I am the third born of twelve children from my mother. My father had six wives, and my mother was the youngest and last of all wives. Because of our huge family, there was a scarcity of necessities since we shared resources amongst 37 children total from my father’s wives. For this reason, our father was not able to take us to school because he could not afford school fees for all of us.
Some of my fathers’ wives left and went back to their homes with their children and others died from various causes. Of all thirty seven children, only ten of us are still alive. My father got so frustrated by the death of many of his children and others being taken by his wives because he could not support them, that he sold a piece of land he had. By the time he died in 2009, we were left with two acres of land which was not enough to grow food and feed all of us.
My mother worked hard and sent me to school when I was 13 years old; I studied for three years reaching the third grade. Unfortunately, because of finances, I was not able to continue studying beyond that point and stopped going to school in 1997 when I was fifteen. When I left, I began working as a farm hand raising livestock.
I worked steadily, and when I was nineteen in 2001, I eloped with a young woman named Gloria who is now my wife. In 2009, we realized that our life was not making any progress because I was a womanizer (like my father) and would spend all my income on women and alcohol and was not helping my family in anyway.
My wife suggested that we visit a church that she had heard about that had started in the neighboring community to which I agreed. Every time I attended that church, the pastor would preach as if someone had told him about me. I felt convicted by every message he shared at the pulpit, and as time went on, I decided to surrender my life to Christ and was baptized in July 2010.
Since I gave my life to Christ, I live a changed life. My wife and I encourage each other in our faith, and I’m grateful to her for taking me to the church where I first heard the Gospel. In my life, I decided to forsake the kind of friends I had before and make new ones in the faith so that I would not be peer pressured to return to my old way of living. My wife and I were young when we ran away together, and we were never married. Because of my faith in Jesus, I went back to her father and made things right by paying the bride price which is customary in our culture. Gloria and I were officially married in December 2013. I now live a rich life in Christ and am grateful to be His child.