Leticia

One of my most heart wrenching moments of the trip came in the nursery. A little girl named Leticia had become my friend. She hadn’t been at the Orphanage very long and was visibly unsure of her place in her new home. She arrived with her brother, Noberto, and her sister, Claudia.

I stopped by the nursery at any free moment to hang out with Leticia. I read her a book…in Spanish, we built casitas (houses) out of blocks, and I smiled as she laughed with shining eyes and deep dimples in her round cheeks.

Edwin, a little boy full of mischief and way too much intelligence, threw something and it hit Leticia in the head. Tears welled up in her eyes just like they do in my own daughter’s eyes when they are wounded. She looked across the room, came running into my lap, and cried against my chest for a long time. I sat and stroked her hair and wept with her.

It was hard for me because she doesn’t normally have a mother to run to. She has caring, loving nursery workers, but neither of us are the same as the love of a mother. I held her tight in hopes that my arms would do for the moment and prayed a prayer that Leticia would know the love of God deep within her and have His arms when no one else was available.