A large majority of kids around the world wake up each year on Christmas morning having nothing from Santa Claus. They see the same commercials advertising a Santa who brings toys to all the “good” children, but regardless of how these kids actually behave, their families are too poor to buy them anything, so Santa will never visit their house.
This Christmas season my team had the chance to work at a rescue home in Honduras. The home is a refuge to young women who have been raped by men in their families and have become pregnant deciding to keep the baby. The oldest girl is 17 and the youngest is 12. The 12 year old is mentally at a 5 year old level because her father raped her multiple times, and her uncle walked in saying he would stay quiet if he too could have her. She was 5 then and shut down. There are two other girls at the home with severe cerebral palsy who lay on mats most of the time unless people carry them or put them in chairs. Four girls between the ages of 8 and 12 came to the home halfway through our stay. They all have severe physical and mental disabilities and two of them cannot talk. Four boys under the age of 4 live at the home as well. One of the boys had a drug addict as a mother and although he’s two and a half years old he only weighs 15 pounds. Another boy had a tumor when he was born and no one wanted him because they were sure he was going to die. The authorities called the couple who run the home and of course they wanted him. The little guy went into surgery weighing 36 pounds and came out only weighing 18. The tumor was the same size as he was. Besides the intense scar that marks half of his body you would never tell the difference between him and any other 4-year-old boy. Their mothers abandoned the other two young boys after they had come to the home, and one of the two boys, Alejandro, won my heart immediately.
We landed at the home after crossing the border and traveling several hours on the first of the month. All the kids had their faces pressed to the gate to see the gringos jumping out from the cab and the bed of the truck. We got our 50-pound packs on our backs and carried our gear to the gate. Alejandro ran straight to me and wanted to help me carry my sleeping pad to the stairs leading to where I’d stay for the next month. We were celebrating his birthday along with one of the girl’s that night. He claimed his spot in my lap and ate his cake as well as mine. He was seriously the cutest boy I’d ever seen.
Throughout the month we served alongside the ministry in any way they needed including preparing 4,000 Christmas gifts and traveling all around the country while our host spoke to people in the community, afterwards disbursing gifts. On one of our last giveaways kids would come to the home and were given a toy or flip-flops to ensure everyone left with something. Several came in barefoot and said they didn’t need a toy but could they please have shoes. Watching this….will break your heart.
We helped the kids in school, worked the events, decorated the grounds for Christmas, ran errands, attended birthday parties and a graduation, and loved on our host and their kids any way we could.
The morning we were to leave all of us carried our gear back to the truck. The kids were playing in the yard and Alejandro ran up to me with his arms outstretched. He could tell something was different. He kept asking if I was going and said, “Mi listo!” which means I’m ready. He kept asking if he could go with me and struggling to find the words to say I asked our host to help me talk to him. I was trying to not cry so he wouldn’t get upset. I asked her to tell him I wish he could come, I love him, and I hope to see him soon. She started crying and began to translate for me. He yelled no and turned from her burying his face in my shoulder. I cried. I couldn’t control it anymore. I didn’t want to leave him. She asked him to let go and walk to stand next to her husband by the gate. He listened and as I climbed into the truck I couldn’t see his little face anymore but heard him yell, “Nicole!” (I go by my middle name in Central America since they struggle to say Trish.) I called his name and moved to see him and hear him say, “Adios.” My heart was broken. It was so full yet so broken in that moment.
All those mornings where that little guy would wake me up at 5:30 screaming at the bottom of our stairs, “Mi Nicole!” or all the times he would run to have me pick him up, playing with him at the campo doing ridiculous things to make him laugh, him climbing on my lap after he finished his food to only finish mine as well, all the afternoons he fell asleep in my lap, him mimicking each and every thing I said- those are all memories I will forever cherish and I hope to see Ali again. I pray I will because that kid is a special one. He got to me and I’m grateful for him. Please pray for all the children out there especially the ones in this home that they will be blessed in ways only God can. Pray that as all of us Racers continue to travel from site to site that we would be all in even if it hurts to leave at the end of the month. Pray we would become so much like Christ that people wouldn’t see us anymore, but instead they would only see Him. I pray you would see the world through God’s eyes and be a reflection of Him, and for those kids….for Ali, I pray they would only know Christ mas (more) and that they will grow into the young men and women He would have them be.
