my friend

I visited a good Didinga friend last night.

I found her sitting in her dilapidated hut, eating corn mush and beans. We small talked about selling tobaccos and her baby’s running nose for awhile. I heard that she’d been having a rough time, so once we were alone I quietly asked how she was doing.

I was surprised by her answer.

Rather than hiding her pain or pretending that it wasn’t there, she glanced briefly at me and then away. Then quietly she began describing her current situation. It is a story of hurt, deep disappointment, embarrassment and scared hopelessness.

A common story I suppose.

We eventually left the hut and walked slowly for a bit, my Didinga friend and I. She was staring off at the clouds, trying to keep her tears from spilling over, speaking slowly, speaking deliberately.

Her unofficial (unofficial in the sense that her dowry has not yet been paid) husband has been cheating on her for years, almost as long as she’s called him her husband and he’s called her his wife.

Choking back tears, my friend described scenario after shocking scenario of deceit, betrayal and emotional meanness. She told me that for the past week, though she had resisted, reasoned and argued, she had been forced to share her hut and her sleeping mat with her husband’s current mistress – while she and her baby slept on one side of her husband, his mistress slept on the other.

Can you imagine?

Our walk was interrupted yesterday, so we met for chai this morning. She talked and I listened. Years of hurt spilled out of her. Story and after story after story. She talked of plans – plans of packing her things and her children and returning to her parents’ home. She talked about leaving her husband.

I listened to her stories, I listened and I hurt for her, her children and her husband. I listened and I wondered what distinction Didinga people would really place between polygamy and adultery. I listened, but I did not know what to do.

You see, the only real hope I have for her marriage, is the hope I have in Christ. And this is not a hope my friend completely understands or fully trusts. So, when I asked her how I could help, I was surprised by her answer.

She asked me to pray.

And so, I ask you to pray too.

• Pray for a peaceful resolution.

• Pray for Christ’s saving grace to be a reality to my friend and to her husband.

• Pray that God, the only One who can transform a heart, would be given open reign to do so in both of their lives.

• Pray for their two small children.