A Thousand Lights

There’s a woman who is staying in the house with us. She cooks, cleans, reads her Bible, and you can very rarely find her doing anything else. No one seemed to know her name or anything about her. But we noticed her right away and see her more often than we do our host. When we began to speak to her, she seemed shocked that we expressed so much interest in her. After about a week of small talk and conversations in broken Spanish, she warmed up to us. We began inviting her to join us in meals and prayer. I invited her to sit with us at Church and asked if she could teach us how to cook and to make our favorite – café con leche. Each time we extended invitations to her, she lit up with joy and happily accepted. When she enters a room she often says "Jessica!" because for some reason mine is the only name she's learned. She told us how sometimes she hears God and once she felt Him wrap His arms around her. She’s a faithful, Godly woman. She’s the type of woman with a soft but powerful voice. The woman’s name is Luz Mila, which translates to “a thousand lights”.

I stopped her once while she was sweeping so that I could attempt to learn her story. I was eager to hear it. We held hands as she spoke and I could feel the callouses of a hard-working woman. She has four children. Her husband left her and she supports them on her own. She expressed how difficult this was. I didn’t expect to have so much in common with her. I told her that my husband left me too. That my mom raised my brother and I alone. And that she was strong, brave, and should be proud. This made her happy. She looked me in the eyes, and said in Spanish, “God will bring you a husband in His time”. Because of our language barrier, there were few sentences said in this conversation, but the few were powerful ones.

Luz Mila wasn’t included in our ministry details and interacting with her isn’t a requirement. But I think my whole team would agree that she’s had one of the biggest impacts on us this month. And the joy on her face when she sees us… it’s like a thousand lights.