Nigeria | April 19, 2024
There's a change in my husband: When God restores family
When your family is ripped apart, how do you go back to normal? This is a question Charity faces after she was abducted by Boko Haram when they attacked her village. Her husband managed to run away, but Charity was held captive by Boko Haram for three years. When she returned home with a baby girl, her husband beat her and rejected baby Rahila. She and her daughter now live in an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp. But God has not forgotten Charity or Rahila - He is slowly healing both them and Charity's husband.
When your family is ripped apart, how do you go back to normal?
This is a question Charity faces after she was abducted by Boko Haram when they attacked her village. Her husband managed to run away, but Charity was held captive by Boko Haram for three years. As a Christian, an ‘infidel’, Charity was forcibly married. She fell pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl, called Rahila. After being freed by the military and returning home, her husband beat her and rejected baby Rahila. She and her baby now live in an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp.
Charity continues to face discrimination in the camp. “People in the camp despise me,” she says. “They keep mocking me saying, why didn't I run together with my husband, why did I allow my husband to run away? And now, see, I have come back with a child that is not of my husband, and they keep making fun of me.”
‘THERE’S A CHANGE IN MY HUSBAND’
But there is light in the darkness. Charity attended a trauma healing workshop run by Open Doors where she drew her self-portrait and studied the Bible with other women. She also learnt techniques to help her deal with and process the trauma she experienced: “I want to say thank you for everybody who has been praying for me and for those who have sent support to help us. Thank you.
“There's a change in my husband. He has started liking my daughter and has even carried her.”
The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has created a humanitarian disaster. It is estimated that Boko Haram have killed over 20,000 people and displaced about 2.6 million others. Women in particular are struggling; many have been abducted or widowed by Boko Haram, so they have no income and no home. Open Doors is providing them with aid and counselling and by showing mothers that God sees and loves them no matter what they have suffered.
‘WE SHOW THEM LOVE’
Rebecca, an Open Doors partner, works with widows and orphans in IDP camps, some of whom have been held captive by Boko Haram. She explained: “Everywhere people are displaced, they have left their villages. They are now living in very congested areas. Eight or ten people living in one room. This is what displaced people are suffering in the camps.
“In times of crisis, people take care of themselves first. Life becomes so difficult that it’s very hard to help others. It is almost impossible for widows to feed themselves and their children.
“Nobody is assisting them. They don’t have husbands. They have never been to school, they are not educated, they cannot read or write so there is nothing they can do.”
Open Doors is supporting Rebecca as she provides practical aid, prayer and counselling to women in the IDP camps: “We provide food, like maize, sometimes we give them clothes and detergent. We try to help them fiscally but spiritually we pray for them and sometimes we council them.”
Rebecca supports women who have escaped Boko Haram captivity: “When they came out with their babies it is not an easy thing. Even for me to help them. They came out with dirty clothes, no food, no anything, no assistance. We invited them to where I work in the church. First of all we pray with them. We show them love and that we are not going to hurt them. We become close with them.”
SEE THEIR SUFFERING. CHANGE THEIR REALITY.
There is stigma associated with being abducted by Boko Haram and Charity’s situation is all too normal. Rebecca works with the wider community to break the stigma of being abducted: “We are also teaching people how to love them. A person should not hate them.”
Research by Open Doors has found that Christian women are doubly vulnerable to persecution, targeted for both their faith and gender. Through the See. Change. campaign, Open Doors is ensuring women are treated with care and dignity, seen when isolated, empowered to read, enabled to earn to provide and confident that God sees and loves them no matter what they have suffered.
Your support can mean a world of change for persecuted women like Charity.
- Every £42 could provide food and housing for a woman and child for two months, as well as education for the child.
- You can also give towards immediate trauma care for a woman who has been the victim of persecution. It costs £288 to provide trauma healing in all areas of their lives.
