A Heart for Children in Need

By Megan Gilbert

All of my life I have been taking care of children, even when I myself was a child. Most young girls play house and mommy to their dolls as a pastime, but it was more than just a game to me. To me, my dolls were more than just pieces of plastic and strips of cloth; they were alive and I cared for them as though they were real children. When I was seven I went from taking care of these imaginary babies to real ones. That year my twin cousins were born, and I could not have been happier. There were now real babies in the family to play with and take care of. I would beg my mother to go visit them almost everyday; I could not spend enough time with Rebecca and Rachel. There was an unexplainable magical feeling I got when those little innocent eyes looked into mine, and the world felt as if everything was right. Even at a young age I could feel delight and pure joy reach my soul as I sat in the rocker for hours holding one and then the other, feeling their small bodies snuggle into mine.

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Playing Mommy to Dolls

This love for children propelled me to search for ways I could be involved with other children. My church was always looking for workers, and so throughout middle school and high school I volunteered as a worker in the church nursery and during Vacation Bible School. I kept going back because every time I held a baby or played with a toddler, a warmth would spread over my heart and my soul felt content. One Sunday, a petite one-year-old named Anna Grace would not stop crying. Despite all the attempts of the adults to quiet her, her crying persisted and filled the entire nursery. Hating to hear her cry, I went into her room and began to talk to her and try to settle her down. Amazingly, in a few minutes, her crying had subsided, and she sat in my lap with her head buried in my neck. Hearing the crying stop and fearing the worst, the preschool director ran in. She looked at me and said, “No one has been able to get that girl to stop crying for the last two months. You must have something special.” At that moment I realized that this ability, this heart I had for children, was a gift.

Ever since I was a young girl, I wanted to become a doctor so I could, as I used to say, “make everyone in the world better.” Once I discovered my deep love for children, I realized that my talents would be best used in pediatrics. It was at this point that a dream began to form in my mind. I wanted to become a pediatrician and bring healing to children. But at that time, working with children was more about what I got out of it than about what I brought to the children. The summer before my senior year, I went from focusing on the joy and satisfaction children brought to my life to focusing on the delight I brought to theirs.

Hannah and Anna Grace with me³

That summer, my youth group went on a mission trip to Helena, Arkansas. At the time, Helena was ranked as the fifth poorest city in the nation. The trip centered around giving the children swimming lessons and sharing the love of God through vacation bible school and a day camp. My very first day, I saw a small girl waiting by herself outside the entrance to the pool. She stood at the fence, longingly looking at the pool through the chain links. I knelt to look her in the face, and asked her name and why she wasn’t swimming. She told me her name was Nikita, and she could not participate in the swim lessons because she didn’t have a dollar. During the summer, the Helena community pool charges a dollar for each child to swim, and I was shocked to find that many of the children had never seen a dollar bill. However, that week our church was paying the entrance fee for the children, and I took her inside for her swim lessons. Later, as I was making my way across the field to the day camp site, I heard the footsteps of a child running, and a small hand slipped into mine. “Thank you,” she said. In that moment, looking in her eyes, I saw thankfulness, but more importantly hope and love. The children of Helena are stuck in a cycle of poverty and abandonment. Although the parents are physically there, many children of Helena have never felt loved or cared for. They were craving love and attention that week, and the look in their eyes when they received special attention is one of the memories I will cherish forever. That week I learned that my passion, working with children, is not about what I, personally, gain from this interaction. I had entered the week with selfish motivations and had fun playing with the children, but by the end of the week all I could think of was how I could make each and every child feel special and cared for. My heart was now taking satisfaction in the joy of the children instead of in the joy I received from working with them.

Nikita and Me⁴ Me and some of the girls⁵

A group of girls during day camp⁶

Last summer, I had the privilege of going on another mission trip, this time to Juarez, Mexico. There we ran two vacation bible schools, one in the morning and one at night. The children we taught lived in the same poverty we had witnessed the year before in Helena. Most of the children spoke Spanish, and although I do have some Spanish skills, my conversations with the children were limited. Despite that fact that we were foreign to them and did not speak their language, they showed up at the churches every morning and evening excited to learn and play. I tried to interact with my preschoolers as they played with playdough and explain to them how much God loves them, but I have a feeling my words were not successful. I knew that “every event has a meaning,”⁷ and every action can show love, so I made it a point to show the children God’s love through my care for them. When one became upset, I would take him or her in my arms and shower him or her with love and comfort. Even though the barrier of language made communication difficult, the barrier of actions and emotions was nonexistent.

Unloading the van while some kids look on⁸ The kids waiting for us to arrive⁹

One four-year-old named Jaylin came every evening ready to wash the baby dolls and play mommy to them. As she sat there gently washing the baby doll, wrapping it up in a towel, and singing it to sleep, I was reminded of my childhood and the many babies I was mommy to. My love for children came at a very early age, and there I was, eighteen and sitting on the floor of a church in Mexico, realizing that not only was my heart passionate about taking care of children, but it was most passionate about bringing love and comfort to children in need. My childhood was one filled with love and laughter, and each child should have the same opportunity. If children have a need, physical or emotional, it should be met. They are human beings with spirits that need to be allowed to grow in a nurturing environment, for they are our future. With that knowledge, I spent hours completely dedicating myself to these children, putting my heart into every word and action. After a week, leaving them was hard, especially when a few cried, but I left knowing that I had made a difference in their lives. Even if it was only for a small window of time, those children experienced a wealth of joy and laughter, love and comfort.

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Teaching the kids through crafts and games

Not only did I touch the lives of the children I worked with in Helena and Juarez, but they changed my life as well. After leaving them, my dream began to change. I found myself planning to volunteer at local clinics once I was a doctor and go on mission trips to all realms of the world. My goal in life was no longer to be a well-known doctor, but rather a good doctor who made her talents available to those who had no access to healthcare. Life is a “concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting sooner or later on their ways.”¹² My contact with children as their pediatrician can, and will, be a force in their lives. Even if it is for just a fleeting moment – seconds out of their many years – as it was in the lives of the children of Helena and Juarez, it does have an effect. Life is a series of passing moments and temporary images. Every force that enters our lives, no matter how long, has the ability to impact it for better or worse. If I can help to make even one moment better in the life of a child, I know I will have made a difference in this world. If I can bring love and perhaps even the renewing comfort of hope to people’s lives, the world can begin to change one moment at a time. I will know I have made this world a place filled with a little bit more compassion and love. As a Girl Scout, I was always taught to leave a place, more specifically a campsite, better than I found it. This philosophy began to spread to different areas of my life and further establish my dream. To leave a place better than it was, to leave children with more than they had, to better the world one child at a time – those are the aspirations I now have for my life. I have been given the gift of compassion, and I want to use this gift to the best of my ability.

According to Pater, “to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”¹³ To hold a passion over the course of one’s life, to really hold it, is one of the most precious accomplishments. The ability to recognize the fire within one’s own soul and to keep it burning is the mark of true passion. I know that my passion will withstand baby puke, overprotective parents, and bratty toddlers. I am confident that the fire within me will burn till the day I die. But for me, a successful like is about more than maintaining my passion; it’s about the impact I can have on others. A successful life is not based on test grades or salaries; it’s based on the impact you have on other individuals. To touch a life, “to transform lives for the benefit of society,” ¹⁴ is the greatest accomplishment in this world. To know that you have given others a better life or hope for the future is the greatest knowledge man can possess. My life will not be evaluated on how well I follow medical procedures or how well I can diagnose diseases. It will be judged based on the desires of my heart and the actions that ensue. My heart is now inspired with a passion to spread hope and change lives.

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1. Image from www.smallwood.co.uk

2. Image from www.liveandlearn.com/corolle/babysling.html

3. Image by Marnie Gilbert

4. Image by Cecilia Benz, fellow VBS worker

5. Image by Sarah Glass, fellow VBS worker

6. Image by Cecilia Benz

7. John Henry Newman, and in “Composing Yourself at this University” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. 1 Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 1984), 74.

8. Image by Sarah Glass

9. Image by Megan Gilbert

10. Image by William Love, trip coordinator

11. Image by William Love

12. Walter Pater. “Conclusion” to The Renaissance, quoted by Jerome Bump in “Passion for Art,” University of Texas, 2006, http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603/PaterConclusion.html

13. Walter Pater. “Conclusion” to The Renaissance, quoted by Jerome Bump in “Passion for Art,” University of Texas, 2006, http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603/PaterConclusion.html

14. “Core Purpose of the University,” quoted by Jerome Bump in “Leadership,” University of Texas, 2006, http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/Leadership.html