Your column saved my life, Pastor

Reading your column, I saw that you did not condemn anybody. You encouraged them to go back to school. So I told my boyfriend that he should help me to go back to school. He did so and I passed my exams.

Dear Pastor,

I have always read your column. I was reading it before I got married and, when I met my husband, he started to read it too.

I told him that the reason I fell in love with the column and in love with you is because you do not condemn anybody. I have two children. I am a schoolteacher. I got pregnant with my first child when I was 17 years old and it was your column that helped me not to go crazy. Everybody in my family condemned me. I knew that my mother got pregnant when she was 18, but she said that I would never come out to anything good.

Reading your column, I saw that you did not condemn anybody. You encouraged them to go back to school. So I told my boyfriend that he should help me to go back to school. He did so and I passed my exams. But, in the meantime, he got involved with another girl and he got her pregnant too. He blamed my mother by saying that she didn’t like him so he couldn’t come to the house often. Even when I had the baby, my mother did not want him to come around. So he fooled around with another girl and got her pregnant.

I cursed him but, one good thing about him, he supports his child. Then I got pregnant the second time and my mother said I must leave her house with my two bastard children. She gave me a certain time to leave but I didn’t leave. One day when I came home, my mother packed all my clothes in boxes and put them on the verandah. I called a friend and I told him what happened and he came to the house and tried to speak to my mother. Then he asked me “You want to come with me?” and I asked him where we would go and he said “My place, I have room.” He took me to his place and I stayed there with that man and never left. He is now my husband.

I attended college and that man took me as his woman. I graduated from teachers’ college. The children’s father visited me while I was living at the man’s house but he saw that the relationship we were having was more than social. So,whenever he came by, he played with the children, gave me money for them and left. This man was almost three times my age but we got married and I had to help my mother to pay her bills. But, before she died, she told me that she was sorry for the way she treated me.

Your column has really helped me and I write to thank you for the work you are doing. Please keep it up.

Dear D.P.,

I am glad that the mistake you made as a teenager did not hold you back from having ambition and pursuing a career in education. Your mother didn’t see any good in you, but this older gentleman rescued you and helped you financially. Some parents are very hard on their children and your mother falls into that category. But I am glad to hear that she apologised to you.

I am glad that my column was able to help you in your struggles. Thank you for not giving up on life. You failed as a teenager but you turned your life around. More power to this man who rescued you!

Pastor