Hasnas’ means “beautiful.” This was the name of a little girl who lived in the village of Hisme in Palestine. She was very, very poor, having no father or mother, no home and nobody to love and care for her. She spent much of her time outside the village playing with the dogs, her only friends. Those who pitied her would occasionally give her a crust to eat.
She was anything but beautiful for she was crippled. Her head was covered with sores and dirt, and her eyes were inflamed so that she hardly looked like a human being. But God did not forget her. One day some peasants went up to Jerusalem and took Hasnas with them, leaving her at the Christian Mission where she would be taken care of. First she was nursed in the hospital and then taken into the orphanage. In the atmohere of love which now surrounded her she developed very happily. She drank in with a thirsty heart the story of Jesus and His love. She soon was able to read for herself all about the Saviour in the New Testament and she accepted Him as her Saviour. Then she asked to be baptized. No one knew how old she was, but she was probably between sixteen and twenty years.
Soon the Saviour took this little flor, which had opened so wonderfully to His love, into His heavenly garden. Hasnas’ last request was to hear again the story of the Lord Jesus’ suffering and death, and then she asked that her beloved New Testament, her greatest treasure on earth, be laid under her head in the coffin. She was buried on Mount Zion. She was poor in this world, but she had the true riches.
ML 02/19/1956