While crawling the blogosphere for daily tidbits, I came across a story about a group of writers who came up with the idea of shining some light to the darkness of negativity hogging social media. At the end of every month, members share uplifting stories on “We Are The World” Blogfest. Stories that show all is not lost and that there’s so much positivity in the world; people who go out of their way to make the world a better place or those who’ve been through heartrending ordeals but found the courage to rise up again.
One such person is Terry Gobanga.
One beautiful day Terry was preparing for what she thought would be a memorable day ahead. Well, memorable it was but not in a way she anticipated. Terry was abducted on the morning of her wedding day, raped, stabbed and left for dead. All this happened while the groom, family and guests were already assembled in a church waiting for her anxiously.
During her hospitalisation, doctors told her she wouldn’t be able to have any children of her own because the stab wound she suffered on her stomach had penetrated her uterus. At this point it seemed the world was collapsing on her.
Her groom, Harry, stood by her through the ordeal, insisting he still wanted to marry and take care of her. He kept his word and seven months later he walked her down the aisle in a wedding catered for by a rape survivor and her friends.
This is the point at which you’d probably think all is well that ends well. Not so, Terry lost her husband to carbon monoxide poisoning, almost dying along with him, after the jiko (charcoal stove) he had lit to keep them warm filled their bedroom with the toxic fumes.
Despite being a pastor, she felt God had forsaken her. People thought and said she was cursed. She swore she would never get married again. She was depressed.
Nevertheless, a friend of hers never gave up and kept visiting and comforting her. After a while he fell for her and told her he wanted them to be husband and wife. Terry tried to dissuade him in account of her dark past and inability to bear children but he had made up his mind. He married her and they miraculously had children.
Terry wrote a book about the ordeal, Crawling Out of Darkness, and started an organization, Kara Olmurani, that offers rape survivors support and counselling.
Read Terry’s full story here
This month’s We Are The World Blogfest cohosts Lynn Hollbrooks, Sylvia Stein, Sylvia McGrath and Belinda witzenhausen welcome all to join and share uplifing stories via the #WATWB blogfest.
Click here to become part of the community
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