I was twenty-four when I entered my first serious relationship. By then I was a greenhorn. I belong to a church that strongly preaches abstinence so it was hard for me to want to do anything sexual outside the confines of marriage. I was determined that the man I marry would be my first lover. However, I got curious when I started dating Ben. When I turned twenty-five I couldn’t resist the need to satisfy my curiosity any longer so we did it, shuperu. You know how they say curiosity kills the cat? Well, in my case it broke my mother’s heart. 

What happened was, I felt guilty after the experience. My guilt was so bad that I started having weird dreams about the whole thing. So I went to confess it to my spiritual mother and sought her counsel. My spiritual mother then told my mother about it. And my mum was disappointed. She even told me, “I am so hurt by what you have done. Do you know one day I had a heart attack at the market because of this?” I remember rolling my eyes and thinking, “Why is she being so dramatic?” But on the outside, I gave her a remorseful look and promised never to go near the thing again. 

I honestly did not understand my mother’s disappointment until I experienced one myself. It all began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was this young girl in our church who was living with her aunt. She was in remedial school preparing to rewrite some papers she failed in her WASSCE. According to her, her aunt had promised to offer her shelter while she studied for her exams but along the way things change. She said, “My aunt used to be an ‘Ashawo’ but she stopped because of old age. So when I came to live with her she tried to initiate me into the business. I refused to do it but she kept putting pressure on me. After a year of failing to convince me to let her pimp me out, she asked me to find somewhere else to live.” 

She didn’t know anyone in town so she spoke to one of the guys in my church. The guy reached out to me and asked if I could take the girl in until she wrote her exams. I spoke to her parents and they sounded very desperate, “Please if you could let her stay with you,  just until the exams are over we will be very grateful. We will take care of her upkeep and everything else, we just want her to have a place to live.” I was moved by their situation. So I welcomed this young girl into my home even though I was barely getting by myself. She was twenty-one then, and her parents were far away in another region. So I tried to be a big sister to her. As we got to know each other better we grew very close. We were so close to the extent that people in my neighbourhood and some members of our church thought we were blood-related. 

I did my best to groom and disciple her spiritually. It’s not every day you get the chance to make an impact on someone’s life, so I took the opportunity seriously. My life was very plain before her but I didn’t want to teach her one thing and do the opposite so I straightened myself up for her sake. I tried my best to live a life of integrity for God and her. With my guidance, she became a prim and proper young lady who exuded confidence and happiness. Everyone who saw her liked her instantly. 

Along the line, a young and vibrant thirty-something-year-old elder in our church decided to help my girl with some of her classes. This elder is a teacher so his interest in her studies wasn’t alarming. They met for study sessions until she wrote all her papers.

At one point he told her that he was interested in me. He said he didn’t know how to get close to me so my girl should be his eyes and ears, and tell him everything about me. Of course, the girl told me that. I paid close attention to him and noticed his interest, so I decided to study him and pray about him. I liked what I saw from afar. He seemed like a caring man. The church even respects and loves him more than the Pastor. To them he was perfect. He had it all; spirituality, mixed with giftedness, stirred into a hunk of handsomeness. The young ladies considered him the most eligible bachelor in the church, and it’s understandable.

After my girl’s exams, she told me, “I know that the agreement was that I live with you till I finish my exams. This means I should be getting ready to leave, yet I don’t want to. I enjoy living with you so I’d like to continue staying here till I go to school.” I had also become fond of her so I agreed to her request. The elder also got her a slot to teach at his school. Things were going well until her behaviour started changing. She became flirty whenever the elder was around. And to my horror, the elder also started looking at her lustfully. 

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She started taking particular interest in her dressing. She became very proud and deceitful too. She would lie to me just so she could go on a date with this elder. When I ask why she delayed coming home, she would tell me she got lost. It got to a time she would go to work and come home at 9:00 PM. I even thought she was being overworked so I told her, “If the work is stressing you then quit and find something less time-consuming to do.” As time went on this girl told me she has gotten to know the real elder, and that he is not the image he presents to the church. She suggested that we pray for him so we added him to our prayer list. 

But it got to a point I started seeing very obvious signs that my girl and the elder were dating. I tried to get her to open up to me about it but she never did. The elder also started withdrawing from me which only confirmed my suspicions. I was so heartbroken. I couldn’t understand why he would have a sexual relationship with a young girl I had entrusted him to. I felt they had both betrayed me because I expected so much from them. I felt all my spiritual grooming of this girl for the past eighteen months had been for nought. The elder had swept in and ruined it all. That was when I understood why my mother was so disappointed when she found out that I had done shuperu. It’s a very painful thing to experience. 

The girl gained admission to tertiary school and I washed my hands off her. I told her she could visit me whenever she wanted but she can’t stay with me again. So now she is living with the elder and his three sisters in one room. But that is not my worry. I am not angry at them anymore either, I have forgiven them. Sometimes I worry about the girl because I feel this elder is taking advantage of her. But I also know that some lessons need to be learned through experience so I am staying out of it. The only thing I can do now is pray that the man doesn’t ruin her life. 

—Evelyn

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