ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Anabel Rosario grew up in a Christ-centered pastor’s family in the Dominican Republic.
Though her family never had material abundance, she was taught God was faithful. The Rosario family featured herself, her parents and two sisters, and while her dwelling was a little stronger than cardboard, Rosario recalled her mother putting plastic buckets out to keep water from getting into the house.
Rosario’s father, a pastor, taught his family that God is faithful, and as part of this, he made sure it was known when a prayer request was made, it would be answered.
At the age of 10, Rosario wanted a Christmas gift, and she turned to prayer, all the while remembering what her father had taught her.
“In the church normally, the celebration for kids day was with puppet shows, and at the end of the kids day, they would be giving out cake and soda,” she said. “That year, they had a lot of shoeboxes laid out.”
The shoeboxes Rosario referred to came from the Samaritans Purse project, Operation Christmas Child, and that year, she received one of the gift-filled shoeboxes, an experience she naturally felt was special.
“When I opened my shoebox, it was amazing – so many things,” she said.
Among the items in the box were a letter and two pictures, both of which Rosario still has in her possession more than 20 years after receiving the gift.
About 10 years later, though, tragic struck the family when Rosario’s parents and her oldest sister were killed in a car accident. Still, she pressed on remembering what she had learned in her youth.
“When I was going through the process, God reminded me, ‘When you were a little girl, I answered your prayer with a simple gift. I will continue to be faithful along your way,’” she said. “That kept me going.”
This left Rosario and a sister as the lone remaining members of the immediate family, and they got adopted by an aunt in the U.S. in Seattle. This is how Rosario made her way to America, and she later recalled seeing a reminder of her childhood experience after that.
“One day on my job, I looked at the Christmas tree made out of shoeboxes,” she said. “I was surprised, thinking Brittany was there, the girl who sent me the box.”
Rosario likewise recalled hearing about the process an OCC shoebox goes through before it gets to its intended recipient.
“They told me, ‘You pack a shoebox at home. You pray. Then the shoebox goes to another dropoff location. They also pray. Then it goes to a processing center, and they pray. Then it goes overseas, and they also pray,’” she said. “The most important item in that shoebox is the prayer because the child only receives one gift in their lifetime, so the prayer follows the child for a lifetime.”
Today, Rosario, who spoke earlier this month at the Wild West KS and OK Area OCC Project Leader Workshop at Liberal’s New Beginnings Church, works in full time ministry. She is now married to a Christian singer, and the couple is working on a kids project scheduled to be out in the near future.
Though she remained faithful following the accident that would take three of her family members from her, Rosario said doing so was not an easy decision.
“I couldn’t express how I felt,” she said. “I felt like I was abandoned by God, but at the same time, in the middle, He was always putting people around me to support and give me love. I was wondering where was Jesus when that happened, but I could feel His love by the people He surrounded me with.”
The process, Rosario said, was so difficult that for a few months, she did not want to pray.
“I didn’t have anything to say to the Lord, but He placed people, even from the United States,” she said.
One of those people is a woman who showed up in her native Dominican Republic simply to pray for her.
“She said, ‘I came just to pray for you,’” she said. “God was always putting someone to pray for me and encourage me and my sister to keep going.”
So what keeps a person going after experiencing something like this? Rosario said only the love of God and people.
“When something like that happens to anyone, if we love God, we get together and support the person who goes through that difficult moment,” she said.
Rosario said she hopes people get much out of her story, but she primarily hopes they can get two things.
“One, they can put a face on the gifts they are doing – the shoeboxes – and they remember these shoeboxes can be an answer to some children’s prayers, or that could be a reminder of God’s faithfulness,” she said.
