Forever Changed!

I love how the first-timers on every trip are wide-eyed and soaking in everything about the beautiful country and people. I also love when people return year after year and tell stories about how one trip to Guatemala forever changed their lives. Pam Landry Baker is an example of how God used a trip to Guatemala to change her life–forever!

“My first trip to Guatemala was when I was 14 years old. This experience began to reveal to me the true meaning of fulfilling the Great Commission. I think I understood, even then, that my life would forever be shaped by this experience.

When I was 16 years old, I visited Casa Aleluya for the first time. 23 years later and I still have a vivid memory of that day. Climbing out of a van, parked under an avocado tree. A group of preschool aged children ran to meet us. Tears streamed down my face. I spent that day rocking babies, cleaning toys, and feeding toddlers. That was the day that God called me to adoption and my life changed forever. Later, in college, my now-husband and I toured Casa Aleluya. I watched as he experienced the same emotions I had, so many years earlier. God placed the same burden for fatherless on his heart.

In 2012, we began the adoption process. Adoption is hands-down the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Throughout the adoption process, the social workers told us that adoption is hard, but we did not fully understand it, until we experienced it. We often joke that we knew it was going to be hard, we just didn’t know it was still going to be hard 8 years later.

In 2016 we traveled to Nanjing, China to meet our son. Walking around the orphanage, I was taken back to Casa Aleluya. However there was a stark difference. At Casa Aleluya, the children were shown the love of God and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our son was in a public orphanage in a communist country where he would never hear about Jesus. His only hope of salvation was to be adopted into a family that would live out the Gospel.

Adoption is so difficult, but God is so faithful. He has been faithful throughout our adoption journey in a million tiny ways. Every time I think I am not strong enough, that the burden of trauma is too heavy, I am able to look back at His faithfulness and know that He is always with us.

This week I had the privilege of returning to Casa Aleluya for the first time in almost 20 years. It looked exactly as I remembered it. It even smelled exactly the same. But this time I no longer saw those children through the eyes of a naive 16 year old. I saw them through the eyes of a mother who walks through life alongside a child who has experienced loss and trauma that I will never fully comprehend. I looked around at a room full of children who have been abused, neglected, and abandoned. And I was broken all over again. Those children, just like my child, have no hope and no future, outside of Jesus Christ.

One trip to Guatemala changed my life and changed my family for generations to come. If you go on a mission trip, it will change your life. If you take your children on a mission trip, it will change your family. I cannot promise you that it will be easy. In fact, I guarantee that it will be difficult. But I can promise you that He is faithful.”

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

Pam Landry Baker