I saw another Darlene just yesterday. This one was riding in a crude handmade wooden cart full of various flattened soda bottles and smashed, used cardboard boxes for recycling. Like most Darlenes, she had a plaid shirt that was too short, unmatching pants with an imitation design of some Disney princess, and her hair uncombed. Unaware of her vast disadvantages in life, she was cheerfully playing with the items in the bumping cart while her mother walked the streets of our Asian city, scouring garbage piles.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on the original Darlene. She had blended into the crowd of children coming to our Sunday school that morning. With their chairs crammed together, Darlene’s peanut size kept her as invisible as possible. During the Sunday morning routine, I brought out an animal puppet, which never fails to delight the children. After saying its piece to advertise the Bible story, the puppet usually enjoys being petted. “Would Charles like to pet the dog? How about Annabelle? And what is YOUR name, little girl?” I asked, as her wide brown eyes stared up at me. She didn’t move or say anything. As the other children chimed in on her name, I kept wondering why she had a dark bruise on her forehead, and why was a child so young sent to Sunday school without a parent to watch over her? She was surely not more than three years old.

Darlene returned the next week, and the next. Each week it seemed she had a scab on her cheek in a different place, or sores on her legs where she evidently had a skin condition. I remember well my first visit to Darlene’s home one extremely hot Sunday afternoon. We asked one of her siblings playing on the street where we could find their family. We stepped over wet garbage, shards of glass, and splintered boards to get to the metal ladder, rungs far apart, to climb to their second-floor home. Could this explain some of the bruises and cuts on Darlene? We climbed over a large, unexplained rock that guarded their front door threshold, and we sat on the floor since there were no chairs. We had a Bible study with Darlene’s aunt, who had just finished hanging the hand-washed laundry—inside. We listened to the drips of water falling from the clothes while my eyes strayed to the wide bed, hidden partly by hanging clothes. Three pairs of feet indicated three sleeping family members snoozing in the steamy heat while we talked.

Was there any hope for a family like this? Darlene’s father had left them, and her mother worked six days a week to try to keep food on the table. Although my heart melted for Darlene, I soon found out that she was unfamiliar with how to show and receive love. So, I started by remembering her name. When she entered the church in a crowd of noisy children flowing up the stairs, I called out her name and touched her head. At first, she was just confused by this. But after a few weeks, she met my eyes and reached out her hand although she didn’t smile at all. Our church ladies held a campaign to delouse the children, and when it was Darlene’s turn to have her head scrubbed, she enjoyed the attention. Surprisingly, her hair came out a dark shade of brown, rather than the black with which we were familiar.

A few months after I met Darlene, we decided to start an official toddler Sunday school in our church. Every week we would sing a welcome song that included all the names of the children in our class. Darlene loved to hear her name and easily memorized all the songs we sang, especially if she could ring a little jingle bell along with the song. I soon found out how smart and observant her little mind was. When I told the story of Noah, she asked me why two monkeys got on the ark in one picture, but no monkeys got off after the flood? Of course, I never noticed that in the busy zoo-like picture of animals! When we sang about God’s attributes, we would point to our heads, “God knows, God knows, all the time.” But Darlene was confused and pointing to her nose asked, “Teacher? Why do we point to our heads and say, ‘God nose,’ when our noses are right here?”

When Darlene learned color names, she was eager to point out that the daughter of Pharaoh was wearing a bright pink dress. This was Darlene’s favorite color, and so it was quite distracting to her in the story of baby Moses.

A tough lesson for Darlene to learn was about herself. Like every human, Darlene wanted her own way. If I did not allow her to hold the song chart or pet the puppet first, she would bend over and hide her face in her legs, refusing to participate in Sunday school. We had to explain that she could not enjoy Sunday school while she had a bad attitude, so she would need to sit aside until she could obey. She did not like this ultimatum at all, and it took her several weeks to learn how to make good decisions about her behavior.

Once Darlene reached the age of four, I began including simple explanations of the Gospel each week. When the children lost interest and couldn’t answer the questions, I became discouraged. There are too many abstract ideas in the Gospel, I decided.

One week, Darlene came to Sunday school and gave me her customary bear hug around my knees, “Hello Darlene!” I said, beaming, just like I do every week. We sang our same songs, we had our Bible story and rang our bells, said the memory verse, and petted the puppet. But when I got to the gospel explanation, I showed the picture of the heart with tears on it. “What does this picture remind us of?” I asked again. This time Darlene turned smartly to her classmate, and with a know-it-all, big-sister attitude, she declared firmly, “Aidon, YOU are a sinner! I am a sinner, and even Teacher is a sinner, because we are ALL sinners!” Aidon didn’t look very happy about this accusation, but inside my heart I was thinking that there is certainly hope for Darlene. There is hope for all who will recognize their guilt before God and repent, knowing Christ is their only hope of a Savior.

I pray for Darlene every single day. I am trying to do what I can to bring Darlene to Christ. However, as I go about my weekly routines, walking in our neighborhood in a city of two million clustered with cities that equal 14 million residents, I see Darlenes everywhere. They are ignorant of their physical disadvantages and ignorant of their spiritual trajectory, and the question goes through my mind, “Lord, who will reach THAT Darlene? Please send someone to her.”