Today we’d like to introduce you to George Gabrielson.
George, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
God called my wife, Amber, and I to start Jesus Driven in June of 2018. When we first started, it was a part-time after-work operation. Amber met with our clients, applied for grants, and handled insurance. I worked on and towed the vehicles. In the first year, we repaired 36 vehicles and gave away another 6 vehicles out of our attached garage at our house. After the first year, God started pushing us yet again.
As a result, we started fundraising in June of 2019 to raise the funds necessary for me to leave my engineering job and run Jesus Driven full-time. We also began looking for a shop to rent since it was clear that we had outgrown the garage at our house. In November of 2019, I left my job to run Jesus Driven full-time. I handled all of the client meetings, bookkeeping, repairs, towing, accounting, and whatever else you can think of. Amber applied for grants, ran Bible studies, and helped in any other way that she could.
In January of 2020, we moved out of our garage into a small shop. It didn’t have a bathroom or even running water, but we were thrilled to be out of our garage! We were just grateful that it had heat. In May of 2022, Amber left her social work job to work with Jesus Driven part-time. She now meets with most of our clients, does our bookkeeping, leads client Bible studies, and even gets her hands dirty now and then!
About a month ago, we moved into a bigger shop. We have about twice as much space, a small office, running water, and even a bathroom! We currently fix about 100 cars per year and give away about 6 cars per year. We are excited to see God’s plan for our organization unfold as we start to utilize our larger space!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Overall, things have gone pretty well. God truly has provided everything that we needed, when we needed it! Not necessarily when we wanted it, but always when we needed it. His plan can be so difficult to understand at the moment, but it sure makes sense when you look back on it. That doesn’t mean that it has always been easy though.
Amber called just about every insurance company that we had ever heard of trying to get insurance before we officially started working on cars. At that time, we weren’t even old enough to rent a car. As you can imagine, insurance companies weren’t exactly lining up to insure what can only be described as a liability nightmare run by a couple of dumb kids. After being rejected countless times, she finally found an insurance agent in Missouri that sold us a liability policy.
We looked for and prayed for our first shop for about 4 months. We sent letters to owners of abandoned buildings, cold-called people, you name it before we finally found a shop that we could afford to rent. Then, we had to wait 4 months longer than expected just to be able to move in! We looked for and prayed for our second shop for over a year. Same thing, we sent letters, cold-called, drove around town looking for abandoned properties and even looked on Google Maps before we found an affordable shop.
Trusting in God’s faithfulness was not always easy. We struggled to understand why He was making us wait. Laying down our ideas for the way things should go and submitting fully to His plan was a difficult but necessary step for us. Ultimately, as long as we trust Him completely, the details don’t matter nearly as much.
As you know, we’re big fans of Jesus Driven LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The simplest way to describe Jesus Driven is to call us a nonprofit mechanic shop. Our labor is free, and our clients buy their parts. This way they are saving about 75% over a conventional shop, but they are still investing in their vehicle. We also provide limited towing services, fix-up and giveaway donated vehicles, and occasionally teach tire changing/fluid checking classes. However, we do so much more than just fixing cars!
Our goal is to love and serve everyone just as Christ loves and serves us. Not only did Christ serve people by providing healing and meeting physical needs during His time on this earth, His death on the cross and resurrection was the ultimate form of service. The forgiveness and salvation that He provided is what each of us needs most of all!
This leads us to not only meet the needs of our client’s vehicles but also strive for their other needs, both physical and spiritual. We are actively trying to build relationships with our clients, even becoming a part of their support system when necessary. We truly love our clients and want this to be evident in every interaction that we have with them. We have walked beside clients as they are coming out of addiction, dealing with child protection, difficult relationship issues, and many other things.
We also desperately want them to find a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We let our clients’ interest in Jesus drive these interactions. We offer to meet weekly for Bible study, deep conversations, or even just coffee and friendship, depending on their interest. Regardless of how they feel about Jesus, we want them to come away from interactions with us feeling loved and cared for.
Sadly, we are finding that we are often the only people that take the time to care for and invest in our clients. They often have no friends or family in the area, no one who treats them like they have any value. We can’t change people’s hearts, but we can show them ours!
What do you think about happiness?
Our motto is “Each of you should use whatever gifts you have received to serve others. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.” (1 Peter 4:10 and Mark 10:45) It brings me a great deal of joy to be able to use the gifts that God has given me to serve people in need. I get the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus to people every single day. I get to show people the love that Christ has for them every single day.
It is easy to dismiss the humanity of people in need. Phrases like: “It’s their fault” or “They should just work harder” come to mind. The reality is that each individual is a valued child of God and needs to be treated as such, regardless of why they are in the situation that they are in. They may not matter to society, but they matter to God, which means they matter to us!
Jesus said “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40).
Contact Info:
- Website: jesusdriven.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesusdriven7/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JesusDriven07
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ssj8VM3kUs4hJEkJHse-A
