Albertine came to us in 1999. She lived with us for two years and was baptized. Two months after she graduated from seamstress school, she married our friend, Sidoine.

After two years of trying to become pregnant, she and Sidoine got fertility tests, and Sidoine’s tests showed a problem. At that time, he was the director of the church group in Manta.

From time to time, we would visit and encourage them. On one visit Albertine showed me her swollen back and said Sidoine had beaten her. Later, while I was visiting another village with Albertine, I heard her tell another lady that she had gone to see a witchdoctor.
Time passed, and Albertine’s and Sidoine’s friendship with us cooled to the point that they seemed to consider our visits intrusions, so we stopped visiting them. Then we heard a scandalous report that Albertine had slept with another man to try to get pregnant. The word was that Sidoine had told her to do it and then had turned against the idea. A while later, they performed a fertility ceremony in the village. After that, Sidoine’s brother found fetish charms at his mother’s home, and she told him they were for Sidoine. I felt personally betrayed by both Sidoine and Albertine. Both had lied to me, and their stories never matched. In the spring of this year while Sidoine was here in town attending school, Albertine left him and cleaned out the house. She slept with another man and is now seven or eight months pregnant.

In October, Sidoine had had enough of the uncertainty and wanted to know where they stood and whether they were getting a divorce. Since Albertine was not willing to talk to him, he asked for a court hearing. The court summoned her, but she stubbornly refused to go. The next morning, the police arrested her, and she spent four days in jail.

The church met about the issue and told Sidoine and Albertine that they were on the wrong path. A couple of weeks later, Albertine had Sidoine summoned to court in her village, but he excused himself because he was sick.

We don’t know how this will end. Albertine’s story is a sad example of the disappointments we sometimes have to deal with. Once she considered Uli and me her mothers. Today, she lies to our faces and has totally turned her back on God. Please pray for a miracle in her heart.

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