Nearly ten years on, she has been married twice, abandoned and divorced and most recently widowed. All by the tender age of 22. So being able to provide a good home within the new housing block to Wisma and her two small children is awesome.
You might be interested in this extract from Duncan’s old diary about that first meeting...
SEPT 14 2008: It was very moving. I’d read the phrase “I was naked and you clothed me” but never seen it happen before. In town today Sara had stopped to give a beggar some fruit, when she became surrounded by street children, encircling her like cats around a fish bowl. One of them was the tough looking girl we’d noticed begging a couple of weeks back. Rather than a quick dole out and rushing on, we sat on a low wall and started to engage the girl in conversation, finding out she is a ten year old called Wisma and has four siblings.
As Sara gave her time, Wisma’s face softened like a fruit ripening in the warmth of the sun... then looking up, Sara whispered “Dunc, that boy is naked!” sure enough a lad of maybe seven years had sat before us on the street, a tatty T-shirt riding up to reveal... well you know... the poor little chap’s all and sundry. Without missing a beat, Sara squatted beside him asking Wisma, who seems to lead the little street pack, to help. They explained that Sara wanted to buy the little fellah some shorts. So off strode Sara like a Mother Goose followed by a motley train of bemused but intrigued goslings. Soon the lad trotted away to show off his new combat shorts and Wisma herself was rewarded for helping with a bright new pair of her own.
It was one of those moments, when God did something deep in our hearts, and I believe, gave us another “first” – for now we think no longer of “Street Children”, but of a little girl with a name, an ability to help us bless others and, we pray, a different future to that looming towards her. For when street girls reach puberty the slip from begging to falling into an abusive relationship or worse might be just one false step away.
