Jason Berry on the front lines in sub-Saharan Africa

Jason just got back from a country in sub-Saharan Africa, where he camped in villages for nearly a week with no electricity and 110-degree heat. He went to document the work for the 99% of supporters who'll never see it firsthand.

He rode a donkey to the contaminated source one mother had used for about 20 years, then filmed her at her new tap stand. The reclaimed time let her be with her 8 kids and start a small business.

Jason and Spencer also talk about why neverthirst now lists regions instead of countries (to protect partners), and how clean water meets a real need and opens the door for the gospel in places where the church is a tiny minority.

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Connect with Spencer and the neverthirst team: neverthirstwater.org

Host: Spencer Sutton

To Learn More About neverthirst: neverthirstwater.org

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Production House: Flint Stone Media

Copyright of neverthirst 2025.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of For the Kingdom. This is a Never Thirst Podcast, and I am your host, Mr. Sutton. And today, I promised, I promised last episode that I was gonna bring a friend on, bring a guest, and it's everyone's favorite Aussie, Jason Barry. Jason, welcome to the to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Great to have you back. Uh coming to you all the way from uh Australia. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

And Jason and I have a meeting every we have a couple of meetings every week, and and every time that he's showing up, of course, I'm here in Alabama, and it's getting very warm, getting around 90 degrees. It's humid, and every time he hops on a call, he's got a sweatshirt on and he's freezing. So uh easy to forget. Uh this the land down under is uh entering the winter season.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yes, uh I love and my weather actually, if if I if I was living in Birmingham, Alabama, our summer is the same as yours. It's sticky, hot, humid. Uh so to now be through that and coming into the winter while you guys are heading into your hot season, it's just uh yeah, it's a crazy. But uh I'm grateful that I'm heading in the cool season while you guys are suffering through the hot season.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

That's right. That's right. So, all right. Well, you know, the reason why I wanted to bring you back onto the podcast was because uh you and I have been uh we traveled earlier this year. We were in uh Southeast Asia, and then uh you just got back a couple of weeks ago, maybe two, three weeks ago, from one of the countries where we work in sub-Saharan Africa. And uh just to give everybody kind of a heads up, you know, we we have changed. If you go to our website now, you will find that we are not listing countries on our website. Uh, we have listed regions instead. Even here on the podcast, you uh I just said, hey, Jason's gone to Sub-Saharan Africa. We're doing this to protect our partners. Jason, do you want to speak a little bit into this? This is something you and I started working on actually mid-last year, I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, the Never First Donors, one thing I know I love about them is they want to see us go into unreached communities. They want to, they want to see people get access to clean water, and they want to see us working in communities where people uh desperate need for clean water, but also in communities where the church is an incredible minority, and clean water program presents an opportunity for um the church to come alongside our partners, and through the introduction of clean water, the opportunity comes to build relationships with communities who are totally unreached by the gospel. So, but in those communities, the local church evangelists, or we call holistic transformation leaders, they face high risk for their faith. Um, as do our partners who are doing clean water projects often in partnership uh with local holistic transformation leaders. So they've got to be really careful. So we need to make sure in a world we live in now with social media where everything is accessible to anyone, anywhere, I guess we've got a responsibility. And I'm I'm grateful that Neverthurst um truly understands that and we're leaning into that space of being cautious in making sure we're not doing any harm or risking uh the ability of evangelists and pastors to to reach into communities. So uh that's yeah, that's the main reason for the change. So this can this work can continue. Um I think our Neverthurst donors get that. Uh donors who are part of us, they want us to be in these countries. They want to support regions where no one gets access to clean water and the church is an extreme minority. And so that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah. And I think it's important to note as well. I mean, if if you're a obviously if you're a donor and you are uh you pick up the phone and you're speaking to anyone on our staff and you want to know the country. Like, hey, I want to donate. I want to I want to support a uh a community or an entire project. We're gonna let you know where that money goes. We're gonna tell you the country, we're gonna still send you back reports with the specific information. We're just gonna ask that you don't share that online. We're just gonna ask that you don't make that public. It's for your consumption. So everything really remains the same except for the public-facing, hey, here's where we're working type of communication. Um, but um, but yeah, so as far as as far as you as our uh as our generous donors go, everything remains the same. And we uh again, we appreciate you so much because without you the work couldn't go on.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

100%.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

All right. So Jason, let's talk about this. You uh you went to again Sub-Saharan Africa and the country in Sub-Sahara Africa, and let's just talk a little bit about what I what I want to do is when you know when we're sitting down speaking with donors or we're talking with partners or whatever, we're usually always talking about these two massive needs in the world. On the one hand, you have around 696 million people that don't have access to clean and safe water. And then on the other hand, you have over 3 billion people living in the world today that would be considered unreached with the gospel. And so going in with that lens, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you saw uh on the field and then what you were actually involved in while you were while you were there.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

My initial reaction was getting off the plane and landing at about two in the afternoon and being hit with this absolute wall of heat. Like um, I'll try and talk in Fahrenheit, which is unusual for me, but it was about 110 as I came off the plane, and I thought to myself, this is unbelievable. And um and that was the weather, like I was every day I was in a I was I camped in a tent in the villages and were there for I think it was five or six nights, and it was it didn't every day was from 105 to 112 during the day. At night, it didn't drop below 95 all night. And the best here's a here's a tip for anyone traveling to a hot country buy yourself a portable little $25 fan, charge it to a USB or a charger, and believe me, that will give you a some comfort as you sleep.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

But that's what you did. That's what I did, it got me through it. But you know, as aside from the heat, like um, yeah, you are right.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Let me let me let me speak let me speak about this real quick because I thought it was really uh funny. I kind of laughed at myself later. You and I were messaging each other on WhatsApp, and you're in this really remote part of the world, and you said, All right, mate, uh, you know, I'm I'm heading to the pastor's house and gonna get bed in for the night. And I just message you back and I said, Oh great. I hope I hope he has air conditioned. You know, I hope I hope you get some air conditioning. And you sent me a message back, you said, lol, there's no electricity out here. I just I just like I don't know what I was thinking is like, oh yeah, you don't have electricity. The only way you're charging your phone is through like a battery pack.

unknown 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Anyway, I just that's how remote you were. Like no electricity, no nothing.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Um and uh one thing I've never experienced before, like the one of the main reasons of my trip to Go was that we we know that you know 95% of our faithful supporters will actually never travel to the field to see the work. And so my heart is to go really on their behalf and to document what I'm seeing and then report back to them so they can have a yes, a degree of confidence in what they're giving to, but also to come alongside on a journey. So I took my trusty iPhone to film, and um, and one of the funny experiences I had on this trip, I've never had it before, was um I've got a pretty good iPhone because we need it for filming, but this thing could not handle the heat. And as I'm being filmed, every every 30 minutes it would say, uh, shut down, too hot. So we'd have to then wrap we'd have to wrap my phone in a wet towel for 20 minutes to cool this thing down to then be able to film again. Um so that was a new experience, uh, just the heat. But but again, it was great to go, Spencer, and travel, and I guess what I tried to do on this trip was bring people along the journey. And I got to meet some women who, you know, you talk about these two big problems. Um, you know, I got to travel and to a village, and the the team said to me, because the team said, Okay, Jason, this morning you uh you're going to um come along with this lady and see where she used to collect water before generous nevertheless donors changed her life. And I said, Oh great. So we're walking and they said, uh-uh. And I said, Oh, we're driving in a car. They said, uh-uh. And I said, Well, what am I doing? She said, They said, You're gonna ride a donkey. And I said, You're kidding. So, never done before. Um, and I'm sure the donors who will have a good laugh when they see this video coming out in a few months' time, but um, it was definitely an experience to ride a donkey uh with two jerry cans on either side of me and experiencing it, it would take three to four hours, and this lady would do it twice a day. She had eight children, she would get up at uh four or five in the morning, she would go out, and uh she would then come back, provide water for her children, and then go out again in the late afternoon and come back in the evening. And sometimes she said I'd hardly see my husband a whole day, um, and just riding this donkey. And I've got to tell you, it's pretty uncomfortable. Uh and it was a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I saw the video, it looked it looked uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yes. I'm a relatively big guy, I could probably a bit lean. I felt sorry for the donkey. Uh, but it was uh you know it was 112 degrees the day we did that. Um and um you know, and then we of course when we get to the water source, it was a terrible water source. So not only is it the burden of time lost, but the actual source of water we're collecting from was incredibly contaminated. There were cows there collecting water from the same source, and uh I actually saw a child who was tending cows, that was the child's job, and uh he went down to the water source, got a water bottle, filled it up, and just drunk straight from the water source. And it was very confronting going uh yeah, 2026, this is still the reality. For as you said, he's one of those six hundred and ninety-six million people. So to have ridden a donkey and then I guess hope hopefully our donors as they watch that, they come along on that journey, they get to feel the heat, maybe, they get to feel that sense of the burden. And they also get to then see I filmed this same lady now at her tap stand with her children, the joy she had. Um, and then I got to also be with her and uh sit with her, and I asked I asked her this one question, I said, Now that you've got all this time on your hands, you're not doing six, eight hours a day in water collection, how are you using that time and what difference has it made? And she smiled and she said, I have more time with my kids, which is I think every mother's dream. And then secondly, she said, I've started a small business in the village and I selling products to other women and I I I've generated a bit of you know uh financial independence, which I previously didn't have. And it was just great to see that water is a gateway into change uh for a mother and to be part of that and to film that. I I hope that the donors watch it, they're encouraged.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

You know, if you think about that, Jason, you think about somebody who um didn't have access to water and so had to travel six to eight hours every single day to go get water. So again, to your point, not having opportunity to spend with your family, not have opportunity to earn income, and then not only that, but bring it home, and this has got to be water. I saw this video of the you know where y'all actually ended up to get where she used to get water, which I'm guessing for years. I would imagine that was making them sick all the time. And I and I just recently read a quote from I was looking at some reports, and I read a quote from somebody, or no, maybe actually um Nisha actually put it in our channel. She just she had just read it, but uh the quote was water which should sustain life brought suffering. That was that was one of the quotes. And I'm imagining the woman that you were with there uh in this in this little village would have probably said the same thing. Like, this is what's supposed to bring like and sustain life, it just brought suffering to their family.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

The the cool thing was too, Spencer, after we'd come back to the village, we were at the tap stand, and the kids were there, and a lot of joy. Uh, she then held up a um uh container of the clean water and she said, I want you to taste to see the difference it's made. And I and I was able to drink the water with her and just the joy she had in sharing this clean water which she now had so close to her home. Um I think she was a mother of eight. She lived in this village for twenty two years.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Like, how many years do you think how many years how many years do you think she went and got water the old way?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, the the new the new tapstand was completed in twenty twenty-four. So we're talking twenty years of water collection. Uh you know, and that's in the extreme dry season. Yeah, you know, when wet season comes, maybe there'll be rivers that'll fill up slightly closer to her home, and they but you're still you're still traveling every day, and that's just time lost. Uh so water has you know has given time back to her family, and uh yeah, to be part of that and um to see uh I think what was heartbreaking was as I was preparing for that trip to that particular country, what I read was the stats was that you know 10 million people a day in this country in Sub-Saharan Africa are walking to collect water from unsafe sources. That's 50% of everyone living in rural part of this country every day. And what even more startling with 200 children a day under the age of five die, and the number one cause of death is uh top two causes, is uh malnutrition due to poor water uh and um uh lack of good quality food. But you know, 200 children under the age of five a day dying, um you know, fifteen times higher than it was in the States. So for every one child in America who dies under the age of five, in this country, 15 children were dying. So it's just it it shouldn't be that way. And you know, I guess the joy though in seeing this village and knowing that there were 20 more villages this year that will gain access to clean water, knowing that Neverthurst family is helping to chip away at those numbers, uh, and to be there on their behalf and hopefully narrate that story and bring back and share that. Uh I hope it'll be an encouragement to our donors who faithfully make this work possible.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, that's great. That's that's and I'm so thankful that you're doing that. I I watched the first video that you put together just the other day and thought it was absolutely fantastic and um really, really think that the donors will love it. So let's you know, one it's one thing to provide access to clean water. Uh something else that our uh our supporters are extremely passionate about, obviously, is the living water component. Because we know in this area that we work in, not in this specific country, but in like this part of the world that we're working, it's called the 1040 window. This is where a vast majority of the unreached people groups live in the world, over 3 billion. And so you can you if if you take a look at the map, you can see it stretches across uh parts of Africa and Asia, and um just a lot of people live in this area. So talk about the what the spiritual life is like in this in this part of the world that you were in.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yes. Well, in this particular country, uh the Christian church was in the extreme minority. Um and uh it was quite confronting being in some villages, um spending time in the majority faith. And uh you know what was interesting though was clean water is such a felt need. So to have conversation with a with a a village leader, and you know, their barriers come down, and communication easily flows when we're talking clean water. And um, you know, there were two I got to spend time with two evangelists in two very different contexts. In one context, um there was a project that had been completed uh two years ago, and an evangelist had come alongside uh the program, and what had happened was uh it was just an absolute move of God where uh he he had kind of seen the need of this village and then he had been faithfully serving in this village for three years and had not seen anyone come to faith. And then he worked alongside the water program, and that just I guess built relationship and trust. Uh, because people could see his heart. His heart was actually to love and meet a felt need. And I think it's that it's like that in life, you know, no one wants to be manipulated, no one wants to be coerced. I think it's the same we're all human, and I think if you are genuinely meeting a felt need of people, um that uh people can see your heart in that, and that opens the door for well, why are you doing this? Um and help me understand your heart, and then relationships grow deeper. And I got to sit in a home group and worship alongside 31 other believers who now meet every week, and incredibly poor people. Um, yes, clean water has made a big change for their life, but still it's a it's a tough place to live. But the joy they had in gathering together, hearing the word together, worshiping together, um and knowing that clean water was part of that story, uh, it was just really encouraging. So that was the first village I got to go to, and just see that in a tough spiritual climate, uh clean water was a gateway uh to enable uh the church to be planted.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

And another village, um Can I can I ask you a question about that real quick? Let me let me stop you before you move on. So this area didn't have uh a church, and then you went and worshipped with these 30, 31 believers. How did the community receive those people, I guess? Did did you and the pastor or the evangelists, were y'all able to talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It's it's it's fair to say they are still very much separate from the rest of the village because they they live in the village, of course. They're not um and but that they are still received, but I think there's very much still a separation of that's their faith. This is the majority faith. Um I think for the for the evangelists though, what was encouraging, I could see that he was very confident in the relationships he had with everyone in the village. People respected him for for being part of bringing clean water. So there was definitely that uh and he was still active in the water project, he was part of the water committee, yeah. So he was still playing his role. Um but yeah, I think it's still a very tough context to be a Christian in. I think uh, you know, it's not uncommon. Often I did get to meet another lady who um was part of the project, she was trained as a hygiene sanitation promoter, came to faith, um uh but because of the high risk of persecution within her own family, was not able to this point let her family know she's now become a follower of Jesus. And I think you know, that's a reality that we don't really understand in the West. Um, you know, if we become a Christian, you know, in the America or Australia, it's not really seen as a a problem by many people. Um but it's a life and death situation in the context uh where I was in. So yeah, it is a real it's a tough place to be, a Christian. That's that that will probably never change.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

All right, so talk about the the next community that you went to.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah, really encouraging was I guess I could I saw in this country I was in there was two models of working where our partner would uh Uh, have a map of all the communities needing access to clean water, they go do the assessments and do all the physical and the geological surveys, and then they would be starting water programming and then inviting evangelists to participate. That was one model. Another model I saw where I got to meet an evangelist who'd been sent out by his denomination to live in a community. It was an incredibly poor community, and I admire the hardest evangelist to move from the city to go live in a just terrible situation. Big smile on his face. Uh and he was his he had started by simply going around he'd been only been in the villages for six or nine months. And it started by going around village to village just meeting people and getting to know them. Um and again he found out their biggest need uh women were walking six to eight miles a day to collect water. And um, you know, he got to meet them, and um so he was actually then he then obviously brought our water partner in so in that that way he was saying, I'm already here, come and join me, because the need here is huge. So again, the fact that he was bringing our water partner into these communities demonstrated to these majority faith communities that this guy is for us, he's with us. So again, it's early days for him, he's still starting out, but I guess my hope and prayer would be that through the provision of clean water, those relationships grow deeper. And at times when communities then are are going through a hard time and they're looking for prayer, they're looking for answers, they will lean on him, and that may the provision of clean water may open that door for those trusty relationships to take hold and then conversations of faith to to to rise up and then uh opportunity for the gospel to be shared.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

That's great. Uh I you probably have spoken to enough people out in the field in all your travels, Jason, but something that I hear over and over and I I read uh in different reports uh is just how whether it be a local evangelist or a local pastor or somebody in a village that's somewhat skeptical for a long period of time, but when someone is sick and nothing else has worked, and they've gotten all the they've gotten all the voodoo doctors and all these people to pre- and nothing's gotten better, they'll ask the pastor to come. And a lot of times, like I actually you and I were in Southeast Asia and we heard this story, and this uh this pastor was like working in this really remote, unreached village, and they asked him to come pray for this person, and he came and prayed for them, and they got well uh, you know, just a couple of days later, and they were like, Well, you know, tell us about your God. Like, this does happen all the time. And so, water, prayer, water, like any by any means necessary, the Lord can open a door and and invite uh just have these conversations, uh, open up these conversations with people uh who wouldn't normally believe.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

And I think it was so encouraging. Like it builds your faith. I hope it builds my faith when I live in comfortable Western culture. When I travel with these evangelists and see what they are willing to do in order to um uh love people, serve people, and at the same time introduce Jesus, knowing the risk to them is great. Yet I I see them generally love their fellow man, their fellow woman, their children, the the way they uh faithfully go along, travel to these villages and love them through clean water. I I I've sat with evangelists as they're teaching hygiene sanitation. Genuinely concerned for the health and care in these communities. And I think it's that genuine people see that. If your heart is genuine, they see that, and then when they when they have a problem in life, they will reach out, and that is the seed planting that uh I know the Neverthirst community is is faithfully sowing into, so it's been great.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah. Alright, so Jason, give us uh we usually end this podcast uh with prayer for unreached people groups. So God knows where you were, the Lord knows the people that you just visited. What would you um what would you ask the listeners to uh pray for just based on your most recent experience in this country?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Definitely. Um well as I probably did you know, the these uh two or three evangelists who I got a chance to spend time with and you know, just continue to pray for safety for them as they travel, the roads are not good. Um pray pray for their um pray for their protection as they sit alongside uh village leaders and as they uh come alongside our partner and they're sitting in villages for hygiene sanitation training. Just that I guess God would use them, that God would be with them, that God would protect them, and then uh the Holy Spirit would move in communities uh to open up hearts for conversations of faith uh to take place. Um so yeah, I guess the big one would be continued boldness, perseverance in hard times, and protection.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Great. Yeah, I think those are great prayer requests. So why don't we do this? Why don't we close? I'll close this down in prayer and um and we'll we'll end it there. Let's pray. Lord, we love you, we praise you, God. We're so thankful for the grace that you have given us in Jesus Christ. Like, Lord, when we hear stories like this, uh, where Jason was, we we do realize just how blessed we are and and how good from a worldly standpoint, Lord, we have it. But yet we also know that we envy the faith of some of these people that we hear about and meet uh who are on the front lines, Father. They're willing to give up anything. So, Father, I just pray that you would give us more faith. Give us more faith to believe you, to believe your word. And then, Lord, I just do want to pray for the church in this area. You know exactly where it is. You know that the people who Jason met a few weeks ago, Lord, you know them by name. I pray that you would encourage these local pastors, evangelists, holistic uh trainers, uh holistic change trainers. Just Lord, pray that you would be with them. Would you open up conversations for them to have with the people in the communities where they're serving? Lord, I pray that you would uh give them uh wisdom and also boldness. And Lord, I just pray, I just pray that you would use them to care for people, to love people the way that Christ loved people. And so, Father, uh again, just pray for them. Give them protection, Lord. I just pray that you would protect them. Specifically, I'm thinking of this holistic transformation leader, and she's come to faith and she hasn't told her family, Lord, would you protect her? And would you give her wisdom to know when she should talk to her family, if she should talk to her family about this, Lord? Um, so God, we uh again, we praised you, Father, and we thank you so much for the gift of water that we have, and we pray, Lord, that you would continue to use us, to use the donors who are listening to this to provide access to clean and living water in the most unreached parts of the world. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right, Jason, brother, thank you for coming on, man. Happy back. Happy back. All right, everybody, that's it for this episode of For the Kingdom, and we'll be back in two weeks with another episode.