Spring ? Summer - St. Margaret's Hospital

was in a mountainous region and the houses were made of adobe.
There was no running water, and they would lead their family’s cows
to pasture as they walked to school,” says Peggy.
In addition, Nayda’s mother, who suffers from mental illness,
abandoned her at the age of 1. When Peggy started sponsoring
Nayda in 1998, she had been living with her father, his wife and her
half siblings, along with her grandmother.
Peggy says that the girl’s letters spoke of her loneliness. “She even
wrote to me that she felt I was the only one who had ever looked after
her and cared about her. She had a very difficult life.”
Because she wanted to see where her money was going and how it was
helping Nayda, Peggy made arrangements through World Vision to
travel to Peru in 1999. At their first meeting, Peggy says Nayda was shy,
yet affectionate. An interpreter helped bridge the gap between English
and Nayda’s native language, Quechua. Meeting face-to-face cemented
their friendship. “She was dressed in the best thing she owned and she
just fell into my arms and clung to me,” remembers Peggy.
When Peggy returned to visit again in 2004, she found that
Nayda’s father had moved on, leaving her in the care of her
grandmother, who was ill. Peggy gave the grandmother money to go
to a clinic for treatment. Moved by her generosity, the frail woman
told Peggy, “Never forget me, and never forget Nayda.” She died
three months later.
“After she died, Nayda disappeared,” says Peggy, who subsequently
received a letter from World Vision informing her that Nayda had
38 spring.summer 2009 | spirit
Peggy and Nayda in 1999.
left the program to enter the workforce. They offered to match her
with another child.
That spurred Peggy to action. After months of phone calls and
attempts to locate Nayda from here in the United States, Peggy decided
to travel to Peru. “I needed to go down there and find her,” she
explains. “She had been in my life for 10 years, and I couldn’t let it go.”
On Peggy’s first visit to the country, she had befriended the couple
who were assigned by World Vision to meet her at the airport. They
have remained friends ever since. On her 2007 trip, they offered to
transport her to places where Nayda might be, including orphanages,
schools, churches, and the village where she had last visited Nayda.
When they arrived in the village, local children led them to Nayda’s
aunt, who had information about Nayda’s whereabouts—she was now
living 450 miles away, near the town of Tacna, close to the Chilean border.
Peggy returned to Lima to catch another flight to Tacna. There, she
found Nayda living with her biological mother and her sister and her
family in a building that houses a small grocery. While they are still
impoverished, the building has running water and electricity—an
improvement from the conditions in her former home.
After Peggy returned home, she kept in touch with Nayda through
occasional letters and e-mails. Today, Nayda, 20, is married and recently
gave birth to her first child, a daughter. During a Peruvian vacation last
September, Peggy was able to visit and offer the then-expectant mother
some monetary and emotional support. She plans to return yet again.
“I enjoy going there—there is so much to see, do and experience, and
the people are wonderful,” she says. “And I have to go see that baby.”
Peggy says she intends to sponsor another child someday and
encourages others to do so as well. “Having been there, I have seen
what can be done for $26 a month—it’s really quite impressive.”
Peggy and Nayda in 2008.