A native African holds a bucket from the U.S.-based Bucket Ministry. The bucket will provide filtrated water for drinking. The Bucket Ministry has provided clean, contaminant-free water for many, including residents of Kibera, an overpopulated slum in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo by Jim Gentle)
By Tom Claycomb III
Editor’s note: In the Christian Living Magazine May/June issue, Tom Claycomb’s column was designated Part 1 due to a misunderstanding. It was actually the article in its entirety, so a Part 2 is not necessary. Below is a new column from him. Also, the column has undergone a name change from Exploring God’s Great Outdoors to God’s Great Earth to allow the author to explore a broader range of topics.
I was conducting some outdoor seminars at the GATCO (Great American Tool Co.) outdoor show in Texas in 2024. The promoter is a Christian so he allowed some Christian ministries to attend and have booths. Between seminars, I was walking the floor and saw a booth with members of The Bucket Ministry. They were a super group of individuals and told me their story.
CLM Publisher Sandy Jones did an article on The Bucket Ministry in the 2019 September/October issue and wrote an excellent article on its history and what it does. Since she covered the history, I’m going to talk about TBM from a different angle, but I will briefly cover its history for you new readers.
Savannah, the teenage daughter of TBM founder Chris Beth, signed up for a mission trip to Brazil. Chris went along to protect his daughter. Little did he know that decision would change his life.
Soon after hitting Brazil, they jumped on a riverboat for an 18-hour ride to a village deep in the Amazon. One day his pastor told Chris that they needed to visit a family across the river and that Chris would be leading the visit. At the time, Chris was a new and inexperienced Christian.
Due to the heat and humidity, the woman they visited asked Chris if he’d like a drink of water. “Yes,” he answered, thinking that she’d grab a bottle out of the fridge (which she didn’t have). Instead, she grabbed a broken cup out of the kitchen, walked over and dipped some muddy, polluted water out of the Amazon River and handed it to him.
That started a long journey for Chris in discovering all of the diseases that the people suffered from due to drinking unclean water. Upon returning home, he started studying what kind of filtration systems he could come up with. After much work, he met with representatives from Sawyer Products, which makes water filters. They came up with a bucket filtration system. The natives can dip a bucketful of contaminated water out of the river, set it on their counter, and due to the filter attached to the bucket, they have clean water for their family.
While talking to the group in Texas, members of The Bucket Ministry invited me to go to Africa on a trip to see it all in person. When they found out that I lived in the Boise area, they said, “Great. We have a chapter up there. Jim Gentle leads it. We’ll have him meet you for lunch when you get back home.”
I soon was meeting Jim (who is a great guy) for lunch. He too tried to sign me up for a trip. Then later, while attending the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention, I got to meet Chris Beth at The Bucket Ministry booth and he told me his story. Then I received an invitation to attend a Bucket Ministry fundraising dinner in Meridian which my wife and I attended.
I knew they were a super cool group of people, but after hearing an update of where they’re now at and what they are doing, I was blown away. Here are some facts from 2024, realizing that they have grown even more since 2024:
After the dinner I met Cory Akin, who is a self-described numbers geek. He’s developed an unbelievable tracking system showing all the families The Bucket Ministry is ministering to in the world. He tracks visits, salvations, and discipleship classes.
Let’s use the slums in Kibera, Kenya as an example. There are more people in that 3- by 3-mile slum than in Boise/Meridian combined. The Bucket Ministry members canvased Kibera to map out houses and how many people lived in each house. They then held seminars demonstrating the filters and how to clean them. Like any filtration system, the dirtier the water, the shorter the shelf life, but they have a method to clean the filter and estimate that a system will last for 20 years.
They give the filters out for free, but the recipients have to allow three follow-up visits in the next six weeks. TBM teams up with local churches and missionaries to make the visits. This allows for entering every house three times, with the end goal of being able to share the gospel during the course of the visits. This allows them to even be able to enter Muslim homes.
TBM also offers discipleship classes and kids clubs.
They first entered Kibera in 2017. For four months, 60 people canvassed the area before they even started handing out filters. There were 81,777 homes with a population of 408,978 people. And don’t envision quaint little cottages with a white picket fence. Nope. The houses are 8 foot by 8 foot mud shacks with a tin roof. The living conditions are deplorable by any standards.
I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface when it comes to The Bucket Ministry. Suffice it to say, they’re an awesome group of people doing amazing work – saving souls and affecting thousands of people. And all because one man did what God told him to do.
Facts to consider:
TBM is doing an amazing work. They’re not a group of flamboyant promoters. They’re a group of nose-to-the-grindstone men and women trying to fulfill God’s call on their lives. Check them out at:
For more information, go to www.thebucketministry.org.
