Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria…

Currently I’m sitting in the car with a 5 1/2 hour drive home. I haven’t posted a blog in a while so I thought I’d post a little story from my time in Guatemala! 

A few days ago, I found a picture that reminded me of this story and the family that it’s about. 

During my 3 month stay in Guatemala, every Wednesday my team and I would go to a very small village up in the mountains. The ministry that we were working with (one way) had just started going there and building relationships with the families. 

One day my team and I were handing out food bags in the town. Our ministry host told us that we were going to walk and just ask the Lord to highlight someone to us. We only walked a few minutes when we noticed a woman with a small child standing outside of her home. We decided to go for it. The first thing that I noticed about her was her smile. It was beautiful and I knew that she had the joy of the Lord in her. 

She invited us in and we started to hear her story a little bit. She didn’t know old she was because she had never gone to school and her parents hadn’t either. She had no education at all. She had a husband and a lot of children (I think 8!). You could tell that she LOVED her children and that they brought her a lot of joy and purpose. 

All of her daughters (I’m pretty sure she had  5 or 6) were named Maria (hence the title of this blog) and they went by their middle names. The older ones had been to school for a few years but haven’t been back since covid. 

As we were talking to her, my friend Emalani told me that she felt like we should share the gospel with her. I started to share with her about Jesus, trying to keep it simple because it was being translated to spanish but her first language is indigenous to Guatemala. 

I asked her if she had ever accepted Jesus and she said that she had. As I finished up talking with her, I noticed that all of her children were quietly listening intently. When we first got there, they were all really excited to see us and were running around giggling and playing. But as I started to talk about Jesus, they stopped and listened… there’s power in the name of Jesus, y’all! 

I don’t know what kind of an impact was made in any one of their lives but I pray that they always remember that moment and that they can have a beautiful relationship with Jesus. 

Here’s a photo of one of her daughters! She is standing on top of their pila (a typical sink/washing area). 

This is one of my very favorite stories from the race! It’s not anything super miraculous or anything like that, but it reminds me that the power of the name of Jesus is real! 

I hope that you enjoyed this little story time!