, our partners, exactly what we've done with their resources and what the result has been.

So, for example, if I distribute this filter and I share the gospel with someone in a home and they come to faith. I measure that profession of faith, and I log it, and then that email goes to a pastor within our campaign that follows up with those people as new believers. Then at the same time, I go back and I do another follow up with them, and I decide I'm gonna teach on baptism today.

They're a new follower. And what is one of the first steps after? We make a profession of faith. We learn about baptism and we get baptized as this public profession of our faith. So let's say I taught on baptism. Well, I'm gonna scan the barcode on the filter again in log that they wanted to be baptized [00:24:00] and we scheduled the baptism.

So then I'm able to show. All the donors, all the supporters of this filter, that not only did these people get 20 years worth of clean water, that they came to faith and they decided to be baptized. So we're able to prove the process that's happening in the field where prior to this. The only proof was somebody texting you from another country telling you what they did.

It's not verifiable. So through this mission mapping platform, it allows us to monitor and evaluate all of our field work globally in real time.

Dan: That's incredible. And I think it's so important because. The saying, proof is in the pudding, right?

The proof is in the follow up. And there's such a key element that many, many organizations, even the best of the businesses are missing out in the follow up because that's basically where your, biggest profits come. In sales it's the follow up.

And in this case, the fruits of that [00:25:00] ministry are in the follow-up. You're going in and you're leading with water. You're leading with a practical tool that solves a practical problem in a family. And then now all of a sudden it's working for them. But when you return, 'cause they make that commitment of at least three visits, now all of a sudden they see it's working.

Now you've earned the right to speak into their life about something spiritual. And it's so important that you can go and do that, and you can document that, and you can show that not only to your partners, from a financial standpoint. But you can prove that from a spiritual standpoint too.

And when you say missionaries, you're not talking about just missionaries that are from, the west that have gone and are living in, Kenya or in Brazil or different places like that. You're talking about indigenous missionaries. So can you talk about the distinction between sending.

Indigenous missionaries versus some of the missionaries that are well-meaning, but maybe in this case aren't as effective as the indigenous missionaries that you're using?

Christopher: Well, in this part, I want to be very careful because there's been an awful lot of missionaries from the [00:26:00] West that have committed their lives to be working in a variety of mission fields and.

To be honest, they have been pioneers for much of the work that we're doing right now through US learning from best practices. And one of those best practices that has clearly come out of this is this theory or this methodology of neighbors serving neighbors.

And you can go further, you can go faster.

You can go deeper with the gospel. When it's a neighbor ministering to another neighbor and it's a Kenyan ministering to a Kenyan or a Honduran ministering to a Honduran rather than an outsider from the west coming in that doesn't understand culture, that doesn't understand. Practices and they don't even live in the same communities.

So all of our work that's happening globally is administered through [00:27:00] local missionaries and pastors that live in these same areas where we have. Campaigns that have been mounted. The crazy part of this is really our labor force to distribute water filters, to follow up on water filters, to preach the gospel and disciple.

Come from people that have received water filters from us, and some of those people have come to faith and been discipled and then have joined these teams that are working in their community already. So the beautiful thing about this is whenever you utilize locals to serve a local problem, it is going to be much more successful than bringing outsiders in.

The level of acceptance. We can look to history and we can see that missionaries over the years. Let's just look at James Hudson. Taylor from the 1850s missionary to China. And his [00:28:00] first five years in China, he never got allowed into a home, but one day he decided to cut his hair and wear robes like all the people in China were wearing.

And that very first day he got invited into a home. Well, we can look to some of these pioneers. From the past that have been missionaries and we can see their best practices and we can mimic them. And one of those is clearly neighbors ministering to neighbors or local solving a local problem. And so we see our role here in the US at the Bucket Ministry Office to be able to serve those people and support them in a way that they can do this work full-time and they can solve.

A problem that they have in their backyard themselves, rather than me coming in from America and solving that problem for them.

Dan: So important because gospel or the Great Commission doesn't stop. Like, oh, now all of a sudden, people from [00:29:00] the West shouldn't go or anything like that. We all work together. Exactly, and it's so important that we've now reached a tipping point that now many of these local indigenous pastors and leaders are equipped well enough that they can go in and solve problems that we were solving before as western missionaries or, whatever.

And now. We can empower them and we can actually make larger impacts. And so it goes hand in hand. In fact, we recently did an outreach into a Mayan village that was very, very remote in Western beliefs, right along the coast of, Guatemala. No GU electricity, no running water, no wifi, no cell phone.

It's a very remote village, but the way that we gained access to that was there was a pastor who was a Mayan, and he was from that village. And because we had a relationship with him, he brought us in and we were able to speak into a situation. We were able to kind of minister in that context because of his relationships, because [00:30:00] of his, upbringing.

In some ways that he couldn't serve that community. He brought us in, but we couldn't have gone into that community without him. And so that's really a beautiful image of how the kingdom is working in this 21st century is that we need each other and we work with each other to go to places that the gospel needs to go.

Amanda: Yeah, there's so many negative examples of how technology is harmful and all these statistics and data that come out, but it's such a good picture of how technology can be used for the positive to be spreading the word of God, providing the communication that couldn't happen 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Christopher: That's beautiful.

Dan: You're right. Yeah, we love hearing stories too, about just testimonies and just opportunities that have turned into effective stories. And so tell us a little bit about this campaign in Kenya that you had that brought so many people, clean water and the gospel.

Christopher: Well this is probably one of the most [00:31:00] frightening parts of my life over the last three or four years, is in 2017 I saw this slum in Nairobi, Kenya, for the first time that many people in the ministry world know about. It's called Kibera. It's one of the larger and most notorious slums in the world.

It's three miles 408,000 people called this place home. Average median income is about $26 per family per month. Average home size is about eight by eight, 10 by 10, no running water. 78 toilets to serve 400,000 people. And where most people that are created in God's image are waking up in pure hopelessness.

And I saw this place and it terrified me. And then God kept on bringing me back there over the next couple years until finally I said yes, that we would place a water filter in every home and preach [00:32:00] the gospel in every home. And so we started that, officially in 2020. We prepared for it ahead of that point, but we officially started that in 2020, received our first gift to start that project, and so we counted every home in that place.

There's 81,777 homes, and we put a GPS pinpoint on every home. We created a map through the mission mapping platform. We talked to everyone who would answer their door. To try to learn their heart language in their home, learn about the size of their family, learn about where they get their water from.

And then once we did that assessment, we started systematic distributions of 81,777 water filters, and which resulted in about 240,000 follow up visitations in home which resulted in roughly. 22,000 people that [00:33:00] we know about came to faith and then we taught about 400,000. Discipleship lessons.

Now, these are huge numbers I'm spouting, right? Ridiculous numbers. So you ask how do you do that? And so that campaign was completed in three years, just ended last December, and was completed by a hundred missionaries that worked every single day in this campaign in Nairobi, Kenya. 99% of them.

Were Kenyan and nearly 100% of them lived in that kibera slum where they were serving. We saw something in that place that for us, we would probably say that is a movement of God. And because I'm not sure I'll ever see anything like this, we saw the community changed. We saw domestic violence.

We saw crime go down dramatically. And we [00:34:00] saw people's health increase because of the access to clean water. And God just did something amazing in these three square miles. That I believe is a movement of God that many of us may never see in our lifetimes. And it's helped me grow my faith being able to see him work firsthand in this way.

And it's such a big. Story that we are filming a feature link documentary. And the whole goal of the documentary is not promoting the bucket ministry. It's really talking about what God did in this place through a group of ordinary people and how he changed an entire community, just through a water filter in a group of ordinary people.

Wow.

Dan: Oh, that's such an amazing template right there. And listeners, don't miss this. Chris just gave us the secret right there in all of that. So let's go a little bit deeper [00:35:00] on that, Chris. What you were saying is God gave you the vision a few years before you actually began to put your hand to it.

So that's how often God works in our hearts. He begins to put that seed in there. He puts that seed. And more likely than not, you will be terrified by what he plans in there. Because it is bigger than you. It's bigger than what you can do on your own. Dan think of it this way.

Christopher: This is how scary this is to put a water filter and to do this campaign in that place.

The original budget was $4.8 million. I mean, previously the biggest campaign we probably worked on was about a $10,000 campaign. This was $4.8 million. I didn't even know how to write out $4.8 million, if I'm honest, but God provided every penny of that, right? That's the level of terror that yes, we experienced wading into this.

Our [00:36:00] only active obedience was saying yes.

Dan: Wow. Wow. And that's what the Lord's, after he is asked our Yes. And when you gave him that, yes. He brought the resources and so I just wanna encourage the listener what God's calling you into, that he will provide those resources after you provide.

The yes to him. And so you did that, and then you began to make a plan. I've done a bible study with men, and we're doing Nehemiah. And you think about Nehemiah, like he's this guy. He's serving the king. The king sees that he's downcast on his face. The king says, Hey, what's going on?

And so he shares the situation. But not only that. But he says, what do you wanna do with about it? And Nehemiah had a plan. He said, this is what my plan, I'm gonna go here and I'm gonna do this, and we're gonna rebuild it. We need A, B, and C and D and this is how long it's going to take.

And he mapped it out. And so for you, I think about the the Bible verse that a wise man counts to cost. You make sure that you have the resources before you don't wanna build the tower and not have the resources to finish the tower. So you mapped it out. [00:37:00] You figured out a plan.

You mapped out the community and who needed what, and then you divided out the labor to what I see as 3.9 million ministries hours logged in that process. That's incredible. So almost 4 million ministry hours in that process. Millions of dollars, but over a four year period, it came to pass.

And that's so important because so many times we say, okay, here's my, yes. Okay. God's given me the plan. I've made a plan. Okay. We have some of the resources, but we want it to happen tomorrow. Yeah. And that's so important that you, plan the course, charge the course, and you stay the course.

Amen.

Dan: To see it finished. And I just wanna say, well done. You saw that happen and 21,000 professions of Faith and over 1400 baptism, that's an incredible testimony. Mm-hmm. And we didn't even

Christopher: start baptizing people. That's deserving of a film last year that's deserving of a film. So, yeah. So cool.

Yeah.

Dan: My goodness. And what amazing testimony too, because that brings hope [00:38:00] because all of a sudden through a simple filter and a simple bucket and, clean water, what we most of the times take for granted. You provided hope. To a community of over 400,000 people.

Not just hope, , in clean water, but now , there's a story behind that clean water as well. And so you offered hope into that. And not only that, but you help build dreams. People now think, okay, this need is met. Now I can begin to think about other things in my life because a basic need is met.

If we think about the hierarchy of needs in our life, some of those basic ones, we can't really start going up that pyramid of our needs until we have some of the foundational ones. And so many people can begin to dream what God wants to do in their life more because.

There's clean water, and they're able to have healthier bodies and they're able to watch their kids be able to, go and do the things without getting sick. So that's just absolutely incredible. Now you are also kind of championing the community , of kids. You've built this kids club.[00:39:00]

Tell us about the kids club that you're hoping to raise up a another generation of missionaries.

Christopher: Yeah. So this started with that Kibera slum campaign and we asked our missionaries a really simple question. We said, how do we get closer? To the families that you're serving and every single one of them answered the same way, get closer to the kids, you'll get closer to the adults.

We borrowed this idea from a traditional VBS type structure but we modified it. To fit our mission, we wanted to stay in our lane. Our lane is water. It's Jesus, it's discipleship. That's all it is. So we developed kids club. The idea for this came from my daughter that leads this campaign now for us.

But it's to minister to the children of the families that we give the water filter to. And so every other week, [00:40:00] generally the kids that receive water filters will meet in a VBS style setting. But the difference is what they're gonna learn is they're gonna learn about that filter that's in their house that.

They're gonna learn how to care for it, how to use it, and why it's important because we want to train that next generation up to understand that there is a solution. You don't have to drink dirty water. And honestly, if they care for that filter, it's gonna last well past their parents anyway. So we're teaching them how to use that filter.

They're hearing bible stories, they're getting engaged in more of a traditional VBS type setting. And then we're feeding the children and we have a variety of partners that help us feed the children. 'cause that's not our. Lane. But what's beautiful about this is we've seen the most remarkable transformations happen through Kids Club.

We're running Kids Club in a slum [00:41:00] in Accra, Ghana that is nearly a hundred percent Muslim. People live there and what we're seeing is a lot of the parents will drop their kids off at Kids Club and then they'll stay. To listen and participate in these lessons themselves. And the kids are going home and they're talking about what they learned and the parents are coming back and saying, we wanna learn more about this ourselves.

So it's just this beautiful thing that's happening. And then also we do kids club domestically here in the US also because we want children to understand about the world water crisis, and we want them to understand that. Ordinary people can be involved in God's extraordinary rescue mission. And sometimes he may use a water filter, other times he may use a bag of rice.

You know, it's just hard to tell what that tool is, but ordinary people can be involved in this, and that's what we're trying [00:42:00] to convey with the domestic kids Club. And we're hopeful that. Maybe we're setting kids on a pathway that they wanna be missionaries someday. I don't know.

But we have seen great success in ministering to the young people in the homes.

Dan: So interesting. You hear that expression and that Bible verse, actually, they'll know you're Christians by your love. And when we love kids, well. People notice, especially the parents. We as parents of two children, a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old, when somebody loves on our kids, man, we will help them.

We will listen to them. We will do what we can to have them, be in our children's lives if they're a godly influence, man, we, love that. We wanna, help foster that. 'cause we can't do it all ourselves. And I think other parents as well, especially non-Christians, when you love on their kids and it's an authentic love.

It's not a manipulative love that says, Hey, if I can just [00:43:00] get this kid here, then all of a sudden I can get their mom there or their dad there. But when it's an authentic love. That's the pathway into truly ministering to an adult at a deeper level. That's, awesome.

That's amazing.

Amanda: Yeah. And also including kids that are in the United States and seeing what's going on, just teaching them how the filter works and, there's just an unintentional unknowing of. How bad the water crisis truly is throughout the world and for kids to understand stuff at young ages.

Those things stick to them. There's a former ministry leader that once said, children are like wet cement. And that things that are impressed on them when they're young, like will just last their whole lifetime. Mm-hmm. And so when you. Can impress good things on children at those ages, they will carry that into their adulthood.

So I think that's just beautiful that not only are you working internationally where there isn't true need for water, but in [00:44:00] depression, anxiety, and all these issues that have cropped up in the last many years. By showing them what purpose looks like, what God's plan looks like, how to love people like Jesus did.

That gives them true hope. That helps mitigate depression and anxiety because they're also seeing the hope that Jesus gives to them as well.

Christopher: That's beautiful. Amen.

Dan: Well, we wanna be conscious of your time, Chris, but we just wondered if you could speak to our listeners who is maybe on the fence or that a person is, God, I, know you're speaking to me, you've put this burden on my heart, but I'm a little afraid to say, my Yes.

What would be an encouragement to that listener over the next coming 30, 60, 90 days of what does it look like for them to give God their yes and that process. Can you speak and encourage the listener to step out in that mission that God's put on their heart?

Christopher: Yeah. I think just through my own example of seeing God work number [00:45:00] one.

If I'm just being brutally honest, I'm a little more afraid of saying no than I am saying yes right now because frankly, through this work over the last 13 years, I have seen miracles. Biblical sized miracles, and I've seen God work in such a way that there is no doubt in my mind that if he calls, he's going to resource.

And I don't mean money to pay for water filters. I mean just the whole process. If. he truly calls someone, he's gonna work the details. Just like it took me such a long time to fully submit and to quit my full-time business job because I was stubborn and I was skeptical. But as soon as I walked in obedience to what he had called me to, he provided the resources and we've never wanted [00:46:00] for anything.

What I would say is if someone is sitting at home, they're listening and they've got a burden, they've seen a problem, they think that they have a solution to that problem, or they just want to engage and jump in and help be part of a solution for whatever it is.

I would say your first step is just moving off the couch. And moving into obedience, however you need to find that. For me, it took some years and I had to really see some god-sized miracles in order to give me just that, faith. To be able to say, yeah, I'm gonna quit everything. I know I'm gonna quit a 35 year business career of where I have security, where I have savings, and I'm, gonna start doing this and I have no idea how I'm gonna get paid.

So I think just using me as that ordinary guy, stubborn, unwilling to move [00:47:00] and, but God showed me and as long as you make that first step and you get off the couch and then you let him show you, the pathway, then I believe everything else will fall into place. But that, yes, in getting off the couch is sometimes the biggest hurdle of all.

Hmm. Amazing.

Dan: For the listeners that are, and they're saying, wow, this is incredible. I wanna learn more. I wanna partner with this organization. I want to get a filter for, our family. How can our listeners connect with your organization? Yeah,

Christopher: Thank you number one. Thank you. I see my job as just witnessing to what I've seen and what I've heard, and I truly think that storytelling is one of my biggest.

Or maybe the only gifting he's given me. But if you go to our website, which is the bucket ministry.org, you can start that journey and you can see where your story and our [00:48:00] story. May merge and there's a, plethora of ways to get involved from giving is the simplest way, but joining our intercessory prayer team going on a trip, being a storyteller and really sharing what God is doing through a water filter to other people in your network is another way to get involved.

We would welcome new friends in any capacity that they want to join us.

Dan: Amazing listeners. We'll have those in the show notes. Chris, thank you for telling our listeners the story and you bet, to the mission and the burden that God put on your heart. And we just look forward to seeing more and more communities impacted with not just water.

Natural water, but with living water. And we thank you for, conduit for God to work and, minister to those communities. Thank you for being on the show today.

Amanda: Thank you. Thank

Dan: you guys. Amen.

Thanks for joining us today on the Mission Life Podcast. You enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss out on future conversations. [00:49:00] And don't forget to share this episode with your friends, family, or anyone you think will be blessed by it. We also wanna invite you to check out our free 31 Day Devotional Living and Mission, all life designed to help you step forward into the purpose he has for you.

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