Week One Working at Samaritan’s Purse

This past week at Samaritan’s Purse was incredible. I saw God working in everything we did. Our team got closer and much much stronger than I thought possible. And most importantly, we got the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with a ton of people.

So then, “what has Gabe been doing at Samaritan’s purse?” I’ll try my best to cover the main things but quite honestly, there’s way more that is done here than I can even write about. To start off, our mission with Samaritan’s Purse is to serve the families that are affected by natural disasters in the area we’re working. For us, that means the huge flooding that happened in Jackson, Kentucky. Every day we get up before dawn to get ready to work for the rest of the day. We have surprisingly amazing meals every day for breakfast and dinner as a congregation. It’s better than the food I would eat at home honestly. After breakfast, we set out for the homes. Each team is assigned a different house where we do a variety of different projects. For my team, we always do “mud-outs.” That essentially means we remove any mud, debris, drywall, furniture, clothing, appliance, etc that has been affected by the flood. All the work is at the homeowner’s discretion though, if they want to keep things, we keep them. The main goal of this is to leave the home in a place where it’s super easy to rebuild, and safe to live in. The flooding left many of the areas contaminated with black mold which is very deadly if inhaled excessively. We will even go in full Tyvek suits if necessary to remove all the mold whilst staying pretty safe.

As you can probably tell, there is a lot to do with the homes. However, that is not our primary focus. Our primary focus is the homeowner. Every opportunity we get, we try to love the homeowner. We let them know their identity in Christ, we let them know how much He loves them. There have been 60 salvations at the site we are working at, which is an absolutely insane number. God meets these homeowners when they’re in dire need of a savior, it’s incredible to get the opportunity to be a part of it.

Now that you know what I’m doing, I’d say it’s time to share just one of many God moments I’ve had since being here. This past Wednesday, I got to talk to people sitting outside the senior citizen center that is placed right next to the place we’re staying. They were just sitting, smoking on the steps. I and a couple of members of my team were able to make a pretty awesome connection with a couple of the people there. At the end of our conversation, my team leader Justin, who had overheard the conversation, suggested we have a bible study the next day with one of the men. The man liked the idea so we set a time and then said our goodbyes. The next day, we walk into the senior citizen center and get ready for bible study. Apparently, four young guys walking through a senior center is a really surprising sight. Quickly, word spread, and one by one more and more people joined. By the end, we had 18 people in our bible study. It quickly became a lot more than just a bible study. We shared testimonies, and life experiences, and genuinely loved one another. It was my first time sharing my testimony in this manner, but God showed me how. Without even thinking, the Spirit interceded for me, I spoke of my testimony in a way I never had before but it came out smoother than I’ve ever experienced. It was only by the Holy Spirit that it was possible. But we did not only get to bless the people there, but they got to bless us. But sadly, in what felt like five minutes, the time had run out. 

God is so actively working. God placed those people into our lives for His glory. Seeing the smile on those people’s faces was one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever experienced. God has been showing me daily just how perfect His plans are, all we must do is follow them. If we hadn’t stepped out in faith and talked to those complete strangers standing outside smoking, none of this would’ve happened. 

Another quick God moment happened this past Saturday. For context, when I left training camp it was hard for me to find alone time with God. I had completely lost my routine. Now I was being worked from before the sun even came up so by the time I got back, all I wanted to do is sleep. Back to Saturday, we got to a house and we needed two people to go under the house for the rest of the day to spray the mold. I for some reason decided to do it. Now here’s a quick fun fact about me, I’m not a big macho man, I’m literally afraid of the dark. Nonetheless, I was committed now. Me and my partner, Matt, immediately began praying that there wouldn’t be snakes or any other creatures down in this creepy crawl space. Within five feet of the entrance of the crawl space, I saw paw prints all over the mud, so I turned up my worship music to full blast and kept on working. As time passed under the house, I became a lot more comfortable. There was still a very real chance of finding a snake under a board or bucket but I felt content and peaceful. My partner Matt was still down there with me but the crawl space was so large you could barely even hear him, much less see him, from where I was. I realized that this was an amazing time to get that alone time with the Father that I had been seeking all week. I ended up being under that house for about five hours, and God used every second of that to bring me closer to Him. By the end, I was having a blast in that spider-infested, pitch-black crawl space. I may have even rolled around in the mud a little bit to make it look like I was working extra hard…

All in all, my time here at Samaritan’s Purse has been amazing. I can’t tell you enough how phenomenal this opportunity has been. I wish I could tell you all the stories from this week, but there are just too many to share in this post. God bless all of you, thank you for staying in touch with me.

Prayer Requests: I would love prayer for patience, God has been calling me to patience very evidently and it’s a real struggle. I also would love prayer for a man named Steve. He is someone I got the opportunity to evangelize to and he is just really struggling at the moment. Pray for his salvation, pray for something supernatural to break him from his bondage. Thanks so much!