DVULI Commemorates Women’s History Month

Recognizing Donna Barber (Atlanta 2006)

Author – Motivational Speaker – Educator – Mentor – Urban Leader

 

By Sheldon Freeman, Staff

Donna Barber (Atlanta 2006) knows the wilderness firsthand! She has lived through ministries physically burning to the ground, loving people across disagreements, and planting mixed culture churches. Donna’s urban ministry journey has survived countless ups and downs.

In her most recent book, Enough for Today: Forty Reflections for Surviving the Wilderness, Donna addresses God’s promises for worn-down leaders. A reflective devotional, the theme is finding love for God again, which gives us hope to keep moving and to do the work for our nation’s youth.

“There are numerous promises,” Donna explains. “The one that immediately comes to mind is that God offers us rest.” She goes on to unveil, “As we take on more and more responsibilities, there is a temptation to think that we are actually doing it and that [it all depends] on us. We are not in control. It’s all God. You get to rest.”

The devotional is arranged in four themes—Discovering God, Discovering Call, Facing Fear, and Finding Ourselves—a path that mirrors what many experience in disorienting seasons.

Donna describes those moments as “a period of wilderness of dryness,” where familiar comforts and securities shift. Yet in that shifting, people rediscover “what is really important—our God.”

From her own journey of dryness, Donna shares, “I talk about God and my earliest memories of Him as a child,” hoping readers “remember where they first met God, when He was lover of their soul before we made it complicated.”

When leaders return to that first love, “there’s a hope,” Donna affirms. The hope that’s needed now “because we’ve spun ourselves into this darkness of despair.”

Donna’s reflections speak specifically to youth workers who tend to be familiar with the slow-growing, unseen fruit common in ministry.

“You’re investing, you’re pouring in, and you don’t always, often, sometimes ever, get to see the results of what you’re doing.” Donna continues, “It’s like being a farmer who’s planting seeds, and then you leave and move on before you see what comes up.”

Donna, who’s served in ministry for several decades, adds that God sometimes grants a glimpse of the fruit. “One of those kids showing up somewhere in your life [and you seeing] how they turned out, makes everything else worth it, and keeps you going,” she notes.

In Enough for Today, Donna’s desire is simple: “I would hope that people get reminded, encouraged, and energized to [propel in what] God has called them to do.” She goes on to lament, “We need the hope of the gospel. We need to believe again that the Word of God is true, that Jesus has, in fact, risen.”

 

Enough for Today: Forty Reflections for Surviving the Wilderness can be found on Amazon.com.

Women’s History Month 2026: DVULI recognizes Donna Barber for her voice, steadiness, and commitment to urban youth leaders.