November 8, 2024

Usually I write sweet, “we saved another baby today” blogs but every once in a while, we just need to talk about what we actually deal with on an almost daily basis in Africa.

A few nights ago, a woman appeared at our gate and the guards called Kim to help. The mother of five children, a close neighbor to Neema Village had been beaten and punched in her pregnant belly. She was bruised, crying and begging for help from her abusive husband who was threatening to kill her with a machete.

It appears he was mad because she had washed all his clothes but forgot 2 shirts. So, she needed a beating. A man close by heard her screaming and went to help and the enraged husband in the fight cut off the neighbor’s toe.

The mother went to the police but they said instead she should go to the local village leader who told her to go back home to her husband. The police were no help so she came to the Neema gate and Kim said she could spend the night, safe at the MAP house.

But the guard on duty said that their culture says she has to return to her husband. Kim called another neighbor who is also a leader in the community and he and his wife came over to talk. Kim was informed that she could not shelter the woman, that would be kidnapping, and that the woman had to return to her husband. But the women continued to cry and beg and stressed that her husband said he would kill her. It appears that the village people had become upset that Neema was taking this woman away from her husband.

Kim said, Let’s send the woman to the hospital for the night or she can stay with the neighbor and his wife, which she did.

The husband can be prosecuted for cutting off the neighbor’s toe but not for beating his wife.

Does this make you as mad as it does me! My red hair flares up at this!

In a country where sometimes women are treated little better than the family donkey the precious love of Jesus is about all that will change the hearts of men like this.

This week in one of the monthly meetings with our village committee one of the men stated, “Well occasionally women just need a good beating!”

There are a lot of things we have to accept to live in Africa but we will never accept this!

This morning the mother of five is back with her husband and Neema Village is doing the first Thursday of every month “Women’s Rights” Conference.  I hope she is there. God help us.

Michael and Dorris Fortson