For a few days this month my team and I did ATL. What exactly is ATL you may be asking yourself. )Sorry I´m using a Spanish computer keyboard, so please excuse any puncuation errors.) Anway, ATL stands for Ask The Lord and it´s when we spend intentional time with The Lord in prayer and ask Him to reveal himself to us and what we should do or who we should talk to. This is a whole new concept to me but I was excited to try it out.
So early in the morning we went to the Quiche city square with mandolin, Bible, and water bottles in hand. Together we sang a few worship songs and chatted with a few people. As I was ATLing though I got a vision of a woman selling fresh flowers. I was a little unsure if this was from The Lord or not but decided to following this vision and see what it would hold anyway.
A teammate and I went into the market that is miles and miles full of people selling fresh produce, shoes, live chickens, laundry soap bars, really anything you would ever need is found here. This is also where a majority of people make a living of selling their things. We spent the day talking with people, praying for them, singing with them, and eating fresh mango. All day I was on the lookout for a woman selling fresh flowers and all day we didn´t see her. Until the last 10 minutes of our day. We were on our way back to our compound when we walked down this street filled with fresh flowers! The only flowers we had seen in the last 6 hours. I immediately saw the woman in my vision, with fresh flowers.
Obvi, we stopped and tried to talk to her. Just so you know, there are two languages spoken in this part of Guatemala, Spanish and Quiche. Quiche is a tribal language that is not as common as Spanish here. Of course this woman spoke Quiche which we know absolutely zero words in. We played charades with her and eventually got the point across of prayer. We layed hands on the two woman who were there.
I specifically prayed for the woman closest to me because I noticed that she had some sort of defomed hands. I prayed a simple prayer that she would no longer feel shame or embarrassment because of her hands. I also just prayed health over herself and her family as well as that she would in that moment feel the presence of God whether she knew Him or not.
When we finished praying the woman gave me the sweetest hug and kiss that I have received in a long time. She also placed in my hand 1 Quetzal. The Quetzal is the currency they use in Guatemala and is $1 USD to 8 Quetzals. I was in awe. For people who work in the market this 1 Quetzal may be all they earn all day. But something I have been learning is to never refuse a blessing. So with that I returned a hug to her, charaded out thank you, and smelled her beautiful fresh flowers.
Time and time again The Lord has been teaching me that everyone needs to feel His love. A love that is unexplainable. A love that doesn´t need to be understood because it can´t fully be understood. And no matter how awkward or uncomfortable I feel taking the risk of loving someone and simply praying for them it is always worth it. Always.
