“Araceli”: The mysterious little girl who appeared when I needed God most

I shut the door of the car and took a deep breath as I peered through the dust-smeared window at the scene of delighted children, playing with the goodies they had received in the Christmas shoeboxes we had gifted them that afternoon. This afternoon, there had been many more than the twenty children we normally worked with. Families here in Huicholes, in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains in Mexico, lived in makeshift cardboard homes covered with tar. Dirt tracks ran between the dwellings, and one barrel of water served fourteen families with cooking, washing, cleaning and drinking water for them and their animals.

As the light faded, I had a chance to catch up with myself. I felt raw. Today had been a sharp contrast to yesterday. The day before after the service at the centre, the director had called ten of us into a room. I presumed it was to discuss the shoeboxes.

Once there, he had turned to me and said, “Well, you requested a meeting. I have asked these people to be here as witnesses, as you have a tendency to lie. What did you want to talk about?” I was floored. I explained that I just wanted to apologise for any misunderstanding.

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He listened and then began a twenty-minute tirade attacking my character, intentions, upbringing and my psychological state. 

He listened and then began a twenty-minute tirade attacking my character, intentions, upbringing and my psychological state. When he finished, there had been an uncomfortable silence as the others sat quietly, avoiding eye contact. I felt like I had been stripped and beaten.

I’d only been here in Mexico City a few months, sent through a graduate action programme to work with a Christian Mexican charity. The charity ran urban transformation centres in two desperately poor communities.

There were 28 million living in the city, with thousands more arriving each year from Indigenous communities in search of work. Many families could barely feed their children, while the state school system struggled to cope with the numbers. Children attended school in half-day shifts. The centres ran homework clubs, health clinics, nutrition programmes and adult learning. My role was to teach English.

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The days were exhausting. It took two and a half hours to travel to the centre, where I taught for ten hours before travelling home. I had struggled to find time to prepare lessons and approached the team leader, requesting that I be allowed to streamline the classes to release time during the day. I later discovered this had been interpreted as me shirking my responsibilities. A further misunderstanding during a mini-appraisal had worsened the situation. They believed I had refused food I had been offered, although I hadn’t actually been there at the time. Being flustered and speaking in Spanish, I felt I hadn’t explained myself properly, so I had asked for a follow-up meeting, hoping to clear things up, but six weeks passed without one.

I became increasingly isolated as I was ostracised. My housemates were invited to meals and planning days while I was left in the office to work. I continued to teach, but I felt very alone.

A knock on the window of the car brought me back to the present. I rolled it down. A little girl stood there, smiling at me as she asked whether I was the teacher from the centre. I confirmed I was and she handed me a folded piece of paper. I thanked her, carefully put it in my pocket and asked her name. I knew nearly all the Huicholes children, but I didn’t recognise her.

“Araceli,” she replied.

Later, when I got home, I pulled out the piece of paper. On it, she had drawn a person beneath a shelter and written: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 91:1

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I opened my Bible and the words of the psalm penetrated through into my wounded heart as God reminded me that I was not alone.

I opened my Bible and the words of the psalm penetrated through into my wounded heart as God reminded me that I was not alone. He had seen what had happened. He knew the words that had been spoken and rejected the lies they contained. He would protect me. He would defend me. He was faithful. Upon returning to teaching after Christmas, I asked the children where Araceli was, but no one had heard of her.

I began to wonder how this little girl had managed to obtain paper and a pencil, and how she knew Scripture well enough to write that verse. Was she an angel? Years later, in a conversation with my Dad, he asked how her name was spelt and I looked it up. Araceli means “from the altar of heaven”.

That tiny, seemingly insignificant piece of paper was straight from the altar of heaven. He saw me. Nothing goes unnoticed by Him. His eye is on the sparrow, and His eye is on you. He is faithful. He is for you. He will never let you down. He is with you from the beginning, through the middle, to the end of time – and beyond. He sees you.