Our incredibly compelling story started with a dream, that soon met the honest desire in us to see people’s lives transformed, informed, and renewed by the love and words of Jesus Christ, and through our works of love.
In 2014 Maria Davis Davila had a dream. And the ‘cliché’ “dreams come true” became so real in her life. In her dream, she was accompanied by an angelic being, who took her to a land where the sand was thick and yellow looking -a mustard yellow, to be more exact. As she studied the yellowish surroundings, she suddenly takes notice of four kids standing in front of her, whose appearances were of that of total abandonment and poverty. A heavy weigh set on her heart as she could feel the abandonment, the hunger, the sadness and hopelessness these kids felt inside, and it was too strong of a feeling to handle, much more than her heart could seem to bare. The children were wearing raggedy clothes, some were half dressed, and their faces were so dirty and dusty from the sand, their big eyes spelled the word sadness all over hers, their hair was sunburned and in knots, their feet and legs were covered with the yellow sand like a second skin, and she focused on the sand, on its color. She started crying in the dream and then literally started feeling those tears running down her physical cheeks. She realized immediately she was laying on her bed and it was just a dream, but a very real one. The children started screaming desperately for help as they matched their eyes with hers, “Help me! Help me!” She woke up, face covered in tears, and asked God, who are these kids? Where are they? How can I help? Take me God, I’ll do what I can.
A few weeks later, having put aside the experience, one night she had a second dream. The same angelic being was there, next to her. This time she was taken to a dark space, and it looked just like when the night sky is clear with a few stars, so dark and infinite. In front of her she’s shown a big oval-shaped lighted hole that had depth, and seemed as some type of screen because images of events were happening inside of it. It was so real, it felt like she could raise her leg and cross inside of it to another dimension. And the images were happening like in real time, and it was again that place of the yellow sand, and just by looking at it she felt that same sadness from before taking over her heart. This time she saw one child only, but to her surprise it was her own 7-year old daughter standing there in raggedy clothes, dirty, with sad big eyes, hair sunburned and in knots, feet and legs covered in that yellow sand like second skin, and that feeling of hopelessness and abandonment that soon invaded her heart. And she couldn’t take it. She started screaming “take my daughter out of there! Why is she there?! Let me go in and grab her now!” And she forced with the angelic being, who wouldn’t let her go inside the oval space to grab her daughter. The vision in the dream felt so real, that the pain to see her child in that condition increased her heartbeat, and tears were running through her cheeks. Suddenly she was made aware that she was in bed sleeping, and that it was okay, and it was just another dream. She made a couple of efforts to wake up, but she wasn’t able. Her heart was beating faster now, and suddenly it felt like she was let go of, and she woke up. She ran to her daughter’s bedroom and there her kid was, asleep like an angel, safe. She went to her room and asked God, who are they? Just tell me where are those kids, take me, I’ll go, but don’t give me a heart attack. And there, in her room, audible, she heard a voice like hundreds of echoes bouncing off the four walls, saying, “If yours hurt, how much more mine hurt”. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was confused to hear this… wasn’t her daughter also His? After several days meditating on this, she figured it out. The poor and abandoned belong to The Lord, and we are all His hands and feet, we should go and help, because if we do it to one of the least of these, we are doing it to the Lord.
To make this story short, in June 2015, Maria and her husband, Chad, were arriving at Riohacha, La Guajira, Colombia, packed with 150 bags of food and water, 40 flipflops she carried in her luggage together with 40 pounds of clothes, answering an invitation from a old colleague from Barranquilla to support and help the Wayuu indigenous communities who were dying by the hundreds every month of hunger, malnutrition and thirst. God never revealed the location of these children to her, and the last place she’d thought these abandoned children would be found was in her own birth country, Colombia. The team arrived at the first Rancheria and they asked Maria to go down first. As she looked down to carefully step out of the tall bus, the first thing she noticed, the yellow, mustard looking, thick sand. And as she lifted her eyesight to take a better look of what was in front of her, she sees the yellow mud houses that blended in with the yellow sand. And there they were, children standing at a distance. Four children staring at these strangers arriving in this big bus. And their eyes were searching, longing, needing. And their clothes were raggedy, their feet and legs covered in that yellow sand like a second skin, their hair sunburned and with a few knots, and she knew, she has just arrived. Standing there on the yellow sand, she was in her dream, unaware until that moment that she was being taken. God took her through a series of casual events, and destiny met her that day. And she knew, God has always been there waiting for someone to help.
AHAVA HOUSE INC. was born out of a dream. You see, dreams do come true.
In the present time, Maria Davis Davila has become a voice for the forgotten and voiceless Wayuu communities, reaching out to government officials, private businesses, religious organizations, and individuals in an effort to create a domino effect where help is taken to these communities from North, South, East and West. She believes in leading by example, and AHAVA HOUSE is the expression of that example.
“Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked..”— Psalm 82:3-4