By: Julie Nash
Eight years ago, I visited Pueblo del Rio for the first time with our TRBC team. It was my first trip to Hope of Life in Guatemala and my first missions trip anywhere. I had never experienced such poverty and I was overwhelmed. Everyone should be touched like that at some point in their lives. Over the next couple of years, our home church adopted Del Rio and we have seen God create beauty from ashes, just as His Word has promised. Recently, our team was painting and preparing a house for a family and I saw a young man just sitting and watching us. I walked over, sat down and began to talk to him. It was pretty clear that he was struggling. I asked him his age and he replied that he did not know. My heart was instantly moved. I knew God had arranged this moment. A lady from the village came over and explained that his father had been killed working on electrical lines.
When we were leaving the village that day, I asked him to show me where he lives. I then realized that we had met his brother the year before and had even planned on building his family a house– but they just disappeared. That often happens in Del Rio. Now I understood why. I went to visit him the other day and realized there are many siblings, nieces and nephews living in that mud “house”. When I asked his sister how many people were living there, she laughed a little and said she did not know. God brought this family back to Del Rio and back to our attention for one simple reason…to live out the Gospel. That is why we are here. God has a way of bringing things around full circle to accomplish His will, changing one life at a time.
