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| Nida Charcos shares a light moment with her mother. |
Mistake. She heard the Gospel and gave her life to God during a church Bible study when she was 17, but at 21, Nida made the mistake of marrying a man who
turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and a womanizer. Three
children were born to them before his other woman had him shot dead after he refused to leave Nida for her. “Honestly, I felt relieved with his passing,” Nida admits. “Life with him was pure misery.”
The lowest point in her life came when
her mother-in-law threw her and her daughters out of a house she had helped pay
for. There was nowhere to go but the
streets.
Survival. Nida
and her daughters spent three months on busy streets near Rizal Park in Manila. To survive, she sold small items that pedestrians stop to buy, like
cigarettes, candy, and crackers. “Despite everything, the Lord was watching out for us
because I never had to succumb to crime to feed my children, the way other street dwellers do,” she says.
She met staff of CCT’s Kaibigan Ministry in 2005 when she attended one of their feeding and Bible study sessions. This was a turning point. A few months later she was among the first group of street dwellers invited by KM to stay at its halfway house. There, Nida renewed her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and started attending discipleship sessions. Later on she was offered work as service staff at CCT’s support office on Taft Avenue, Manila, and she gladly accepted.
She met staff of CCT’s Kaibigan Ministry in 2005 when she attended one of their feeding and Bible study sessions. This was a turning point. A few months later she was among the first group of street dwellers invited by KM to stay at its halfway house. There, Nida renewed her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and started attending discipleship sessions. Later on she was offered work as service staff at CCT’s support office on Taft Avenue, Manila, and she gladly accepted.
Regaining Contact. One of the Kaibigan Ministry’s many programs involves
reuniting street dwellers with their families.
Kaibigan staff and Nida’s co-workers encouraged her to write home. (Her family back in Bohol had long ago given her up for dead.) She wrote home, jotting down as recipient’s address a village name she remembered from more
than two decades ago. Surprisingly, the
letter found its way to her sisters without much trouble and in much shorter
time than everyone expected. Soon the
family was catching up by cell phone calls and text messages: both her parents were still alive; all her
sisters had completed high school, one of them lived in Pampanga, close to
Manila.
A Secret Revealed.
Finally, in February 2013, 24 years after she had last seen her parents and
sisters, Nida got on a plane to Bohol for a much-dreamed of week-long reunion. One
quiet evening, she finally told her mother why she had left home: two male members of their extended family had
been making sexual advances. Knowing what could possibly happen, and knowing no
one would believe her, Nida said she chose to slip away and cause the least
trouble for everyone. Mother and
daughter spent several minutes sobbing on each other’s shoulders.
Back in Manila, Nida expresses thanks for the way her life
has turned out: she has a steady job, her children are in school and not on the
street, she has a new husband and son, she has found a caring family among CCT staff. “God is good,” she says, with tears forming in her eyes.
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| Nida, with her husband and son, reunited with her parents after 24 years of separation. |
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| Tearful farewell. |
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| Nida and her sister were not yet in their teens when Nida ran away from home. |
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| James hugs his grandmother goodbye at the end of a week-long visit. |
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| Nida shares a last meal with cousins before she returns to Manila with her husband and son. |
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| James Charcos, born in the age of handheld electronic games, feels the grooves in a rough, homemade sungka board in his mother's home province. |
