Precious Dark Eyes

Belize, from the air

There are three little girls in Belize who have changed my life. Two of them, Jessica and Ingrid, I met during my first trip to Belize last November. The third, Carla, I met this past April as members of our mission team built a home for her family.

I think about these little girls all the time. I talk about them as though they are a daily part of my life. I pray for them, and worry about them as though they were members of my own family. I look at the glass bowl Ingrid gave me – filled with the dried remains of flowers given to me by all the girls – sitting on my kitchen window sill, and I miss the girls so much I could cry.

(L-R) Jessica, Ingrid, and Carla

These little girls have shown me that the world is much smaller than we make it out to be. The Lord has used them to tie me to the beautiful country of Belize in a way that would not happen without tangible, personal human relationships.

I am so thankful for them. I am thankful for their open hearts and their willingness to love. I am thankful for their generous smiles and abundant kisses. I am thankful for their affection that says, “Yes, you are sweaty and not very attractive right now, but I love you just the same.” I am thankful for their willingness to welcome me back after an absence of several months. I am thankful that they see fit to call me their “best friend” because of something as simple as a hug and a smile and a promise to pray for them.

There is just something about those girls that has changed me. When God sat Ingrid and Jessica behind me in church on that first humid morning in November, He knew that they would serve as a tool to soften my heart somehow. He knew that their dark eyes would speak to my soul, and that their little voices would echo in my mind as though He Himself had spoken audible words to me.

I am so thankful that God uses unlikely people to do unlikely things, and that God saw fit to bring these precious girls into my life. I can’t wait to visit them again.