Kristen Ramirez hesitated. The little girl had asked her, in Spanish, to blow up her balloon. “She had been playing with it for hours,” Kristen said, “and it was covered in slobber.” Sixteen-year-old Kristen and her teammates from Calvary Chapel High School (CCHS) in Costa Mesa, CA, were in Curundu—a violent and gang-ridden neighborhood of Panama City. They were inside a safe-house run by a Christian ministry; but still, Kristen said, “The kids weren’t clean. A lot of their parents are on drugs, so they aren’t well cared for. Of course we’re taught, as Americans, to avoid germs, so I didn’t know what to do.”

But suddenly, Kristen knew how to respond. “I had this mental picture of Jesus saying, ‘Let the little children come to Me,’” she recalled, “and I realized I didn’t want to hold back from doing anything I could to bless someone else.” Kristen took the balloon and blew it up; soon a teammate, she said, held a young girl who had lice. “It was neat to see people taking that attitude, realizing that God is greater than any illness—and that loving others is more important than protecting yourself,” she commented.

You can find the complete article in the Summer 2010 issue of Calvary Chapel Magazine. To subscribe click here.