I'm not sure who painted this face on the rock by the side of the road, or what inspired them. It is across from a small but very clean house. Between the rock and the house lays a large painted sign on the road surface with one word and an arrow into their driveway, "Father."
Plastic geese painted adobe red sit atop their short cinderblock fence. The four fruit tree trunks in their front yard have been striped with muted lime, adobe and forest green. I'm not sure what all of this means but know what it means to my daughter when we get within 100 feet of the place.
"Where's Jesus? I don't see him."
She watches as we walk closer and shouts "look! Jesus!" the moment the rock comes into sight. We are usually walking home when this happens and she is strapped to my back; maybe the most focused attention span parents of a 2-year old can hope for. I've begun using these roadside jesus moments to teach her about the real Jesus.
"Did you know that Jesus loves you?"
"Yes," she says without hesitation. Thank you church nursery workers!
"Jesus loves you even more than Mommy and Daddy"
"Oh," she says hesitantly.
"Mommy and Daddy are working very hard to love you like Jesus because He is the greatest love there is. He is our role model."
"Yeah," she says with the same sunday school certainty as before.
We only have nine more days living in Atenas so I doubt we will pass by the rock enough to progress to deeper discussions; how Jesus is always there but we will not see until we draw near to him; how the wise build their lives on the rock of Jesus; or how Jesus leads us to The Father. She is only two. But at least she will know something more about how her dad feels about Jesus.
Maybe some day when she can read, she will read this and know her dad was grateful for how she reminded him to seek the face of the Lord like a little child.
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