Why Doesn't Somebody Do Something? (continued)
The Story of Rosemary
by Gene Easley
A few minutes later we pulled up in front of our apartment. As we did, who should walk around the corner but Rosemary and her grandmother! It was almost unbelievable as we saw how God had put it all together! God cares about the needs of the desperate and the outcast! He cares about the hopeless and the helpless! He just needs somebody through whom His compassions can flow!
We waved them over to our car and showed them the groceries. When they learned that these provisions were for them, they were surprised but so very grateful. At first they refused our offer to give them a ride home. The grocery bags were too heavy for them to carry a long distance, but they really did not want us to see where they lived. At our insistence, they finally got in the car for the ride home.
They lived only about a mile or two from our apartment, down the hillside with all of the make-shift buildings. We found out that Rosemary and her grandmother shared their one room house with six others for a total of three adults and five children. Rosemary's mother had three children and no father around. Her aunt also lived there with two little ones of her own. Their house was about eight by twenty feet. Their furnishings consisted of two small cots and several cardboard boxes around the room in which to store their belongings. They cooked outside in another very small shack on an open fire. Living was primitive. The conditions were unsanitary. What little income the women made from their work would barely supply enough beans and tortillas to make it through another day.
After that first visit, we made many trips to ten-year-old Rosemary's house. We took more food, blankets, and Bibles and other Gospel literature. Rosemary's mother allowed us to take Rosemary to town with us one day where we bought her a wardrobe of clothing.
One cannot express the joy it brought to us to be able to help those very unfortunate people in their time of great desperation. They had nothing to offer us but their love, and it was so pure and sincere that no price could be put upon it. When we would leave them, it was always difficult to hold back the tears. They were not tears of sadness, but from an emotional experience that can not be put in words. We felt blessed from heaven for being a part of giving. The words of Christ were not just spoken to sound pious when He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Later that year we were to return to the United
States. We went to visit these friends again to say goodbye. Then the night
before we were ready to depart to America, Rosemary and her aunt came by our
apartment to say one last goodbye. It was a very emotional time. Little Rosemary
could not help but cry, and neither could Jean and I. Then Rosemary's aunt said
something that we have cherished all these years since. It was one of those
statements that makes the missionary aware that his efforts are not in
vain. She said, "We thank you
for everything you have given us. We thank you for the food, the clothing, and
all the other things. But we thank you most of all for bringing us the Word of
God." Then the tears flowed freely once again. We thanked God that His Word
had made a lasting impact on their lives.
What would have happened if we had done nothing? We could have allowed the opportunity to pass. We could have ignored what the Spirit was saying to our hearts concerning two needy strangers who crossed our paths. But they would have missed the blessings God had for them, and we would have missed the greater blessing of giving.
God has not called the church to sit and gaze out the window and wonder why situations are so bad. He has called the church to go out and do something.
That little family has been lost to us by the passage of time and the transient lifestyles of Guatemala's poor, but we believe that they have found the Lord, and somewhere among the throngs of people in a faraway land, a family remembers the day God heard their cry and sent someone to help. I will be forever grateful that we did something. I am glad we did not turn our heads and shun our responsibility. Our hearts have been broken many times as we have shared missionary stories and told of the great needs and opportunities in a foreign land, only to watch an affluent congregation look the other way and do nothing. May our response be not, "Why doesn't someone do something?", but rather, "Lord, what would You have me to do?"
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