This month I met an amazing young Kenyan woman named Lilian who has a heart for midwifery.  She has given me permission to share her story, which highlights the tragic experiences that thousands of Kenyan girls go through and how through Christ, they can overcome them and live for His glory.  It is also a story that in so many ways, midwifery can change for the precious girls who suffer in this way.  ~Jannekah

Pearl, Lilian and Surprise News

My name is Lilian and I’m twenty-four years old.  I come from a small village in Kenya.  I grew up in the church knowing God, but in my last year of High School my life changed and I became a non-believer.  The reason for this is what happened to me.

I had a friend whom I trusted and loved so much.  I used to share my deep stories with her.  She even knew the way I was a virgin and I had never slept with a man.  She knew that I didn’t want to until I was married because that was what I believed God wanted.  But her, she used to tell me how she had slept with men.

One day she requested me to go with her to her home village because she was like a family member now.  Even my parents knew her well and trusted her as my friend and allowed me to go.  I went with her to her place in a small village on the Kenyan coast.  It was 24 hours journey by bus from my home, and I was welcomed so well.

That evening when I was seated in their house she came and asked me to go and visit her relatives and say hi to them.  We went to visit her cousin who was a man, which I didn’t know in advance.  When we reached there she left me alone in the house and never came back.  They locked me inside the house and I had nowhere to go because I didn’t even know where I was and I had no money.  At 10 pm the man came in and he started talking to me.  I was nervous because I was alone with him and I didn’t know where my friend had gone.  I asked him where she was but he told me she had left and gone home.  So he told me I had to spend the night there.  I refused and asked him to take me where my friend was.  He started becoming wild and told me that I was there for a reason and he had to fulfill his mission.  So we started fighting and he told me he was going to kill me and no one would know where I was.

Because of the fear I kept quiet and sat down.  I started asking God to help me but He never came.  Then the man pulled out a knife and raped me by force.  Because I was a virgin it was so painful and there was so much blood I thought I would surely die.  After he was finished he left me lying on the bed and put on his clothes and just sat in the room.  He kept shouting at me to shut up and stop crying and kept telling me that he was going to kill me and throw me in the ocean and no one would know.  After around two hours he left and he locked me inside.  This was around 4 am in the morning.

I was just on the bed crying and in pain.  I stayed in the house alone the whole day terrified because I didn’t know when he would come back and I was confused because I couldn’t understand why God did not save me.  I got up and tried to find a way to run away.  I found the door was locked and the windows had bars on them.  The place was an apartment on the top floor.  I tried screaming for help but no one could hear me.

I felt so dirty, I got up and bathed and put on my clothes.  He came back at 2 pm with food and he just pushed it inside the house, locked the door again and left.  I didn’t even touch the food.  I had no appetite and I was still crying so much.  The man never came back that night.

I spent the whole night locked in that flat.  I was terrified the whole night just wondering if he was going to come back or maybe I would just die there in that room.  So many things passed through my mind that night.  I wondered where my friend was, if she knew what she had done to me by bringing to this man and if I would ever see her again.  I wondered if I would ever see my parents again and if they would know what happened to me.  I cried as I felt like God had abandoned me there to die like a dog.  I wondered what I had done to God for Him to punish like this.  The question that kept coming again and again in my head was, “where was God?”  That was the longest night of my life.  It felt like it never ended.

The man returned very early the following morning.  He brought me money, put it on the table, and told me to take it and see how it would help me.  Then he left and pretended to lock the door but he didn’t.  I thought he had locked it the way he was used to doing.  So I just stayed there, I was so weak from bleeding and not eating anything.  Finally I decided to try and break the door but when I tried I found that he had not locked it so I took the money and left.

Because of the shame in my culture of a woman being raped I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, but I just asked people where the police station was.  I went and reported it to the police but they didn’t do anything to help me.  They just gave me a number and told me to call them when I see him again.  But I told them I didn’t even know where he had gone or where to find him.  They told me to go and report again in my hometown.

It took me many days to find my way home, and by the time I finally reached my home village 5 days had passed since I had been raped.  I reached my hometown and just sat there for several hours trying to think of how to face my parents.  I was afraid of the shame that I would bring to my family and how my father would react.  In Kenya if a women is rapped it’s a very big shame and its like its her fault.  So I finally decided I just have to go and I took a bus to our village.

I went direct to the police station and reported again there.  They told me the same thing - when I see that man I come and report again.  I waited for the darkness of night to come so that my parents could not see me in that situation.  I was dirty and hungry because I had not eaten in 6 days.  I was tired and my clothes were torn.

When darkness had come I took a bus to our village and reached home at around 8 pm.  After reaching home, my parents saw me I could tell my mom knew I was not ok. They asked why I was so tired and because of shame and pain I just told them that I’m ok and just tired from the journey.  From then I never wanted to talk about anything with anyone, I just kept quiet.  I was just sad and no one knew what was happening with me.  They asked me about my friend who I had traveled with and I always told them that I don’t want to talk about it.  So my parents just left me alone and never asked again, but knew I had changed and that something was wrong.

I never knew that I had conceived.  After two months I never received my period and I started asking myself what could be wrong.  When I was four months pregnant I realized I was carrying a baby because I could feel it kicking me.  I started thinking of aborting my baby because of shame and pain.  I didn’t want that baby.  I asked one of my friends if I should abort a baby of four months and she told me it was dangerous and I wait until it was seven months.  So I waited.  My pregnancy was not visible and I was not vomiting or showing any signs of pregnancy so my parents never knew.  I wanted to abort the baby without them knowing and just go on with my life without anybody knowing.

I went to small clinic that was far away.  When I reached there I went to the doctor’s room and the doctor told me that it was possible for him to do the abortion.  I told him to explain the process to me and he told me that he was going to induce me and that I was going to give birth normally.  He told me that it was possible the baby would come out alive, but not to worry because if that happened he would strangle it and I would go home without a baby.

He wanted 2,500 Kenya shillings [about $30] and I only had 1,500 Kenya shillings, so he refused to do it.  I had sold some of my things, like shoes, to get that money, and some I took from my friends.  I walked out of the hospital and I promised the doctor I was going to come back the moment I got more money, but I never knew where I was going to get more money and my heart told me not to do it.

On my way home I met some of my schoolmates.  They were from the mortuary because one of my schoolmates had died.  When I asked them what happened they told me that that girl died from abortion.  I felt so bad and I joined them to where they were headed.  When I reached there the girl who had died was my dorm mate!  I knew her very well.  When I asked the details how she died, I was told she died while aborting a seven-month pregnancy!  I started shivering and crying because I knew I was the next one who was to die.  I went back home and I had no peace from that day.

Every day I was thinking about what I saw and decided never to abort because I would die also.  So I decided to tell my mom I was pregnant because there is no way I could keep it a secret anymore.  My mom told me to never tell my dad because my dad would kill me.  She took me to my aunt’s place to deliver there in secret and she left me there.  I was so ashamed.

At my aunt’s place I experienced so much suffering.  They were very poor and many times I did not have food to eat.  Even one time I almost fainted when going to town and a stranger was touched and took me a café and bought me food.

It reached a time I began labor pain.  No one had told me what to expect so I was so much afraid.  I was taken to the nearby hospital where they called my mom and she came.  My labor pain lasted two days.  In day three I was induced and nothing changed, I was still in labor but not giving birth.  The doctor said if the labor lasts another four hours I will be taken to the theater for caesarian.  I was so much afraid.  My mom also was afraid because she didn’t have money for caesarian.  At the last hour when they were almost to take me for caesarian my mother decided to tell my father what was happening because my father was the one who had the money.  After my father receiving that news he was so shocked and he told my mom to give me the phone.  I talked to my father and asked for forgiveness because I never told him earlier.  Because my father was saved he prayed for me and immediately my water broke and I gave birth normally.

The doctor who delivered my son was a white man who had come to do medical outreach.  He was so much supportive and caring and I just thank God for him.  I don’t know where he is now but I wish I could meet him again and tell him thanks.  When I had given up all hope he encouraged me and was so kind to me.  He told me I was strong enough to do it.  Me and my baby would have died if he had not been there and I would have been left to the cruel Kenyan nurses.  My mother named my baby Surprise News, because he was a surprise to her.  I added the names Brian Peter, after an American missionary whose family I loved and who was a good man.

From there I went home and that is where my shameful life started.  People in my village were abusing me, calling me names because the way I have delivered without a husband. I thought I would run to the people in my church for help, but they also denied me and the pastor even told me not to be in the church again because I was a sinner.  That’s when I left God and went back to the world and made a covenant to never go back to the church again.

I hated my son because I thought he was the cause of everything.  My mom used to force me to breastfeed him by beating me because I refused to do it.  One night when he was just 2 months old I took him when he was naked, carrying him over my shoulder by his hand, and I was going to throw him in the river.  But my mom caught me and took the baby.  That’s when I decided to leave my son with mom.  I thought to myself that if she won’t let me kill him then she can take him and leave me to live my life.  So I left him at 2 months old and went to Nairobi to stay with my cousin there.

At that time I had so much anger at God and at men, I wanted to destroy a man the way I was destroyed.  So I started a life of prostitution just to find a man and make him to fall in love with me and then crush his heart.  This was also the way I was able to survive because I could not have a job since my mind was not ok.  My mom used to abuse me by telling me things like how I gave birth to a bastard child and left him as a burden for her.  She used to make me feel guilty and ask me for money.  So I used to send her the money I would get from prostitution.

During this time I realized I was two months pregnant and I didn’t know which man was the father.  I decided I could not go through that shame again.  There was nowhere I could take another kid.  I felt forced to abort.  So I went and got some medicine to abort.  It was more painful than even labor and I was almost dying in the house of my brother.  I never told anyone.  I never wanted to do it but I felt had no choice.

Thank God during this time of my life my childhood friend, Pearl, Brian Peter’s daughter, came back to Kenya after more than ten years in America.  Just by a miracle she found me.  I shared my story with her and she talked to me and though my heart was still heavy I started going back to God again.  She told me to move to her place so that I can leave that bad environment of prostitution.  I stayed with her for almost one year and we talked a lot.  She was the first friend who I was able to share everything with and not feel shame.  She shared with me how God could change my life and make me a new woman.

Slowly I left that life and my heart started to change.  I began praying and realized that God can use this terrible situation and still have a purpose for my life.  One day Pearl asked me what is my dream and I told her since I was young my dream was to be a nurse and a midwife because my mom was also a traditional midwife and I used to help her.  Pearl found a way to take me to medical training where I got my nurse’s aid certificate.  Because of my situation I believe I have a calling to be a midwife because of what I passed through.  There are many girls in Kenya who have a story like mine and I want to care for them and to encourage them that there is hope.  Maybe I can be a living testimony to them.
 
I also want to encourage them that abortion is not the way.  I volunteer at a clinic now and I have already been able to convince some girls not to abort their babies, just by telling them my story.  I thank God that when I finished my training my heart for my son had changed.  I went home to my mom and thanked her for raising him, but it was time for me to be a mother to my son.  I took him back when he was 4 years old.  Now I stay with him and I have taken him to school and he is a very bright boy.  I love my son and I know that God will make a way for me to raise him without a father.

I am working for free at the clinic because they won’t pay me since I don’t have experience.  I just struggle to pay rent and buy food.  Sometimes if I bandage a wound for a neighbor they will pay me 200 Kenya shillings [about $2].  My son and I survive through little side jobs I do like those.  My dream is to go back to school and get my training to be a midwife and get a good job and raise my son and help other girls.  Thanks be to God because even though I felt like He was not there when my life changed, He is here today.