First Person with Wayne Shepherd

First Person: Dámaris Carbaugh

Vocalist Dámaris Carbaugh tells her life story of coming to faith in Jesus Christ and using music as a means of proclaiming the Gospel. Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company: FEBC National Processing Center Far East Broadcasting Company P.O. Box 6020 Albert Lea, MN 56007 Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

Duration:: 23m
Broadcast on:: 11 Mar 2011
Audio Format:: other

Vocalist Dámaris Carbaugh tells her life story of coming to faith in Jesus Christ and using music as a means of proclaiming the Gospel.

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
FEBC National Processing Center
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

It's like I tell people you think that my heart has been in the right place since 1988. You have another thing coming. I mean it's just so easily goes in the wrong direction and God is so merciful and I hope I never stop being overwhelmed. This is First Person. I'm Wayne Shepard, welcome to this week's program where we're going to meet damorous carball and hear her heart to know Christ. First let me remind you that anytime you need additional information about the guests you hear on this program, you can look us up online at firstpersoninterview.com. Links to our guests, a calendar of upcoming programs and an archive of past programs is found there at firstpersoninterview.com. And you can respond to First Person with the email address you'll find online or by visiting our Facebook page. Well vocalist Damorous Carball first came to our attention as a soloist with a Brooklyn tabernacle, pastored by Jim Simballah. But there was a lot to her life story that preceded that incredible music and a lot has happened since to this woman who loves and serves the Lord faithfully. So I invited Damorous to join me in a conversation about her life in ministry and I started by asking her about her unusual name. It just always makes me laugh. My name is found in the book of Acts chapter 17 verse 34, it's the way the chapter ends. Paul was preaching to the Greeks, very few believed it says, but among those that believed were Dionysius, the ariopogite and a woman named Damorous. And so that's where it is. It is an ancient Greek name. So if you go to a Greek diner and ask them do you know anybody named Damorous, they don't. So it's not a name that is used today. In my early 20s, I got very interested in digging for the meaning of my name. And a little later I'll tell you where I was mentally at that stage of my life, but very, very into me. And I thought that it was going to be like a moment when I found out the meaning of my name. Like it's going to mean something like wind or. So my mother had up, my mother was a chaplain for the Department of Corrections in the state of New York and her coworker and other chaplain and other gentleman who was put at theologian and I asked him, you know, could you dig into one of your books, whatever, try to find out what my name means because some of the ones in the Bible have name explanations when mine didn't. And so he goes, comes back to me a few days later, he goes, Hey, I found out what your name means. I go, you know, almost, I almost like like, stop, don't say it. Yeah, wait, let me get ready. You know, he goes, no, it's really sweet. And when really he goes, yeah, it means heifer. I was like, what? And the funnier story is that my mother and father, you know how people vary and I'm not making fun of anybody that prayerfully considers the names of their children. Some parents really take time to, to pray, Lord, what would now my mother and father had three names in their head, Rachel Rebecca Dammers and they went back and forth Rachel Rebecca Dammers, which one? And so I feel a God in his providence that that girl is going to be in a place at some time in her life where she needs to know she's nothing but a little cow. I said, if you don't think God has a sense of humor, you're just not on, you're not walking right. So anyway, that's what it means. I can't imagine you being called anything but Dammers now. It's a beautiful name. So thanks for telling that story. It does tell me something about your folks though. They knew the word. Oh, oh, oh, my, my parents, my mother was a preacher, teacher, missionary, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association would actually go into South America and Central America and the BGEA kind of was called in those areas, Evang Jalismo Afondo. And my mom was recruited in a way by a pastor in Puerto Rico, you know, who said this woman preaches. My mom preached for Evang Jalismo Afondo in Bolivia, in Colombia, in Peru. And she studied at CB, it was called CBI Central Bible Institute, the assembly of God School. It is now, of course, Central Bible College. So my mom actually was a associate pastor to her father in a Spanish speaking church that I grew up in until I was 15 in the South Bronx. Grew up in New York, but you've lived in some other places too. Yes, yes, I, when I got married, well, before that, born in New York. But when I was a second, third and fourth grade of my elementary school years, I lived in Puerto Rico. And my mom put us in a Wesleyan Academy, so we wouldn't learn English. We wouldn't forget English, which was so smart because we would have at that early age, we would have forgotten. So English was school and life was in Spanish and vice versa. In New York, we came back to New York and the Spanish church and church was in Spanish, but life was in English. So I lived in Puerto Rico, came back to New York, married and lived in Charlotte with Rod for three years, then came back and lived in Brooklyn for a little bit and Bronx for another little bit. And I've been in Mount Vernon here in New York, which is a suburb of the New York City for 23 years. You are a New York girl, aren't you? Oh, I am. I am. So given that spiritual heritage in your family, when did your own faith in Christ begin? What's the story behind you coming to Christ yourself? Well, in my mom was doing an evangelistic, you know, in those days, you called and remember they were called evangelistic campaigns on tambanias in Spanish. My mom was preaching a week of meetings in a town in Puerto Rico. I was eight years old. This is my first memory of when I understood that I needed the Lord, but I didn't, my mom was preaching. I don't know what she was preaching. I don't remember at all, but I remember I felt like crying. I felt overwhelmed and moved to tears and a sweet lady that was near me, saw me and put her arm around me and said, do you want to go forward? Because people, just like in a Billy Graham, you know, people were just flooding the altar. She goes, do you want to go forward? When I was so insulted, imagine at the tender age of eight, I took them out of a proud little thing. So I looked at her and I went, the lady preaching is my mother. You're like, how could you ask me this question? So in a way, I was, I was touched, but in my little mind, all those people going forward are bad people that want to be good. And I'm not bad because I belong to that lady and I must be what that lady is. So I don't need to go forward, but I was moved and I didn't know why I was moved. So end of meeting, I tell my mom that a lady asked me, you know, if I wanted to go forward because I couldn't stop crying and then my mom very sweetly said to me, you are not what I am because you're my daughter. Oh boy. You have to open up your little heart to the Lord. And I remember the next night, nothing moved me that next night. I just waited for that moment to go forward and I went forward and I, I think my little head said, okay, I'm coming forward, but I thought you knew that I belonged to you. So, so, you know, that's really, you know, if you want to say that that's when I got, I don't know, all I know is that that's when I understood that I needed to recognize my own need for a savior, how to, to what extent that, you know, I was only eight. And I would, I want to say to you that I grew up and I believed all that I ever heard. I was not an 18 year old going, you know, I can't wait to be old enough to be out of here. I'm not going to go to church anymore. I don't, I loved church. I loved the choir. I loved preaching. I loved Sunday school. I loved my church family. But Wayne, when I got into my teens, that began my, my pursuit of a secular career and, and as I look back in my twenties, I was not at all my mindset. This is what's really sad because you think growing up the way with what I heard and I, I was not just hearing evangelistic messages. I was hearing messages I'm sure about following Christ and dying to self and I, that just went in one ear and went out the other. And I really felt like as long as I believe in you, Jesus, I can do whatever I want with my life, as long as it's not like, you know, sinful, you know, I'm just selling drugs or robbing banks, as long as I, you know, I can do what I want. So have you been singing since you were a child then? Yes. I was 11 years old when I started taking voice lessons in Carnegie Hall with a Italian. She was a PhD in music and she did not take children. She told my mother, I don't teach children. I give classical training and an 11 year old is not old enough for it. And so your daughter will have to wait till she's developed and, you know, young ladies and my mom said, can I bring her? Can, can you at least see her? So she goes, sure, Dr. Emilia del Teresa was five feet tall. I was five foot seven at 11. When I walked in, she was like, Oh my goodness. So she goes, I really thought I was, you know, I'm just going to see a little girl. Obviously, she's not a little girl. Because I was, I looked like an 18 year old, I'm sure I was invited to sing in the adult choir in the church. There was no 11 year old in the, I was bigger than a lot of the adults. So I started to sing. I was serious about singing at 11 and at 15, I did my first jingle and I was still in high school. I got recommended by a musician and so well, let's talk about that jingle career. Oh, I mean, you were singing for what Kentucky Fried Chicken, that sort of thing. Yes. Oh, and then a lot in Spanish once they found out, I don't know how that because I never meant for that to happen. But once they found that I was bilingual, then I started doing Kentucky Fried Chicken and Bordeaux de Bordeaux, porque lexitos singu la rde laud de bluede no esto bleminto bleminto bleminto. It was really funny to hear those things because you always said, you always said the product in perfect English. Now they don't. Now they've gotten kind of hip and you hear McDonald's, you know, you hear them saying it in a Spanish way, but we would go, you know, McDonald's, you know, it sounded to me. It's really funny. It's going to be who you were going to be in life. No, I just thought that was a great way to make money when I'm trying to say it's not like I wanted to be a jingles, a jingles singer so generic, you know, you, they really don't want you to sound like anybody, you know, the more anyway, so, but it was fabulous work. You walk in with your jeans and a t-shirt, nobody cares what you look like, get it, get there on time, you know, sight read if they use music. A lot of, a lot of your juicers didn't use music, you know, you just learn your parts. So you must be very grateful for how God led you into the family he did and then just subsequently just you're growing up in that, in that home. Yes. Yes. And I know when I look back that some of my decisions were, were, how should I say it? I know that I was prevented from some terrible things because of what I have been taught, the real issue of full surrender to the Lord, that didn't come for a long time. We'll talk with Demerys Karba about that surrender in just a moment as we continue today's edition of First Person. Next time we'll meet an unusually gifted artist who gives all the glory to God. I just knew that there was something that I was born to do and that creativity was part of it. Twenty, seven years after I realized that that call was from this created God who gave us the Bible. We'll hear the powerful testimony of artist Makoto Fujimura when you join us next week here on First Person. We're hearing the life story of Demerys Karba on First Person this week and I ask Demerys when did her commitment to Christ really become a very important part of her life? 1988. I was 33 years old. By this time I knew I had known Pastor Simba for many years. Pastor Simba invited my mother to speak in his church when I was 16. That's the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Yes. I was 16. Debbie was 17. My youngest sister was 12. We were a trio and my mom would preach and the trio would sing. Pastor Simba had, are you ready? 15 people in the church. Wow. The place sat about 200 max and there was only two rows of people. That's when I met him. I remember even at 16 feeling I want God the way that man knows God. Meanwhile, I had a beautiful example in my parents and in my other people. There was just some, there was a fire in this man that I, and he was only 29 and he just spoke so wonderfully. Anyway, so that began a wonderful friendship, so I knew him since I was 16. He married my husband and I in 1980, so we've got this friendship and we've got this. He tells me in 1988, listen, I'm going, he loves Argentina, by the way. He has lost probably 100 trips or more since he's been going in the early 70s, so he goes, listen, I'm going Argentina to do a small pastor's conference, all about 150 pastors, and he says, I want you to come damorous because you can sing in Spanish and you can kind of encourage them and, would you consider that? And see, Wayne, this is where I thought I'm not, I'm not far from God because my knee-jerk reaction was, oh, I would love to, that'd be really sweet. So I got Argentina with Pastor Simba, and this is way before I have any of my recordings, so Carol, Carol played for me, who's a phenomenal keyboard player, a lot of people don't even know, but she's incredible, she's an incredible organist, so Carol played, my sister Debbie also went and she can play, she knew some of my songs and they played for me, I didn't have any tracks, anything, but it was so sweet, but while I was there, Wayne, I so a group of people that my life have I seen people abandoned, they didn't love God, they were abandoned to God, and you know what? You don't know that you're not till you're with somebody that is... See the real thing, yeah. Really, I tell people sometimes, you want to know if you love God, forget about asking, just get with somebody that does, you will immediately know, oh boy, and most people feel like, oh, this is too much, you know, this is just, and that's how you feel, you feel affixiated, when your heart is not right and people that want to be with God, there's just, you know, I immediately was like, I remember the services, I thought they were so long, meanwhile people were lost in God, Wayne, I mean, unbelievable, and that's where God put his finger on my heart, so what did you do with that? He just said, what are you doing to me? He just asked me that, what are you doing? And I know that when God says, what are you doing, he's not under, it's not like he doesn't know, he's up there puzzled, it's like, do you know what you're doing? And I remember that the question alone was conviction through the heart, I mean, and I knew immediately you are not pleased with what I'm doing, and it was, no, I'm not, but I remember Wayne that I had to tell the Lord, but this is what I really want, I don't want what you want from my life. I understood that, I felt like saying yes to what God wanted was a real downer, and what I wanted was real life, and he was like, no, you don't understand, the reason you don't want to do what I want you to do is because look at them, you've seen what you've seen, he says, you don't love me, there's the problem, it's a problem of the heart. If you loved me, you would want to obey me, and I just read that the other day, you're my friends if you obey what I want you to do. And this is not what I want you to do, and you're not even, you don't even care. And that was it, that was the beginning, Wayne, it's not the end, that was the beginning. But it marked a radical change for you then? Absolutely, absolutely. I came back and told Pastor Simbula, I'm done, I was pursuing, I actually had a secular album released in '84 on Columbia Records, I had Patty Austin, Luther Van Ross singing background for me and those songs, so it was, you know, I thought it was, it went nowhere, it flopped, really got upset about that, and just like, why is my career not happening? And I came back to Reuben Tarvin, I go, told Pastor Simbula, you have no idea how God met me. I know what God wants me to do, I know that now, and he said, "Oh, great." And he... He said, "Oh, great." He went, he went, "Oh, great." He goes, "That's wonderful. You know what?" He said, "This." He goes, "You know what?" And this, by this time now, Brooklyn Tabernacle had just done their first live album, which put them on the map, by the way, okay, they had albums before that, that went nowhere, the choir would sing flat, and Pastor Simbula, I know the Lord put it in his mind. This choir is not a studio choir, this choir has to be recorded, the way they worship God in the sanctuary, so that changed the whole format of the way they did it. So he goes, "I'm going to invite some of the executives from this record company to come hear you." And Wayne, they came to hear me at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and I thought, "This is it. This is 1988. I thought, "This is it." I'm going to get signed with a Christian label, and that's it, you know, this is what is going to happen. And so they came to hear me, I gave my testimony, told them what God did, showed me how wrong I was, I want to now anyway. Service's over, they meet me in Pastor Simbula's office, they were so kind, they were, you know, we'll call you in a little bit, and so a couple of months later, I get a letter that basically said, "Don't call us, we'll call you." One of those letters, yeah. Yeah, we're not interested in signing any new artist right now, and they also said, "We're not looking for any new artist." And I was so angry, and I was angry with God, and I told the Lord, "I cannot believe, first of all, just to show you where my ego was that way, first of all, how could they not want me? I am terrific." All right? And number two, how could they lie to me and say they're not looking for new artists? That's all a record company ever does. So I felt insulted two ways, and I took it to the Lord, and I actually had the audacity to tell the Lord, "I've given up what I, you know, like what I wanted to follow you, and this is what I get, and the Lord, like only he can say, took me to that thought." Because it's not like I went to that scripture, but he, this is what I finally realized. He says, "You've given up nothing. You have no idea what giving up is." And that's when Philippians 2, 5 through 11 became real. It says, "Your attitude, damners, should be the same of that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. You know nothing about giving anything up. You just want, you're just on a different platform. So now you're not going to saying, "Oh, why did you leave me, baby?" You're going to saying, "Yes, Jesus loves me. You still want the platform. You're still pursuing your own career, and so you're not ready for anything." And I was, I was done. I was done in a way that I really thought, I really thought, because when he showed me that I went, I said, "First of all, he's right. You're right, God. You're right. I am still on, I don't know what kind of trip, but I'm on that trip, and I'm sorry. I'm done. I got so tired of myself." And two years, two years went by, and the Lord said, "Why don't you just become a better wife, a better mother, a better sister in Christ to the body that you belong to, Manhattan, Grace, Tamanackel, and just sit down, and just learn, and open up your Bible, and get to know me." But two years is a long time to live in between like that. Absolutely. And in 1990, two years later, out of the blue, but only God, or I tell people, if God wants to use you, he will find you. Don't worry about trying to knock down doors. Two years later, Brian Felton of Discovery House Music calls me up, and the rest is history. Talk to me about your call today. What is the Lord calling you to now at this point in your life? To saturate myself in the Word of God. My husband and I are elders in our church, and when we counsel with people, Wayne, remember the verse that Jesus told the Sadducees because they came with that ridiculous story about the woman whose husband died, and then the brother married her, and then the other brother married her, and the other brothers, and she's the seven brothers. Now they're Sadducees, which they don't even believe in the resurrection, so the whole question is a mockery. But Jesus answered these words, "You err for you know not the Word, nor the power they are up." But I believe that sentence not only goes for what they were saying, it's, "You make mistakes. You are confused because you don't know the Word of God." So it's not about the music. No. I mean, I'm still doing music, but even when I sing between songs, I'm like, "God, give me your Word to set up these songs." From this point forward, what would you like to be said about your life, Damaris? Oh my goodness, one thing, that I loved the Lord, my God, with all my heart, with all my soul, my strength in my mind, that's all, because I know that if I love Him that way, I will obey Him, and I will be faithful, but it's all the issue of the heart. To me, that's the bottom line. If I don't love Him, it doesn't matter then, because even look at the church at Ephesus. I was just reading that the other day, look at all that they did well, the first few things you go, "My goodness, can there be anything wrong with them?" They have perseverance. They don't tolerate false teaching. He says, "I've seen your works." You are, you know, I'm like, "Anybody would think that it's like phenomenal." And then he goes, "But I have this against you." I'll win. You mean it's possible to do all of that and not have your heart in it? Oh man. So I want my heart in the right place, Wayne. You've told this story of your own life so many times, and yet it still brings tears. Yeah. Why? Because it breaks me. It breaks me. I can't, the long suffering of the Lord overwhelms me, because I tell people, if you think that my heart has been in the right place since 1988, you have another thing coming. I mean, it's just so easily goes in the wrong direction, and God is so merciful. The minute you just kind of go, "Oh God, help me here." So no, I hope I never stop being overwhelmed. I really mean that. I just hope I never stop being overwhelmed, and I hope I want to be like Paul. He's my hero. Paul is my hero. As a teenager, I couldn't stand him, because I felt that his letters were, like Peter says, "Waitie." And he just cuts, you know, what is it, just kind of gets right there where you're at. I didn't like hearing all the stuff that I was convicted about, but he's my hero because at the end of his life, you know, he's saying things like that I may know him. Paul is saying that he wants to know him. Anyway, I just want to love him with all my heart and know him. Demaras Karba, whose excitement to know Christ even more deeply, is a great encouragement to all of us. Here's what Paul says in Philippians 3. He says, "Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him." He goes on in verse 10, "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death." Powerful passage of Scripture in our thanks to Demaras Karba. I've placed links and additional information about Demaras and her ministry on our website, firstpersoninterview.com. She has a new CD called The Collection featuring some of her favorite songs over the years, so follow the link to her website at firstpersoninterview.com. This is a weekly conversation telling the stories of people who have found meaning and purpose in life through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Each week's interview is archived online so you can listen anytime. Next week we are back in the studio to talk with artist Makoto Fujimura, a New York-based artist whom the Lord is gifted with tremendous talent. You'll meet him and hear his life story next week. And now with thanks to my producer and friend Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepard. Hoping you'll join us next week at the same time for a first person. the next week. [Music]