A Global Advent: 25 Stories of God With Us Around the WorldSample

At a crowded bus stop in Nicaragua, a young girl reads out the bus routes to her mother. “I can’t read the signs on the bus,” the older woman says. “I’ve gotten lost before when I try to take the bus because I don’t know what the signs say.”

The young girl is Crisli. Her mother, Rosario, can’t read, having never had the opportunity to go to school. She is one of the 773 million adults worldwide who are illiterate.

Rosario is determined that life will be different for her daughter. But between poverty and her own illiteracy, it’s a struggle to pay for uniforms and school supplies, not to mention being able to help Crisli with her homework.

Photo Caption: Crisli and Rosario outside their home before Crisli heads to school for the day.

Enter Marjali—a tutor at the Compassion program run by a local church in the community. She came to Crisli’s school to share about the Compassion program. This was an opportunity for Crisli to receive tutoring, uniforms, and school supplies, and to learn more about God’s Word. Rosario registered her immediately.

Too often, we see poor, vulnerable women as passive characters waiting to be saved. But wasn’t it the courage, action, and agency of a poor, vulnerable woman through which God came to be with us that first Christmas?

Perhaps we risk missing the presence and work of God today when we overlook a poor and illiterate mother’s determination to make a better life for her child.

God with us—in the struggle and joy of a single mother and the faithfulness of a local church coming alongside her.

At the Compassion centre, Crisli is invited to work on a booklet entitled, “My Plan for Tomorrow”. She sets goals for her future free from poverty, thankful for her mother’s love, effort, and determination.

What unlikely place might you be missing the presence and work of God right now? How can you seek it out?