Cause Champions: Clean Water Episode 4

We invited three couples… all long-time champions of the clean water cause… to sit at a table together for the first time. This is the passion, innovation, and joy we heard. 

Kristin Hammett: We’re really here to talk about the water crisis and how we can solve it and the investment that you each have made in this work. 

So, I would love to hear a little bit about what each of you it might be different for everybody around the table, really what it is besides that physical water and maybe even the spiritual… there are other ripple effects that this cause, this work at Neverthirst is helping to solve. So, what are some of those for you? 

Tom Gallardo: The health part. You go and you see the water tanks at schools where the girls are running out there to wash their hands, which means now they can spend more time in school, less having sicknesses and things like that.  

And learning about the hygiene. I mean, when we went there and saw that, it was just like, you know, these kids are all lighting up and smiling and you just realize, wow, the impact. And would you have sent your kid to school without having washed their hands in the bathroom? 

Richard Baxter: There’s no bathroom, you know? They just have to go in the fields… 

Tom Gallardo: To have these wash stations from, you know, the water tanks, you just go wow. 

Tara Baxter: And that with our amount of technology and resources in the world we have today, that there are so many people that don’t have clean water and don’t know how to wash their hands and parents that are having to give their children water that’s making them sick. Like with what we have in our world today, we need to do something so that’s not happening. 

Richard Baxter: It’s an injustice. It shouldn’t be happening. 

Kristin Hammett: It is occurring to me as I look at each of the families represented here, I think all of us at this table have daughters. Right? This is a cause that I didn’t realize had such an impact on daughters. Future women. 

Trey Cushman: And the amount of time that’s something that I was it was fascinating to learn about that is that women in other countries a lot of times are responsible for getting the water and making the food. And that literally consumes the entire day because they’re sometimes traveling miles to go get clean water or just water. And so, when you can kind of give them time back, then they have the ability to invest that in their families, their marriages, and their… to be moms again… 

Richard Baxter: And to go to school. 

Trey Cushman: Go to school. Right. Especially if you’re sending your kids to school and there’s clean water there. What a cool experience to be able to know that your kids are healthy when they’re at school, not going to get disease or something like that. 

Richard Baxter: And often the young girls, they spend so much time, it’s hours a day getting water. They can’t go to school. 

Lois Gallardo: In our church we had a vacation Bible school where we were helping them. We were using Neverthirst as the mission emphasis for the week. And I was talking to the kids, and we had jerry cans, and we’d fill them with water. So just challenging them to come up and say so like, who wants to come get it? And the guys are all like, we can do this. 

And then they say, oh, gee, you know [its heavy], let alone the girls. I mean, it was it just is just mind blowing to them and you think, okay, you know, you just barely got it down the aisle. They have to, like, pick it up on the shoulders and carry it for miles. And you do it multiple times every day. 

Matt LeTourneau: I’m thinking about my own daughter and then knowing, and I think I’ve met all of your daughters, you know, or had interactions with all of your daughters in some way. 

And I know we spit out numbers at different points, but the most shocking thing for me was I heard that 73 billion— with a B— hours a year are spent on the backs… of the little girls are walking to get water in a year and it just blew my mind. Instead of getting an education, developing their God given gifts and talents, they just don’t have the opportunity. 

Kristin Hammett: What are your… what have your experiences been in helping to get that stirring going in others? Because that’s what it means to really be a champion for a particular cause. 

April Cushman: I just had a little visual of in my mind of my girls talking to… because they’re passionate about it, talking to their friends at school, like maybe we have an event at our house, and they invite all their all their friends over. 

Lois Gallardo: And then all the games have to do with water. 

April Cushman: I literally just… was like we’re going to have jugs, and everyone is going to carry them… 

Lois Gallardo: Relay races and we’re having it’s all about, yeah, I love that. 

Kristin Hammett: We talk a lot about this idea at The Signatry of solving problems. You’ve heard me say this before, we want to write the last check to, in this case, dig the well or provide water for that last village who doesn’t have clean water. That happens outside of a single family or a single organization. It happens in community; it happens around the table. Do you feel like you are a part of that when you’re with Neverthirst and engaged in this community of workers and like-minded believers? 

April Cushman: It makes me think of the body of Christ right. You know. It’s like the hand. And if this hand needs to know something, then this hand could come over, like, hey, you know, and it’s like the body of Christ is how He uses us.  

Tara Baxter: I’m hearing you talk about your girls and then like, when I’m talking to my girls about it, I’ll think about you like talking to your girls about it. And I really like your idea of, like, having friends over and sharing with their friends, because kids are… they’re making their worldview right now when they’re little. So, by sharing something like that with them that’s opening up their world and helping them to see as they’re growing into the people they’re going to become, that it’s not all about what’s going on right in front of them. 

Kristin Hammett: I can see ideas being generated here, even in this small community that could start here and become something that really grows well beyond this small table and becomes a new on ramp for families, for communities, for schools, for VBS programs or children’s ministries or youth groups. 

Lois Gallardo: Oh that’s great… Neverthirst Kids Club. 

Matt LeTourneau: Something that’s really cool to me about this. I think so many people give in silos, and I think there is some sort of a taboo about like, you know, don’t let the right hand know what the left hand is doing, that kind of thing. But I do believe that generosity begets generosity. And I can’t tell you how many times I’m thinking of multiple people that I’ve met with recently and they’ve asked me, do other people give like I give and where are they? And they don’t have any kind of community. 

Kristin Hammett: This is something you can replicate even on a regular basis to continue to share, to continue to create. As Matt talks about… this community of believers that are excited about the work and working together, I mean, just the conversations that have happened around this table happening in your own homes, around your own table. I’m speaking to myself too, right? Like we can all do this. 

Richard Baxter: Then, invite others to the table, for the joy, to share in the joy. 

Tom Gallardo: You’re providing a tool that we as parents can also help teach our kids about generosity. Establishing some little accounts for your kids that they can say this is my cause.  You know, us around the table our passion is Neverthirst. We love Neverthirst. But not everybody has that passion, but they have other passions. So, Signatry is giving them that opportunity or that vehicle to do that. And I think that’s important, too, for us as parents to teach our kids.  

Lois Gallardo: Because that makes it non transactional for our kids as well. And it encourages them to figure out what they’re passionate about. And as soon as you’re passionate, you respond, right, with generosity. 

Kristin Hammett: And you want it to go on for generations, right?