A Little Voice, a Big Prayer
"Can you pray for me?”
These five words came from a girl who, for so long, did not realize how truly loved she was by her heavenly Father.
Alexis* came into our care from a home where she was not well provided for. Her family did not have the resources to provide her with enough food and proper nutrition, although they went through great efforts to try and hide that fact. Whenever anyone came by, her family would have empty boxes of food in the cabinets to make it appear that they had enough food. In reality, they often wondered where their next meal would come from.
Because she did not receive enough food and proper nutrition, Alexis looked half her age when she entered our Campus Care home in Dothan. Developmentally, she was at the level of a kindergartner. If you saw her, you would have thought she was five years old, although she was supposed to be in third grade.
Unfortunately, this caused her to have trouble fitting in with her peers. “When she first came into our care, she definitely lacked self-confidence of any sort, which is not uncommon, given her background,” said Kim McGainey, Area Director of Southeast Alabama. “She felt like she could never do anything right.”
Although Alexis had felt unwanted and unloved, Kim says things started to change the more she learned about God and His character from our Dothan house parents, Mike and Heidi Pickels, as well as from one of our relief house parents, Emily Vick. She began, for the first time, to experience the love of Christ shown through them. “Learning about God’s love for her changed her,” said Kim.
Every night, Heidi would read Bible stories to the children, and they’d often talk about these stories and pray together. The more Alexis heard Heidi read from the Bible, the more she wanted to know about God. On nights when Emily tucked her in, Alexis would ask her a lot about Jesus and spiritual questions. “She started asking Emily a lot of questions over several weeks,” said Kim. “She was contemplating what it meant to accept Christ as her Savior.”
One night, Alexis had such a strong desire to accept Christ as her Savior, she felt she had to do it right then and there. She and Heidi got down on their knees, and she asked her, “Can you pray for me?,” hoping Heidi could say that prayer of salvation for her. For all the years of neglect she’d endured, little Alexis didn’t think her words would be good enough for God to hear, but surely Mrs. Heidi’s
would be.
Heidi gently explained that it was important that the prayers were Alexis’s own, and that God could in fact hear her. And not only that He could hear, but that He wanted to hear her say that prayer. That night, Alexis realized she was truly loved, and nothing would ever change the Father’s love for her. She went on to say a prayer and call on Jesus Christ to be her Lord and Savior.
A few days after she prayed to receive Christ into her heart, Heidi and Alexis met with their pastor to talk through what this new walk with Him would look like, and Heidi shared with her relatives the decision Alexis had made. It wasn’t much longer after Alexis’s decision that she ended up leaving our care to be placed with a family member who was able to love and take care of her.
“Even though it was such a short time, she grew a lot in her faith,” Kim says, “Because she had asked so many questions and really contemplated it, her decision to accept Christ was not a whim . . . It was a really big decision for her.”
Though her time with us was short, it was full of purpose. To hear the hope she has in Christ and to experience wholeness through Him is one reason we trust that the Lord placed her with us, and we continue to pray she carries this truth with her as she grows! We are so grateful for house parents who sowed and watered these seeds of faith in Alexis’s life and who continue to do the same for other children in care.
*Name and photo has been changed for privacy purposes.