Debbie Gabbara
“What a week it has been! My mind and my heart have gone through so many emotions and seen so much this week. Lord, thank you for allowing me to come here.”
Those are words that I wrote in a letter to myself more than two years ago. Just seeing the envelope causes my heart to begin to remember. The letter was written at the end of one of the hardest, most rewarding weeks of my life. It was a week that was spent in Guatemala, sharing the Gospel with families that live in the second-largest garbage dump in the world. We were sharing the hope of Jesus in a place where hope is hard to find. On our last day there, our assignment was to write a letter to ourselves of things that we never wanted to forget.
Reading the letter floods my mind with memories of the wonderful people we met in the dump. There were the beautiful children singing out the memory verse we helped them to learn. With sadness, I recall that an extra sack lunch was the coveted prize for reciting the verse without any mistakes. Food is scarce in the dump. I remember the family that we helped by building bunk beds for their children. The sweet man who made gifts for our students and the precious baby that we all took turns holding will forever be in my mind. Together we scraped and painted a medical building, renovated a house, and taught Vacation Bible Schools. We worked side by side with the incredible people in Guatemala City who live surrounded by mountains of garbage. God allowed us to step into their lives for just a brief moment, and this letter reminds me of the boldness that I prayed for on that trip. It was a boldness to tell them of a Savior that loves them.
I spent many years studying and growing in God’s Word. Now it was my turn to “go.” In Mark chapter 15, Jesus tells us to “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.” I went to Guatemala with a desire for others to know that Jesus came to save us from our sins. He lived a perfect life and died on a cross. On the third day, He conquered death and rose from the grave and went to Heaven to prepare a place for us. Jesus came for the people living in that dump in Guatemala, and He came for you and for me.
“Lord, don’t let me forget this feeling of serving you while serving others. Thank you for giving me the desire to ‘go.’ Please do not let me become complacent when I get home. There are people all around me who need you. There are people living in the garbage of this world. Give me the boldness that You gave me here in Guatemala to not just tell them, but to show them with my life what we taught those precious kids today:
You are the God who created us,
You are the God who sees us,
You are the God who saves us,
You are the God who provides for us,
You are love!”
Mark 16:15 says, “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’”