Alicia a very special little girl

 Alicia came to our program in the mid-1990’s. Originally, she was from a little town in the southern part of Mexico. But, when her mom died, her aunt, brought her and her siblings to live with her in Tijuana. They lived in Colonia Rio Vista. This nice lady already had four children of her own. Although, she was catholic, she always came with the kids to our bible studies. Her kids were always clean and very polite. Alicia was very skinny. She was born with deformed arms and legs. Although she was 12 years old, she was closer to the size of an 8 years old. Her disability made it difficult for her to walk. Even holding a pencil was not easy for this little girl. But she never complained, and she always tried to follow the program, along with the other children. She especially enjoyed if we had a video day. She was shy and the tone of her voice was always low, making it difficult at times for us to understand when she did talk to us. She went to school along with her siblings who always look after her. When we gave out groceries, her little arms were too weak to carry the bag so her aunt would carry it for her. Alicia was one of those special children that stole your heart with her beautiful brown eyes and great smile. She certainly stole our hearts. At that time, we had an individual child sponsorship program. Alicia was on our priority list because of her physical handicap, and because her aunt needed the financial assistance. Alicia loved to have her picture taken and that was great because sponsors loved receiving pictures of their sponsored child. We quickly assigned Alicia a sponsor. After a while, her sponsor had some financial difficulties and could no longer afford to sponsor Alicia. Situations like this one were something we knew could happen and we quickly found a new sponsor for Alicia. Once a child was in our TLCCM child sponsorship program and was assigned a sponsor, we sent a picture of the child along with a letter with information on this child. In Alicia’s case we also mentioned her disability, which could easily be seen from her picture. Because of the financial needs and because we did not want a child to feel rejected, we never told a sponsored child that they no longer had a sponsor. We kept them in the program until such time as we could reassign them. This is what we did with Alicia. To our complete shock, Alicia’s new assigned sponsor returned our letter, along with Alicia’s picture. The explanation was that this person wanted to continue to sponsor a child, but wanted a child that had no disability. I remember crying as I read this cold and heartless letter. In Matthew 19:14 (NIV) Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  Jesus did not say: Just let the healthy and clean children come to me, no, He said: “Let the little children come to me.”  We quickly reassigned Alicia to a more compassionate sponsor.  Yes, we sent this person another child to support, not because we wanted to have such an uncompassionate person as a sponsor, but simply because so many of our children needed financial assistance. This situation taught us several things. First, we had to forgive that person and pray the Lord would change that heart of stone to a heart of flesh. We further understood the need to be more compassionate and tolerant of those around us who are not exactly like us. Mostly, it made us more aware to look for and help the children that maybe someone else might reject.  After this unpleasant incident, Alicia was always top priority for us. We always did our best to make her feel loved and special. We spent nine years working with the children in that shantytown and this little girl was with us until we had to leave the area.  We did not leave because of the lack of poor children to help but because of the lack of a safe location to meet with the children. In that area, no local church was willing to lend us their church for three hours every week. To this day, when I think of Alicia, I remember her beautiful smile and how much joy she brought into Roger’s and my life.

In Mark 2:17 Jesus said:“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Thank you, Lord for all the other Alicia’s you have placed on my path over the years! Always keep my heart full of compassion and love for those who are not exactly like everyone else.