Donor Story: The Shipp Family – Leaving a Legacy

John and his wife had it all mapped out. College sweethearts, marriage, kids, a career in medicine, a home of their own. Then 21 years ago their infant son, Decker, died, and the plan came apart.

In this short film, they tell the story in their own words. Give it a few minutes.

The twins arrived at 25 weeks, far too early. Decker lived 6 weeks. His twin sister, Kate Rivers, is a college senior now. John was in his third year of med school when it happened.

Out of that loss, something shifted. The couple joined a Bible-believing church, learned the scriptures, and started paying attention to missions and generosity. After a move to a new town, friends introduced them to neverthirst and invited them to help fund a well. The more they learned about who neverthirst was reaching, and how, the more they wanted in.

What drew them was the whole picture. Clean water met a physical need, and the local pastors carrying it into each village met a spiritual one. It became something the family could talk about around their own table. As John's wife puts it, neverthirst works its way into every conversation.

Then this past year they lost John's dad. Another reminder, she says, of how short life is. A vapor. It's the kind of truth that changes how a person holds their plans and their possessions.

Everything we own is God's, she says, and saying it isn't the same as living it. The legacy she's praying for is simple: that their kids watch how they live and see them holding it all loosely, using what God gave them for things that outlast them.

Watch the full story. And if it stirs something, know that partnering with neverthirst puts you alongside families like theirs, and the local pastors bringing clean water and the good news to places most people never go.