Alathia – Do not despise the faith of a child

I’ve written before about training up a child according to their “bent” – their specific gifts and callings. Our son was obvious – he was a musician and it came naturally. Our daughter’s “bent” was a bit more challenging to discover. She is more like a kaleidoscope – she has many things she feels drawn to – but the overarching theme is art.

When Alathia was diagnosed with Arthritis in 2013 after having suffered with it for years, we looked for ‘quiet’ activities that didn’t require a lot of movement. Fortunately she had full use of her hands as her pain was primarily in her feet, legs, and back. Her other grandmother, my mom, taught her to crochet. From there, Alathia learned to make simple purses from a chain stitch pattern. As my mom’s only granddaughter, this thrilled my mom to pieces and they’d sit, talk, and crochet. One day, my mom took Alathia to an Operation Christmas Child collection day. Alathia was deeply touched by the boxes, the mission, and the calling. She felt prompted to do something which led to a big dream in her heart.

In 2016, she crocheted a few purses but in 2017, she had a crazy dream – 2000 of them. This girl calculated how long each purse would take to make, how much each would cost, and how many she would need to do each day in order to meet her goal. I cannot tell you how many times her dad and I tried to talk her out of her goal. “Surely you don’t mean 2000” I’d say…. “Are you sure you heard God and this is not your flesh?” I would ask a few days later … “Honey, God would be pleased no matter what you do … how about 500??”

Each time she would respond to me passionately, “No Mom, God said 2000. He put it in my heart.”

On and on this went… I would question, she would reply with more passion.

Then, one day I clearly heard, “Do not despise the faith of a child.”

I stopped in my tracks. I was silent for a while then I began say to her, “Alathia, let’s pray that God will provide for 2000…ask Him to bring help.”

I prayed. She crocheted and prayed. She crocheted everywhere – on the way to the store, in the car, sitting in the tree, waiting at the orthodontist office… her yarn and her hook were her constant companions.

Every spare dollar she could earn, she bought yarn.

Her birthday money – spent on yarn.

Money she’d saved from Christmas – yarn.

Random strangers gave her money in yarn stores or brought her yarn.

Then one day we visited a church, http://www.lifechurchdfw.com/, and at the end of the service, the Pastor asked for anyone that had any unfulfilled dreams to raise their hands and my shy little lady tentatively raised her arm. A lady at the end of the aisle came up to her after service and asked what her dream was. Alathia shared it and the lady said she felt called to help – the next Sunday, she came with a bag full of little purses. This was in July 2017 – when I saw the bag and her little arm covered in purses, I knew God was going to do this in her way. I knew He was teaching her to have faith. The picture below was taken that Sunday in July and is the first “share” on the OCC page:

When we had collected 1200 purses, I tagged OCC in a post on Facebook to find out where to take them! Alathia’s room was overrun with them! They helped connect us with our local distribution center and they shared her post – I lost count of the amount of people that contacted us for her pattern – they wanted to help too.

We made our first trip to the distribution center in the DFW area in 2017 with over 1200 purses in tow. My little Honda was filled to the brim! We dropped them off then headed in to serve. As providence would have it, the manager of the center, Kevin, brought them out, we prayed over them, and we placed the first one as filler that night. Every purse was packed up for Haiti that night. Kevin told Alathia that one box touches 8-10 lives – that means that the 1200 we took to the DFW Distribution center that were shipped to Haiti have the potential to impact 10,000 lives – and God, in His goodness, didn’t stop the story there. Though we may never know the full number she donated in 2017, between the 1200 we took that day, the 400 we gave to my mom, the 200 Alathia made in 2016, and the numerous people on Facebook who said they were crocheting too to help her reach her goal – we are confident God did exceedingly above and beyond all that Alathia imagined.

OCC contacted us September 2018 to hear our story. We were so blessed! After a phone interview, they decided to come see us. In November, 4 amazing members of the OCC staff visited our home, interviewed my girl, and shared her story. I am still amazed when I hop onto Facebook and see her picture on the OCC page as they share her story one more time. I’ve lost count of how many times her story has been told – all of this possible because of the faith of a child.

You can see her OCC Video and read the OCC version of her story here: https://sampur.se/alathia

Her purse pattern is below for those asking along with more pictures from our OCC purse journey.

She’s still crocheting and praying. I’m still praying and I’m being more attentive to the faith of my girl. God sure taught me in a big way to not despise the faith of a child.

Meme