From U.S. Children, With Love

By the time 11-year-old Veronica Pomeroy sat down to play in a dusty junkyard, surrounded by mountains of castoffs, she seemed tired.

Her trip from Calabasas to serve as an ambassador of America’s charitable children at Christmastime had been long. The morning had been busy, giving more than 100 shoe boxes full of gifts to Mexican children in the poor neighborhood of Bello Horizonte, getting more than 100 smiles and hugs and handshakes in return.

Yet Veronica made her way through the stacks of old cardboard, past the sky-high collection of iron chairs and scrap wood, old batteries and discarded water heaters, past the abandoned cars and clusters of flies, to the little girl who was waiting for her.

And she handed out another Christmas gift.

“This is bubble gum,” she said, taking a handful from the box, while Angelita sat watching and smiling.

“Here’s some crayons and paper. This is some jewelry,” she said, placing a silver-colored plastic necklace with a dangling pink heart around the girl’s neck. And together they sat on a scrap of cardboard and played; Angelita with a doll, Veronica with Leggos.

“We appreciate it,” said Angelita’s mother, Concepcion Romero de Rodriguez, watching the girls.

“Not only the gift, but the love with which she gives it.”

To the people of Samaritan’s Purse, a charitable Christian organization that has delivered 2 million shoe boxes full of Christmas gifts to needy children all over the world, Veronica represents the best of American children. So they invited her to Mexico City to be an ambassador of sorts.

Last year, Veronica and her schoolmates at Bay Laurel Elementary School in Calabasas, Lindsay Rich and Lexi Cline, collected nearly 300 boxes of gifts for children in other lands. This year the number rose to 435, and Veronica was chosen to go to Mexico to represent not only the North Carolina-based organization, but also the hundreds of children across the United States who made up the boxes.

Here at the Iglesia La Libertad (the Church of Liberty) in Bello Horizonte, Veronica was delivering the gifts and seeing life on the other end of the box. Although the poverty she saw sometimes appeared to overwhelm her, she managed to remain cheerful. She herself has had to face adversity, having to deal with cystic fibrosis.

“I’m happy that they’re happy,” Veronica said, after giving away gifts at the church.

Veronica’s mother, Robin, who made the trip with her, said the journey would do what trips like these usually do for people of any age--leave a lasting impression.

“She’s a long way from Calabasas,” said Robin Pomeroy, standing outside the church. “We both are. Whether you’re 11 years old or 44 like me, I don’t think you ever really appreciate your blessings. I think by coming here and seeing how people live . . . you realize how fortunate we are.”

Veronica took naturally to her ambassadorial role.

And though the only Spanish word she knows is gracias, she was not worried about being unable to communicate with the children here.

“I think they’ll just be happy with the box and understand that [we] care,” she said.

“It’s bittersweet,” her mother said. “You bring these gifts because you want to make them happy, but then you can’t do more.”