Out of Sight, Out of Mind

“The harvest is plenty but the workers are few.”

As we have all reflected on the past 7 months, I have heard countless times about how the faithfulness of attending church has decreased. People have become comfortable with online church or no church. At the beginning, people missed being able to worship together, but over time complacent begins to set in. The Enemy begins to have a foothold within our churches and families. But the Enemy is very sneaky in his attacks. Out of Sight–Out of Mind.

What does this have to with Guatemala? We have seen the Enemy use the same tactics to keep people from serving in Guatemala. We have heard people say “As soon as the borders open, then we are going to serve in Guatemala!” Then the Enemy begins to quietly whisper all of the reasons that “now” is simply not a good time. Out of Sight–Out of Mind.

And yet we look into beautiful, brown eyes of children, women, and men asking the question “Why not now?” In a time that feels like there is very little hope, they are looking for someone to point them in the direction of true hope.

A couple of years ago on of our boys, Benjamin, made friends with one man from North American. The man simply played soccer with Benjamin for a couple of hours. The man told Benjamin “I will see you next September”. Benjamin was thrilled that someone from North America would care enough about him to play soccer with him. And the North American would actually return solely to see him! For the next 11 months Benjamin counted down the days until September. He would say, “Deidra, my friend is coming to Guatemala in September!” Finally, it was September. We had to look into the eyes of a precious 10 year boy and tell him that his friend was not able to come to Guatemala. There was no particular reason, just life gets busy.

Is handing a bag of food really important? Yes! Is hugging a single mother and whispering “God Bless You” really important? Yes! Is building a small tin house for a widow lady really important! Yes! Does playing jump rope with a little girl really make a difference? Yes!