Wilma

This woman deserves far more than her own post. She is one of the quiet heros of the faith here on earth... a warrior for justice and peace, spreading the love of Christ in some of the most difficult places on the planet. I am different from the brief time I spent in her presence.

me, Wilma, Clay, Josiah in her school

Wilma grew up in Lima, with her 10 million neighbors, and at some point was orphaned or abandoned, and ended up living on the streets as a teenager. She was truly one of the least, likely not sure if she would even survive to see age 20.  At 17, a family (I think missionaries living in Lima) adopted her, and she was given hope, and in every way a new life. She was transformed by the love of this family, eventually finding faith in Jesus and was further transformed by the gift of forgiveness, eternal life, and a sense of purpose and hope. She married and had 3 beautiful children, each of whom are now professionals -a doctor, dentist and lawyer.

an example of the ¨Cerros¨in the outskirts of Lima

She was walking by some street children one day years later (when she was in her 40s), and was siezed with conviction as they begged her for coins, knowing that they were who she used to be. Wilma decided from that moment on that she would devote her life to *seeing* these children who are invisible to much of society, hoping to do for them something of what had been done for her. She began by starting to do bible lessons with them at churches in the area; this led to helping them with food, meeting their families, and more and more loving them with the love of Christ.
This mission gradually led her into the Cerros of Lima, where many of them lived, and she saw their lives of hopeless poverty, and asked God what she could do. She felt led to start a school in those Cerros, to help educate the children, many of whom did not have a school to attend. The Cerros, until recently, were not considered part of the city by the Lima government, because they were mainly inhabited by poor people from the countryside, or other indigenous peoples often marginalized (literally) by the government. She started in a wooden shack, teaching the children about how God loved them, how they were precious to Him, and doing all of this out of her own monetary resources.  This work became too big for her small shack, and she began seeing how powerless the people in that community felt concerning appealing to the government for water, trash collection, etc.  Over the past few years she has been an ardent advocate for the people of the Cerros to have access to water (before, a truck would come up and people would bring theircontainers and buy water as their only water supply), to have roads paved as they are in the city (since it was all dirt and in a hard rain, entire communities could be wiped away as well as the roads), to plant trees - which are now growing bigger with the water supply that the community has due to her tireless efforts.
Her shack has become a 4 story cement building, made by her own hands (literally), brick by brick, using large cement blocks that her husband could obtain from the factory where he worked. It is still in progress, but it is magnificent and a beacon of hope compared to the shacks surrounding it. This center serves as a school, a meeting place for their church, and a symbol of what is possible with God, and faith and perseverance. There are about 100 children involved in her programs, who continue to learn, to be fed spiritually and with nutritious food, and whose families are also being touched by hope and by the Spirit of the LORD who dwells in this place.

Wilma's school - in the center with the banner

At some point along the way, my new friend Clay (part of the team, with Faith Comes by Hearing) met her - I think through the missionary family who had adopted her. He and several others from the US, including David and Stephanie, started visiting her when they would come through Lima, and this year was no exception. I am deeply grateful for the several hours we spent with her, hearing about her work, meeting her children, meeting the children involved in the school/church there, and praying with and for many of them during the afternoon we spent there.
I will post pictures of her and the school when I am home.
She witnesses to the truth that the light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.