Wrinkled hands, lined with the years, sliced tomatoes and onion, flipping eggs on the stove. Morning sounds drift through the open door… the honk of a car, the bleat of sheep as they walk past. Someone rings the bell at the kiosko. Chatter from the table, both in Spanish and English, blend with the colors of the morning.
(Photo by Connie Rock)
How wonderful to know we are not forgotten. How necessary to know He sees us. How great are His gifts, so perfect and right on time.
It’s not often you get to go back and say “thank you”. My friend Connie did. It’s not often you get to tell someone how God used them in your life, which is what she got to tell Dona Antonia. Acts of love are just that–offered without expectation of return. But there’s something about knowing that something you did mattered.
Dona Antonia is a beautiful, dear woman who lives in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. She runs a kiosko–a tiny store–from her house, and at one time, served sandwiches de huevo (egg sandwiches) to the students from the nearby boarding school for missionary kids. When the school closed, she sold her freezer because of the decrease in business. But she didn’t move.
(Photo by Kristen Torres-Toro)
(Photo by Connie Rock)
One morning while we were in Bolivia, we found her. Twenty years had passed since she’d seen Connie but they knew each other immediately. It was a beautiful reunion, a small mirror of what we will all experience one day when we are reunited on that Day with the ones we love and have lost, whether by situation, geography, or death. And then she invited us back the next day for breakfast! Guess what we had?
Delicious! (Photo by Connie Rock)
The moments spent in her house were a highlight for all of us. Meeting this precious woman, laughing with her and praying with her, was a tremendous blessing for me. I think the best part was seeing her realization of how God used her to love on the kids at Tambo while they were away from their families. She offered her home and her love–and lives were forever touched for Him.
(Photo by Kristen Torres-Toro)
She did this without desire for anything for herself. Only out of love. Many of those students have grown up, moved all over the world, married, and have children of their own. And the lives they touch are in part a tribute to this sweet woman, who loved on them. She might be one of the greatest missionaries I’ve ever met, this woman who served God from her own kitchen–and, in doing so, has touched the world. I felt like I needed to serve her.
But instead, I sat at the table, and ate the most amazing sandwiche de heuvo ever made.
