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The story of Ricardo at ICC, starts when he was just 4 years old, and he arrived at “El Oasis” Children’s Village in Valle de la Trinidad, Baja California, Mexico.
El Oasis is a project founded and operated by International Children’s Care (ICC), and Ricardo and his two younger brothers arrived when the very first kids came to El Oasis brought by DIF — the Mexican Social Services Department — in December 1997.
Ricardo was 4, Christian was 3 and Manuel was only 2 years old. As a good oldest brother, Ricardo used to be a good leader, looking after his siblings, and always eager to learn new things. Since very little he showed attributes of a champion; patience, persistence, good attitude to deal with the difficulties, natural happiness and interest in learning more about Jesus and the new life he promised to give us.
Ricardo always showed interest in getting good grades in school. He loved music and became a member of El Oasis Children’s Choir when he was only 6 years old. When he was 10 years old he was already in charge of operating the PA system of the local church.
When he was around 8 years old, El Oasis received a donation of several computers, bought in brand new parts to be assembled by Daniel, the Development Director who was also the IT person on campus.
He invited Ricardo and 3 other kids to help and learn how to assemble a computer from scratch. The kids did a great job and days later the computer lab was fully functional.
A couple of weeks later Daniel received a call from the principal of the elementary school where
Ricardo and the other kids from El Oasis attended. The principal wanted to ask Daniel to talk with Ricardo because the computers’ teacher was complaining about Ricardo’s attitude in class, during the last days. She said when she asked Ricardo to work in class, he laid back on his desk and asked her, “Teacher, have you ever built a computer before?” Her answer was, “Well, not really, why?” Ricardo said, “Well, let me tell you that I have done that. So I don’t think I need to work in class, since I already know more than you”. So after a little talk between Ricardo, things got straight and Ricardo was a helpful and cooperative student in the computers class again.
Ricardo graduated from Elementary School, then Middle School and finally from High-School. Always with good grades, many friends and loved by his teachers for being a good student that learned his lesson, to obey and learn from every teacher. After finishing high-school Ricardo worked for one year to get more mature, learn about life, and choose what to take in university. Ricardo entered the dental school of Montemorelos University.
The road wasn’t easy, but he was completely sure he wanted to take the opportunity to be someone in life, someone with a medical purpose to help people in need.
When Ricardo was doing his practice in the school clinic, very often patients would say: “I would like to wait for Dr. Ricardo”. He was well known for having a great attitude with the patients. Showing his real care for them, not only in regard to the medical needs, but making sure he could leave in their hearts, the seed of hope and happiness, to see life the way he sees it, always with the glass “half-full” instead of “half-empty”. But they also knew Ricardo’s dental work was very good and professional. The school medical brigades were the perfect opportunity for him to give back helping the most needed people.
In May 2020, although the pandemic situation of COVID-19 cancelled all massive events - including graduations - Montemorelos University had a virtual graduation for their graduates students, delivering more than 300 degrees — including bachelor, master and doctoral degrees. Ricardo was one of them, and our hearts were so excited, although we couldn’t celebrate as expected. To our surprise, Ricardo’s graduation photography was shown in the university’s main Facebook page, though the graduation weekend, what a wonderful surprise!
The last day of July, Ricardo will be finishing a 12-month social service required to all graduated students from medical areas. He is so thankful with the amazing support that the family of ICC has represented to him. He considers himself so blessed to be part of El Oasis family. He knows that without the support of donors and faithful supporters, his destiny would be totally different in this world.
Now that he graduated as a Dentist, he is looking to find an opportunity to take a 2-year speciality, to be able to find a better job; something important if he wants to continue giving back, helping others in need as he has been helped in this life.
We are so proud of Ricardo and his achievements in life, the good dentist he is, always looking to find ways to help others! For Ricardo this is easy, he learned from other people since he was little, how much you can touch and change someone’s life, by helping the best way you can. Sometimes this means sharing your time for others, guidance and words of encouragement, your resources or finding a way to raise funds with friends to solve someone’s needs.
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