Childhood illness, observations lead man
to invent water purification system

United Methodist News Service
As a young boy, Duvon McGuire almost died from drinking contaminated water in Ecuador where his parents worked as missionaries.
As a student at Asbury College in Kentucky, he spent a summer working in a hospital in India, where he watched people suffer from waterborne illnesses.
Armed with a chemistry degree, McGuire went to work on an idea for a simple, cost-effective water purifier designed to withstand harsh environmental conditions.
In the 1970s, his parents, Byron and Yvonne McGuire, began New Life International, a nonprofit Christian ministry based in Underwood, Ind., that provides the water purifiers that have given people in more than 60 countries safe water to drink.
“What we are trying to do is not just bring safe water on a humanitarian level but as Christians to also be the salt that makes people thirsty for living water,” said Duvon McGuire, a member of New Chapel UMC, Jeffersonville, Ind.
The McGuire water purifier uses a 12-volt power supply and salt to destroy viruses and bacteria and produce chlorinated water.
The purifier can provide enough water for 10,000 people and can disinfect up to 50 gallons of water per minute—all using less electrical power than a normal street light. One purifier potentially can save an entire village for as little as a penny per person, per day.
McGuire’s invention got its first real-life test in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras. A family member working as a missionary in Honduras told him that the hurricane had left behind a severe water crisis.
Packing up 30 of his purifiers, McGuire took them to Honduras for use in schools, churches and orphanages. Since that time, the Christian outreach ministry started by his parents has become one of the largest to provide safe water to the world. The United Nations reports that about 25,000 people die each day from waterborne diseases.
New Life International has become a center for hands-on training in water purification. Mission teams, medical staff and relief workers come to the Indiana hub to acquire water purifiers for the needy.
Crestwood UMC, Crestwood, Ky., purchased two McGuire water purifiers. The church's mission team, led by Jim Pearson, have installed one system in the Dominican Republic and one in Appalachia, close to the United Methodist Red Bird Mission. Another mission team plans to install another at Centro Methodista in Costa Rica in early April.
“The source of pure water is a tool of evangelism,” Pearson said.
The United Nations observed World Water Day March 22 to draw attention to the shortage of safe drinking water around the world.