Here is the rest, or at least the next part, of her amazing story...
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Five years after she left us, mom came back for me. My brother was taken to his grandmother from his father’s side . I started living with my mother again and my life returned to normal. Life became sweet. Mom loved me and she used to tell her friends how I resembled her. Mother's love was sweet.
But mom took me to my father's place to see family after finishing my primary-7 exams. When we reached there, my stepmother pretended to have loved me so much and asked mom to let me stay behind so that I could get to know my brothers and sisters and get to know my Islamic religion – because my father was a staunch Muslim. My mother agreed and I was somehow happy with the thought, not knowing that I was going to suffer again.
After mom had gone, the woman started mistreating me so much. At home they taught me the Islamic religion. I used to pray 5 times a day and fast the holy month of Ramadan. After completing my senior-four school year, I came to see my mother and I told her about the way I was mistreated at my stepmother's place. But mom always said that she is a good woman.
I could not stand the mistreatment so I decided to go back to my mother, but after a short while, demons started attacking me and I nearly went crazy. My mother tried everything she could to save me. I am sorry to say this, but she even took me to a native witch doctor. Finally, mom started to believe all that I used to tell her about my stepmother. After all this, I went back to school for my advanced level [senior-6] and because this was a Muslim school I continued to live in the Muslim culture.
After my senior-6 test results came back, I had performed very well. The best students get 25 points and I got 21! I was so excited, but my mother had no money to send me to the university. It was hard since my friends used to come home and tell me all about campus life. It hurt me so much to know that I couldn’t attend with them. I tried to look for jobs, but I failed because most of the jobs required bribes to be favored and given a job.
One day my uncle had a friend who knew a manager of the Grand Imperial Hotel. He told my mother that I would be given a job, but when I went there and I talked to that man, he told me that to come back tomorrow and I could begin to work. I was so happy and I said to myself that at last I have got a job! The next day, I went to the hotel and the man I found there told me that the other man was not the manager and so I was not given a job. I was so terrified because the man told me that I was to work for 3 months without pay. I agreed because I was so desperate, but see now that there never was a job for me there. It hurt me so much that I decided to move all the way from town to our home in the Kibuye community in Kampala.
As I was moving, I felt many things lingering in my mind: the suffering I have gone through all my life from my mother's place and with my stepmother; how I studied so hard to make good grades and I did not make it to the university because we had no money; even the life at school was hard because mom could never afford all I needed at school because she was poor.
I cried deep inside me. I thought about what to do to help my mother and my brothers because even the father of my second brother was dead due to vehicle accident. I thought of how I used to pray 5 times a day and fasted the month of Ramadan.
I started to ask myself why – why has God abandoned me at this time? Does He really exist? I had many more questions, but I had no answers. As I was moving back home, I thought of men like Pastor Kayanja Robert and other born-again Christians. I saw how joyful they are and I remembered how my Christian uncle taught me to pray when I was still young. I committed to myself that from that day forward - I am going to become a born-again Christian! I accepted Jesus Christ deep inside me right then!
When I reached home I told my mother that I was now a born-again Christian. I was SO excited to share this news with her, but when she heard it she told me not to kill her. At home, my father's place, they could accept me as a Christian because they were Muslim. I told my mother not to worry and the next day I went to Miracle Centre Cathedral of pastor Robert Kayanja and when they called those who want to take Jesus as their personal savior, I was the first one to respond. From that day on, I am a born-again Christian. After going to church I felt like a heavy burden had been lifted off my head.
One year later, when I was 21 years old, my dear mother passed away after being sick for a long time. It was too much – God it was too much. The pain and the agony I felt in my soul for my mother who loved me.
Mom I miss you so much.
Together with your sons, we miss you so much, but we believe that God took you to rest and I believe that you are in peace my mother. When we think of you, tears roll in our eyes. Rest in eternal peace mummy.
Our mother was everything to us – a provider protector and everything. After her burial the person she left us with started behaving bad towards us. My brother and I were chased from home. Only our youngest brother was left at home, but with a lot of mistreatment. Me, I met a man who took me as a wife, but I went there only because I needed someplace to sleep and someone to buy me something to eat. But he was so poor that he could not afford to take care of my brothers and me.
My second brother got involved in a gang. He so badly needed to forget his problems, he started smoking cocaine and opium and the last born had to search garbage cans in order to feed himself.
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| Jovan - my pride & joy!!! |
After two years I left this fake marriage and I started working for my brothers and the son I had while there. Since then, GOD has been our GOD! HE HAS SEEN US THROUGH. In the book of Psalms 33:3 God said “Call unto Me and I will answer you and I show you great and mighty things you never knew”. He has really done that!
While working, I managed to look after my brothers and the last born is now in grade form-three. I would like to thank our uncle Michael who has been there to help. Lawrence is a clever boy and Lord fearing but the one who follows me, while he never went to school again, his behavior is changing in a positive direction.
A couple of years ago I got a job at a supermarket, but I did not understand that GOD took me there for a reason. While working there God connected me to someone: a parent. Indeed he took me back to the university. He feeds me, pays me rent, clothes me and everything. God said in Psalm 27:10 “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.”
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| I love Jesus with a joyful song I praise Him! |
Indeed He has not left us orphans. He has taken good care of us. The father for our last born had abandoned him before but he came back for him and started paying fees for him. Indeed GOD, you have done us good. First You took our pain away, and though we are not so rich and have little for possessions, we believe that the God who did the first is MIGHTY AND ABLE TO SAVE US.
I joined Luzira community church when I went at the university in Ggaba and I went to fellowship with Ggaba Community Church. One Sunday, pastor Alex and Faith came and they talked about how God has help them to serve Him. They said that they want to serve God from Uganda and they needed people to help them in the ministry. I felt touched, and so I joined them with the children ministry.
I feel that God is also leading me to eventually start a ministry for single mothers - women who are in the places that I have been and need the love of Jesus in their lives and support from other women. I am so anxious for God to allow me to do this ministry, but now am so happy to help the little ones, it is the most important ministry.
In the name of Jesus Christ I pray that God is glorified,
Faridah
