It’s with somewhat of a heavy heart that I return to
Swazi. The morning after my arrival, I’ll be waking up the kids early to get
ready to attend their father’s funeral. It matters more to Lucia than it does
to Benji. Benji never lived with his father; he never even met him until his
mom took him with to visit the father in prison. Lucia, however, lived with her
father when she was a baby. You see, this is the man who bought umntfwana wami when she was only 12
years old. But she couldn’t stand being sold and used so she ran away and
survived on the streets as a 13-year-old prostitute. But after spending a year
on the street fending for herself, this man kept coming for her and convinced
her living with him was at least better than the streets. She gave in to his ownership
and then bore his children. Deep down, she truly loves her children, but
raising them as a teenage mom with trauma from exploitation meant she sometimes
hated them for what they reminded her of: that she was nothing except a body to
be bought and sold, used and abused.
I was living in Swazi the year she was living with this
man, and to be honest, I hated him. What I hated more was that she felt like at
this point she couldn’t leave him. She was terrified. She believed that he
owned her. I remember vividly getting a call from her friend, who begged me to
come and rush her to the hospital because this man had stabbed her. My hatred
for this man continued to grow. And it seemed that nobody crossed him. He was
involved in gangs, bar fights, was very violent, and even the men in the
Mangwaneni community were afraid of him. I had implored help on several occasions
to “rescue” umntfwana wami from him,
but no one wanted to take that risk with me.
Until one day. I finally convinced Johannes to take me to
this man. “Aren’t you scared?” he asked me with eyes as big as the mangos in
his hand.
“No,” I lied. “I’m not scared.” David and Goliath, I told myself, David and Goliath. He tried
convincing me that it wasn’t worth my time nor the risk, but I refused. I had
actually been badgering him for weeks, so he finally gave in.
When we got to his hut, Johannes knocked on split wooden
door and waited. When no one answered, he knocked again. This time a voice
answered, and Johannes announced he had something urgent he wanted to talk to
him about. The man took over five minutes before opening the door.
When he saw me he swore out loud.
“Sorry,” Johannes said sheepishly. “This is the urgent
something. She won’t’ rest until she meets you.”
“Hi, Mary-Kate,” he sighs, saying my name like he knows
me. (I was shocked to realize he probably knew a lot about me like I knew a lot
about him.)
Every word and speech and weapon I came prepared to use,
vanished. So did the hatred.
I expected to see a Goliath, a man of venom, terror, and
evil.
Instead I saw a “boy” who was lost in his own brokenness.
And somehow, someway, my heart broke for him that day.
The meeting lasted not more than a minute, but it was
enough to sober him up and to soften my iced heart. I still hated the things he
was doing, his abuse of “my child” but I no longer hated him. It’s hard to explain it.
I saw him on a few other occasions that year and years
following. One was when I tried to convince him to go to church with us. He
agreed, but when I knocked on his door and he saw me standing there, he ran
away! Another time I arrived unannounced when he and his gang were drunk and
high. A few men, looking dangerous and making the hair stand up on the back of
my neck, approached me with lustful eyes until he stood up and said something in
SiSwati that was enough to send them quickly away. That same day, umntfwana
wami came running out saying, “Mom, look! Look! Look at the marks he left on
me. He beat me!” she said it almost as a dare to him. Like, I dare you to touch me when my mom is here.
When I looked at him, shocked and upset, his gaze fell and he became
embarrassed. And I’ll never forget the day when umntfwana wami ran up to me
with delight and exclaimed, “He doesn’t beat me anymore! He doesn’t beat me
anymore!”
I was taken back by this sudden outburst and only managed
to ask, “Why?”
“Because I told him that if he did that again I will tell
you and you will call the police,” she beamed with a newfound freedom. Indeed,
I had been telling her over and over and over that she didn’t have to endure
his abuse, that he didn’t own her, and that I would do anything – anything to
get her out. “He’s afraid of you,” she giggled at first, but then a solemn yet
mystified look glazed over her eyes. “And he’s not afraid of anyone.”
Of course, I didn’t realize it in the moments, but he was
“afraid” of me because I may have been the only one he truly respected. Eventually
we started Hosea’s Heart and eventually my girl was placed in our safe home.
But he continued his belief that he owned her. One year, after umntfwana wami
had run away from her rehab program and I hadn’t heard from her in months, I
got a call from her friend’s number, but all I heard was sobbing. Finally,
because she couldn’t talk herself, her friend grabbed the phone and said
urgently, “Get her quickly. Please. He’s trying to kill her.”
When I arrived, it wasn’t hard to find where they were.
There was a large crowd gathering at a distance away from the man, who was
standing outside someone else’s hut. But no one in the crowd ventured to
intervene. I had found out on my way that he had tried dragging her back to his
hut, demanding she live with him because he owned her. She refused. There was a
commotion of aggression, he pulled a knife on her, but she escaped, running
wildly to her friend’s hut. When I arrived he was still standing outside the
hut, waiting for her to come out, and threatening the lives of both her and her
friend.
But when he saw me, he didn’t look upset. He somehow
looked relieved. Like he was two people inside of one body and didn’t enjoy
doing the evil things he was doing. I approached with gentleness and put my
hand on his arm to calm him down. “What’s going on?” I asked softly.
“She – she – she…” he stuttered, exasperated. He knew
there was no excuse but still I could see the twisted hurt in his own heart. “She’s
sleeping with other guys again! She’s a dirty girl! Look at all the things she’s
done wrong these years!” He reminded me of the way my child had broken my own
heart, how she’d keep running away, and call me only in times of desperation.
“I’m not here to defend her behavior. And it hurts me,
too,” my eyes began to glisten but I pressed on. “But, you don’t own her. You
do not have any right to her. You cannot threaten her like this.”
“But!...” he trailed on, getting riled up and yelling
things to the girls inside.
“So, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. I don’t
want her sleeping with other men either. So, I’m going to help her. You’re
going to stand here. You will not touch her, do you hear me? I’m going inside
to bring her out and we will leave together. You will not threaten or touch her
or follow us. Is that clear?”
He didn’t respond.
I knocked, called into the hut and told my girl and her
friend to come out – that it was now safe and nothing was going to happen.
She emerged with her suitcase, tears still streaming down
her face and fear in her eyes. But he did just as I had told him. He didn’t
move. He stood there, knife in his pocket, watching me escort her out, letting
the good side win over the dark side.
The next time I saw him was a year ago when we brought
the kids to visit him in prison. He had been in and out because of stealing.
This time he had been in for two years and was soon going to be released, so we
wanted to make positive contact before he came out. All of us, umntfwana wami included,
visited him and it was actually beautiful. He interacted with the kids, told
them he loved them, and apologized to umntfwana wami for everything. He seemed
a different man, and he said prison changed him for the better. I had serious
talks with him about getting rid of the notion that he owned her, and he said
he understood. He asked if once he was out if he could come visit his kids once
in awhile (they had been staying with me, though their mother had run away
again). Then, he looked at me, almost with tears in his eyes and said, “Mary-Kate,
thank you for taking care of my kids.”
Since he’s been out, I only saw him once when he came to
say hi to Benji and Lucia. But I had heard he had been sick, in and out of the hospital.
Until just last week, I received a message that he passed away.
I was shocked. I had hoped that I could visit him when I
got back to Swazi so that I could at least pray over him, at least try one more
time to share the gospel. But it’s too late now. All I can hope for is that
someone else at the hospital did. That someone prayed with him, that he chose
to receive Christ, that he pleaded for forgiveness and like the criminal who
hung next to Jesus said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” I pray that his last breath was, “Jesus.”
Indeed, we forgive him, too in the name of Jesus. He wasn’t
an evil man, but he was a broken man who made wrong choices. But then again,
aren’t we all like this in our own way? Maybe not to that extent of stabbing
someone, buying someone for sex, abusing someone, stealing, etc. But Jesus
reminds us that even if we have hatred in our thoughts, or lust in our eyes, or
evil in our hearts, we are the same grave sinners. And to think I once hated
this very man that I judged made me on equal ground with him.
So, when we talk about the work of anti-sex trafficking
and prostitution and sexual abuse, we must never objectify the very men who
objectified the women. We must not forget to pray for these men. We must not
forget that it is their own brokenness that led them to this and that they are
just as in need of a Savior as any. Let us not forget that we ourselves are
sinners in need of a Savior. Let us not forget.
So we pray for his
soul, and for those he left behind. We pray for Lucia and Benji, who lost a
father, and especially for Lucia, though she hardly knew him, she deeply loved
him and prayed for him almost every night before bed. I believe that through
her prayers, his soul was healed.
