Not the one who fills stadiums or builds a platform. Not the one whose testimony gets turned into a documentary. I’m talking about the one you’d miss entirely if you didn’t travel eight hours from a capital city in Southeast Asia, then another two hours deeper into the interior, past cashew plantations and wooden homes raised off the ground for the monsoon floods, until you finally pull up to a tiny church building on a dirt path.

That’s where I met Sun Art.

He came out to greet us with a limp, a hunchback on one shoulder, and a smile that could light up the whole region. My colleague Jason Berry has known him since 2012. When Jason handed him a framed photo of the two of them—just a small gift he’d picked up and had framed in the capital—Sun Art’s face was pure joy.

I want to tell you his story because I think it teaches us something the Western church badly needs to hear.

14 Years in the Dirt

When Jason first met Sun Art in 2012, he was an indigenous believer who’d felt God’s call to serve in a region with no known Christians. Zero. Not a struggling church that needed revival. Not a community with a few scattered believers. None.

Sun Art went anyway.

Over the past 14 years, he’s been a part of 60 water projects—each one an opportunity to show up in a community desperate for clean water and demonstrate Christ’s love in the most tangible way possible. Jason and I walked with villagers to the places they used to collect water. Women carrying two buckets on a wooden pole across their shoulders, four or five trips a day. Hours of their lives, every day, hauling dirty water from a polluted stream.

Through that slow, costly work, Sun Art has planted nine home churches. Around 240 people now regularly gather to worship Christ.

I need to be honest with you about something. I’ve read enough ministry reports to know that 240 believers in 14 years would make a lot of organizations uncomfortable. The pressure to report thousands of conversions and hundreds of church plants is real. I’ve seen those numbers, and I have a hard time believing a lot of them.

While I was there, I sat with a missionary who’d served 24 years in a different region. I asked her about the hardest part of her work. She told me she has to repeat the basic truths of the gospel around 100 times before it takes root. Eighty percent of the people she ministers to are illiterate. They can’t go home and read the Bible. They have to hear it, again and again and again.

That’s the ground Sun Art has been working for a decade and a half. Not flashy. Not fast. Faithful.

Multiplication, Not Performance

Here’s where the story gets even richer. Sun Art introduced us to Eang Nart—a man he personally led to Christ. Eang Nart then brought his family to faith. The little church building we were sitting in? That’s where Eang Nart’s group of 28 believers now meets.

This is what real multiplication looks like. Not a program. Not a conference. A humble man leading one person to Jesus, and that person leading others. No stage required.

What Cana Teaches Us About Obscurity

I’ve been reading through John with a friend, and this week we were in chapter 2—the wedding at Cana. Something clicked that I hadn’t seen before.

When the wine runs out, Mary goes to Jesus and says, “They have no wine.” That’s intercession in its purest form. Not telling God what she needs. Telling God what other people need. If you’ve ever prayed for a pastor you’ve never met, serving in a place you’ll never visit—that’s what you were doing.

Then Mary turns to the servants. Not the master of the feast. Not the bridegroom. The servants. And she says, “Do whatever He tells you.”

Whatever. Not the parts that are comfortable. Not the assignments that come with recognition. Whatever He tells you.

Sun Art heard that same word. Go to a region with no believers, no comforts, no guarantee anyone will ever listen. And he went.

But the part that really arrested me was this: when Jesus performs the miracle, He doesn’t call the VIPs over to watch. He doesn’t stage a demonstration. He tells the servants—the ones nobody’s paying attention to—to fill the jars with water. And then to draw some out and carry it to the master of the feast.

“So they took it.”

The miracle happened through humble hands in a quiet room. No fanfare. No parade. No cameras.

Isn’t that exactly the character of Christ? Born in a manger. Raised in Nazareth. The Creator of the universe humbled Himself and became obedient.

And the result? John 2:11 ends with six words: “And His disciples believed in Him.”

Faith. That’s the result of Christ working through humble servants.

That’s Sun Art’s story. A man nobody’s interviewing on television. A man working in a region most people couldn’t find on a map. And the fruit of his life is the same fruit Jesus produced at Cana—people believing.

The Bigger Story

I traveled days to reach Sun Art. The roads were brutal. The accommodations were nonexistent. And I would do it again in a heartbeat, because sitting across from a man like that recalibrates everything.

We chase impact metrics and donor reports and social proof. Sun Art just shows up. Day after day, year after year, limping into communities with the gospel and clean water.

God is still doing this kind of work. Not just in Southeast Asia. Everywhere. He’s calling people to repent. He’s calling people to believe. And He’s choosing to do it through the servants nobody sees.

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine upon us, so that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. — Psalm 67:1–2

The post The Servant Nobody Sees: Sun Art and the Wedding at Cana first appeared on neverthirst.

Ricky first became involved with neverthirst because his son, Forest, was one of the founders. When Forest invited him to see the work firsthand in India, the mission became deeply personal.

“One of the things I try to say to myself every single day is Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians: ‘What do you have that you have not received?’” Ricky said. “Everything is a gift.”

Since that trip, he has remained faithfully committed to bringing clean and living water to communities around the world.

“Our giving strategy is to support ministries that do a very effective job in evangelism and disciple-making, and ministries that provide deeds of mercy in the name of Christ,” Ricky said. “neverthirst has been a real joy to be a part of because it combines both.”

Ricky has seen firsthand how the combination of clean water and the gospel is changing communities.

“God is really moving in these areas,” Ricky said. “People have been delivered from evil spirits, healed, and entire villages have come to know Christ. It’s an amazing story. A local pastor in India, Africa, or Cambodia can go into a village and bring the name of Christ along with clean water.” 

Stories like these have deepened Ricky’s conviction that generosity is ultimately about participating in what God is already doing.

“When King David was charging Solomon and the people to build the temple, he said, ‘Who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to bring gifts from the Lord to build his temple?’” Ricky said. “That’s what we’re doing—we’re building His kingdom, and we have the privilege of having the resources to do it.”

The post Donor Story: Ricky Brooks first appeared on neverthirst.

“He brought out a box, and I could already see the tears welling in his eyes,” Allison Long said. “Our kids were like, ‘What is this?’” 

Her father explained that he had funded the installation of a well for a community in need, in honor of their family. He detailed the way clean water would impact children on the other side of the world with both safe drinking water and the gospel. 

“He was beaming with joy,” Allison said.  “He said, ‘This is what Christmas is about, that there are now families who have heard about the baby born in a manger, who lived a life of perfection and died on a cross.’ He got to share that with my kids, and I’ll never forget it.”

The couple had already been supporting neverthirst, and their enthusiasm for the mission drew others in. Friends and extended family soon joined them in giving, multiplying the impact.

“I will never forget the first time we received our impact report,” Allison said. “It showed exactly where our giving went. It made it very real to us and gave us a desire to do more—so much that I called my dad and said, ‘I’ve got to tell you about what I just received.’ He said, ‘I’ve got to be a part of that.’”

His involvement, and that of the rest of their extended family, only deepened the Longs’ passion for expanding water access and growing God’s Kingdom, and for sharing that mission with others. 

“It’s pretty easy to get people on board when you’re genuinely excited about something,” Ben Long said. “The impact is really one of many concentric circles.”

Long before that Christmas morning, the Longs had been deeply moved by their first encounter with the global water crisis.

“We realized we couldn’t not do something,” Allison said. “I saw moms and kids walking with buckets, and I kept imagining my kids—imagining myself—walking five or six miles a day to get filthy water—something I take for granted, and my kids take for granted.”

“Hearing the parallel crises of lack of clean water and lack of the gospel really stirred us,” Ben said. “This is a problem no one should experience. And if I can help relieve that, that’s not a hard sell.”

Today, the Longs hope that story will continue shaping their family’s legacy for the next generation.

“I pray that Ben and I will continue to talk about it all the time in our home,” Allison said. “We will continue to remind our kids of the need for the gospel and remind them that when they get their drinking water, there are people all over the world who do not have this access.”

The post Donor Story: The Long Family – The Perfect Gift first appeared on neverthirst.

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine upon us… God blesses His people for the sake of His praise among all peoples.” 

“The pastor proposed a question that hit me hard: ‘Have you disconnected God’s blessings from His purpose in your life?’” Spencer Sutton said. “I had never thought about it that way.” 

Spencer Sutton, Forest Walden, and Mark Whitehead began praying about this reality, asking the Lord to show them how they could use their blessings to grow His Kingdom. Spencer went on his first mission trip in May of 2006, and the Lord continued to grow his heart for the nations.

At the time, Spencer was in the middle of a real estate career here in Birmingham, buying and selling houses, and things were going well. But at the same time, the Lord was laying the groundwork for something greater. 

As the Lord worked in his heart, He also moved one of Spencer’s close friends. That friend invited him to coffee, looked across the table, and asked, “What do you want to do with your life?”

“I laughed a little and said, ‘Man, that’s a loaded question. But I’ll tell you what God has told me I’m supposed to do,’” Spencer said. “And I explained what God had been doing in my heart over the past few years.”

To Spencer’s surprise, his friend smiled and said he’d known the answer before he asked. He told Spencer that God had already made it clear to him: whatever Spencer’s vision was, he was meant to make it happen financially.

“God was doing something incredible in our lives,” Spencer said. “If it weren’t for God showing up repeatedly—providing resources, connecting us with partners—we wouldn’t have accomplished much.”

Spencer, Forest, and Mark continued to pursue God’s direction and began traveling.

“I was back in India with Mark and Forest, praying and asking, ‘God, what do You want us to do?’” Spencer said. “Everywhere we went, we saw need—education, poverty alleviation, community development. There were so many things we could do.”

They returned passionate about making something happen, but with a chaotic plan—wanting to address every need they had seen. A friend and board member encouraged Spencer to focus, to choose one thing.  

“We all knew—water was it,” Spencer said. “Water impacts everything. It affects community health, education, and daily life. If God led us to address this through the local church and ministry partners, it could open doors to share the gospel.”

That moment marked a turning point, and neverthirst was born. 

“I had no experience as a fundraiser, no clue about scaling an organization from scratch. We just took the next faithful step. Because He was in it, He sustained it,” Spencer said. “He has blessed us immensely, and our hope has always been to take those blessings and make His name known among the nations.”

The heartbeat of neverthirst has remained the same: using clean water as a way to platform the gospel in some of the most unreached and hardest-to-reach parts of the world. It’s still about asking, “How can God use us to make His name great?”

“That’s the overriding story. You can be part of what God is doing in places where the gospel is not even known,” Spencer said. “Communities can change through access to clean water—but even more importantly, people can have access to the gospel.”

The post Staff Story: Spencer Sutton first appeared on neverthirst.

After originally pursuing a career in medical sales, he sometimes found himself asking how he ended up here, in fundraising for a small non-profit.

Brandon first learned of the water crisis in 2009, after a student told his wife, a high school math teacher, about the 1 billion people who lacked access to safe drinking water. Shocked by the need, Brandon and Kim found neverthirst and began sponsoring water projects in Sudan. In 2010, neverthirst asked Brandon to visit the projects firsthand.

On that trip, one particular moment stuck with him. Off to the side of a village, about 20 yards away, he noticed a mound of dirt surrounded by rocks. Unsure what it was, he asked, and their translator shared that it was the grave of a one-and-a-half-year-old who had died from a waterborne disease–simply because they did not have safe water to drink.

“I knew my kids would never suffer from something like that. That’s when it was no longer statistics,” Brandon said. “These were names and faces and stories of people living day to day without access to clean water. And a lot of them had never even heard about the hope found in Jesus.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the Lord really set my life on a different trajectory at that point.”

Following the trip, Brandon and Kim were moved to do more. They started volunteering for neverthirst, put on huge garage sales, made shirts to advertise the need, and ran half marathons and 5ks with the 1 billion individuals in mind. They encouraged people to ask questions about the water crisis and to give towards ending it.

“I was kind of like a free employee for neverthirst,” Brandon said. “I was telling everybody I could about the water crisis.”

In 2012, neverthirst had grown, and Spencer Sutton, the Executive Director at the time, approached Brandon about joining neverthirst in a full-time, fundraising and donor relations role.
“The last thing I wanted to do was leave it. I had a great boss, a great team. Spencer said, ‘well, you know, hey, just pray about this’,” Brandon said. “There was a lot of uncertainty when you leave a big, safe corporate company and go to a two-man nonprofit, at the time. But the Lord was faithful.”

Brandon left his stable, dream job in medical sales and joined the team in Development, a role he’s now held for over 14 years– one he has loved and the Lord has undeniably used.
“This job has brought me the greatest joy,” Brandon said. “To see what I get to see–with the poorest of the poor in the world and with some of the wealthiest people in the world–and to see how the Lord is using each and every one of us to play a role in making his name known amongst the nations.”

“I really believe my role in the body of Christ is to be that connector–we really view ourselves as a conduit for people to live out their faith through giving.
I tell people all the time that I think part of the celebration in eternity will be how the Lord wove all of our lives together, ultimately for his glory.”

The post Staff Story: Brandon Gossett first appeared on neverthirst.