The Former Things: Part One: I Saw Jesus in the Eyes of a Little Girl

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I will be starting a series titled “The Former Things”, recounting some of the amazing people, places, ministries, and God-given moments that I have never shared publicly along the last nine months of my Race.

This series will not go in any particular order of country or month, but will be a mixed bag of the different nations and people I’ve seen and met along the way. I pray that as you read my memories, a spark would catch flame in your heart for the magnitude of Jesus’ love. And if nothing else, I pray that you can find hope where there was once hopelessness in your own life.

Guatemala: Month 1/9

I saw Jesus in the eyes of a little girl. The day was a whirlwind of miracle after miracle, signs and wonders that could only come from the Lord. My team and I wandered the streets of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala with one singular purpose: to ask God who He wanted us to speak to and share whatever words He wanted us to say to them. And after we’d experienced a full day of God revealing His heart to the people in that tiny, beautiful yet broken city, we came to a stop on a street with three directions we could choose to walk down.

We prayed a simple prayer, asking God to guide our footsteps. And as we prayed, God gave me a vision. It was of a little girl wearing pink, her hair in a ponytail, her eyes as big and bright as hazelnut stars. She stood behind a dilapidated concrete wall, tears streaming down her face, staring at me in the vision as if she could see straight through me, as if she was asking me a silent question I had no ability to answer.

I opened my eyes to the faces of my teammates and the worn, muddy paths around us, and I felt a hunger in my gut that sent me cradling my stomach in an agony that was not mine. Somehow, someway I knew I was feeling the hunger of that little girl I’d seen with closed eyes but had never met. It was a new experience for me, carrying the deep feelings of a stranger, a little girl with a face only I’d seen and a name no one knew but God Himself.

I shared my vision with the others in the group, hoping I didn’t sound like a complete lunatic, as one often does when voicing the unfathomable ways of God. And in that moment, one of my teammates pointed to the end of the road we were standing on and said, “There’s a little girl in pink waving at us now.”

The group of us turned in amazement at the sight of the small child, the same small child from the vision the Lord had given me,  peeking her head out from behind the side of a building. It was clearly the direction we needed to walk into, and without hesitation, we headed down that street to meet the little girl who noticed us long before we noticed her.

A few of us were able to meet and get to know her mother, eventually getting permission to walk the little girl to a kid’s program nearby in the community. Afterwards, we were invited into their home, a small home with tin walls and dirt floors, and we were able to share a little bit of our own stories with her. We encountered her father, a closed-off man who only gave us a passing glance and seemed to have an air about him that didn’t quite sit well with the rest of us. But as we sat with the mother and chatted, related over the small things, listened to the hard challenges faced, I saw hope where there should have been no hope to the naked eye. I saw love—the love of a mother to a child, the love a child to a mother, the love of Jesus resting over a household plagued with hardship that we could never understand.

We prayed with the mother, gave her a bible that would give her more hope than we could have ever given her ourselves, and shared with her the love and truth of Jesus—a love and truth that she potentially had never known in her entire life.

And as I looked into the eyes of a little girl facing hard circumstances yet still managing to smile, to play and laugh and sing…I saw Jesus. I saw His heart and His hand, His ways and His light. I saw His love for her. I saw His love through her.

At the end of our time in Guatemala, my friend and Squad Leader, Hannah, painted a portrait of the little girl who touched our hearts and lives in a way that I will never forget. And we were able to deliver that portrait to her only hours before we left that beautiful city, onward to the next chapter of our journey.

It has been eight months since I sat in the house of that loving mother and the girl with the eyes of Jesus. But I carry that day around as a reminder of how God doesn’t only see the brokenhearted—He meets the brokenhearted exactly where they are. Sometimes He even uses the ones with broken hearts to ignite a fire in the ones whose hearts are whole.

“Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.” Luke 9: 48

You Are Loved,

Aliseya