But every story has the potential for redemption.
It's what we do with our horror stories that brings God glory.
This blog post is going to be long- let me tell you that now. It will have a few graphic details, and it will make the reader uncomfortable. But I hope that you will read to the end... I hope you will hear the redemption in Jeneth's story.
I met Jeneth (pronounced "Janet") at Babies' Home, where she works as a nanny's assistant. We became friends very quickly, and as the babies napped and we cleaned, she told me of her dreams of going to University, maybe even studying abroad. She wants to study to work for human rights, especially those of women and orphans.
As we wiped the windows clean, she mentioned that her sponsor was helping her complete secondary school, and I inquired what sponsorship program she was enrolled in. I didn't recognize the name of the organization, Echo, so she told me, "It's a program that reaches out to former abductees."
I just about dropped the scrap of newspaper I was using to wipe the windows. "Jeneth," I asked, "were you abducted?"
"I was in the bush with the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) for six months."
****
Coming to Gulu, I knew that I would meet people with such stories. I just never expected it to be like this. Call me naive- I know I am- but it seems extraordinary to me that such horror stories can belong to the people we work alongside day-to-day, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Jeneth agreed to tell me her story, but not at work. She didn't want to be distracted either from the story or from her job, and so we set a time to meet.
****
Last Sunday evening I met Jeneth at Sankofa, the same cafe where I was stranded in the rain two weeks ago. We ordered coffee and food, and then I lost no time in asking what I was dying to know.
"Jeneth, I'm a writer. If you are uncomfortable with that, then I will leave this just between you and me; but if it is okay, I would love to write your story."
She smiled, said, "There is no problem," and then dived right in:
"You should first know, I am not from Gulu Town. I am from Amuru district; it is where I was born, where my father was born, where my mother was born- it is our permanent home.
"My troubles began when I was eight years. There was war in Northern Uganda, and at the time I was in Primary-3 (third grade). You know, when you are eight years, you hear war, you hear your father tell you to run and hide, but war is not actually seen to you. You just run and hide as your father tells you.
"There was a barracks near to our primary school, with government soldiers there to protect us. We would hear the training, the bulleting, eh? We heard it all the time.
"Every day," Jeneth smiled, "My mother would cook for us in the morning so we could come home for the lunch hour. It was a Monday, and she had slaughtered a chicken. We had such zeal to return home for lunch!”
She chuckled, but then became serious again. That Monday, she told me, the LRA attacked the barracks near their school.
"They were not after the students," she said. "They wanted to make a point that no matter where the government soldiers placed barracks, they could still attack."
The LRA were known for letting their hair grow, and they wore it in dreadlocks. To attack the barracks, however, they "reduced their hairstyle as a disguise," Jeneth said. "They wore similar uniforms as the government soldiers, and no one knew who was who."
When the attack began, Jeneth and her siblings had already left the school and were walking across the road in front of the barracks toward their home.
"Bullets missed me by God's grace," she remembered. "At such a time, when the government soldiers are behind you on the road and the LRA soldiers are before you on the road, you create your own path, running by crawling (meaning, crawling quickly as a means of escape) to avoid bombs."
Several children, Jeneth included, along with a teacher, crawled along through the thick grass until they finally reached the forest, where they assumed they would be safe. Their bodies were full of wounds from rough grass and thorns, but Jeneth's biggest concern was her family. Where is my father? she cried to herself.
"My father and I were very close," Jeneth paused to tell me, "closer even than me to my mother. I did not know if any of them were alive, but the teacher in our group comforted me. He said to me, 'Do not worry, Jeneth. Your father is alive.'"
She described their night in the forest to me with great detail, explaining how they removed their shirts in order to camouflage into the brush. Helicopters flew over the forest to drop bombs on any escapees, but because of their camouflage, they were unharmed.
****
By eight o'clock that night, it had begun to rain. Each rain drop was cold and heavy, yet their wounded bodies did not feel it. They lay huddled in the forest, waiting for morning.
Jeneth's sleep was restless. As she tossed and turned, she was filled with the worry that accompanies a child in the midst of such horror. Is my father alive? Will I make it out of this? Will I see my family again?
Sleep came to her, eventually, and with it came a dream. A man she did not know stood in front of her, and with a calming voice he said, "Jeneth, why are you worried? Your father and the rest of your family are alive!" Jeneth woke with a faint smile on her face, wondering if this good news could be true.
It was nine in the morning before anyone woke. The forest around the refugees was so dark and dense that they assumed it was still night. Finally the teacher ventured out a bit to see their surroundings, and discovered two things: the morning sun was awake, and the LRA were in that same forest!
He made his way back to the children and told them to be silent.
Breathe slowly, breathe slowly, was the thought in their minds. Everyone said silent prayers as they heard boots nearby. We thought we have hidden, but we are right in their midst!
Loud enough for the group of students to hear, an LRA soldier bragged about clearing the barracks next to the school. Out of four battalions that had been present, only nine soldiers escaped. As the soldiers celebrated their conquest, they began singing and shouting in a language unknown to the escapees.
The teacher was confident that the soldiers would not find them, not with such a loud victory celebration going on. They cautiously proceeded to the stream they must cross.
"The stream had a rope that the soldiers would throw across to assist them with getting supplies and prisoners to the other side," Jeneth informed me. "One unlucky prisoner would be the one to go first to secure it. If he did not swim well, he would be shot then and there. Ma-atoo! he would cry. It means, Mama, I'm gone! His life would end then."
The group of students found this rope and all made it across, helping along eight-year-old Jeneth where necessary. By the hand of God, they made it to the edge of the forest, and then somehow made it to the village, despite their wounds and fatigue.
"Where is my family?!" Jeneth would ask frantically to any passersby. She heard of one cousin alive, and then two cousins alive; finally she got word that her father had gone to the school to rescue her as soon as the attack had started.
Jeneth pressed on, fearing the worst. She found her two cousins with a tearful reunion, and they carried her to her uncle's home, where she was reunited with both her parents.
As it turns out, her father had come running onto the scene of the fight as a bomb burst. The explosion buried him under so much dirt that he was never seen by the soldiers. Realizing that if he stood he would be killed, her father remained very quiet under the dust as soldiers even stood on him to gun down their opponents. That night he slept among the dead bodies, appearing as one of them, until morning light alerted him that it was safe to flee.
Jeneth's two cousins had also been missing, and were only reunited with their families at the same time as Jeneth. Their community had gathered together to support the girls' families until they were found.
"Our community was very united then," Jeneth recalls. "They would say, Shall we eat with joy? No! Our daughters are missing!"
For two weeks, the three girls were cared for in their village. The thorns were removed with hot water, and for a lack of medication, salt was used to treat the wounds, leaving many scars behind.
During these two weeks, Jeneth noticed a change in her community. "There was no more school," she told me. "You would hide yourself. Walk for a far distance, even kilometers, you would not meet a single human being. Everyone was fearing. Everyone was distrusting."
Afraid of another attack, Jeneth's father took drastic action. He contacted his Auntie, who had cared for him when his parents died, to ask if she could care for Jeneth and her two cousins in Gulu Town. When she agreed, he lost no time in packing them up to go.
"He paid for two months' rent- 10,000 shillings (about $3.50) then! How the prices have increased! He picked us millet, beans, maize, sim sim, charcoal, and a few dishes, and he brought us to Gulu Town."
All three girls were traumatized by their experiences, and their ears had grown very sharp. Jeneth's father loaded the three girls onto his bicycle: eight-year-old Jeneth sat in the front on a blanket, her father sat on the bike's seat, with Pauline, age twelve, and Grace, age ten, straddling the carrier in the back.
"The elders of our village came out to wish us good, spitting at our hearts, as is tradition. Nothing like stones can trip you, they spoke over us. You've done nothing wrong in this world. Light of God shine your way- reach Gulu safely."
****
I don't believe in concealing the few graphic details Jeneth told me to spare the readers' queasiness. If an eight-year-old can see it, we can read it, even if it makes us uncomfortable.
****
"We reached Kaladima in the evening, just a few hours after the LRA had gone through and killed. There were bodies everywhere... there was blood and brains scattered everywhere. My father silently peddled us around the bodies, keeping quiet- because who could have words? I hid my eyes and sobbed, tears filling my throat. When we had gone, my father told me to open my eyes, and he breathed out such a heavy breath."
Despite the threatening sights, they reached Gulu in safety, and their landlord became like a second mother to them. Jeneth attended school in Gulu all the way to P-7, or about the seventh grade. Around the time of P-5, her father became terminally ill with lung cancer, and he and Jeneth's mother were placed in an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp run by the United Nations, who provided food every day via delivery truck.
"In those days, as a child, it became dangerous to live in your home," Jeneth commented. "You would sleep at Lacor hospital instead. You go to school in the morning, by five in the evening you were home. You had to cook your dinner quickly, and by six o'clock you had to be at the hospital or be abducted. The hospital gate is closed by 6:30, so if your dinner was not finished, or you arrived home late, you simply did not eat that night. You would sleep on the veranda at the hospital compound; if it rained, it rained on you. You would throw your blanket over the fence to dry in the sun, and the next night it would be dry to sleep on again. You would not have the chance to wash your clothes or blanket."
Jeneth's father was moved to the hospital because of his condition. "I remember visiting him one Saturday. He told me he wanted to speak to me, as I was his first born. ‘Jeneth,' he said to me, 'I'm sorry, I don't think I will make it. I have tried, but I will not live. Before I die, promise me these things: Our family has always been staunch Catholic, but when I die, get saved! You will not overcome or persevere unless you get saved. Secondly, study. God will lead you, though my sickness has eaten all the money. No matter how many years it takes, don't give up your studies. That is your future. Finally, get married, but my advice is not to get married until you are twenty-eight. If you, as the first born, begin with bad manners, then all the children that follow you will have bad manners. God will lead your path and not leave you, and your mother will feed you until you are grown.'"
Jeneth sighed and continued. "I cried and cried, and I prayed to stop the situation, but the next afternoon he passed."
****
Due to her father's death, money for school fees was greatly reduced, but Jeneth was still able to attend day school. She moved out of the home she had shared with her two cousins and into a three-room house in town with three of her sisters and her two brothers. They lived twenty miles from their mother's village, and they returned home every holiday.
A few days after Jeneth's sixteenth birthday, she went to her mother's home to pick her brother the night before her end-of-term exams. They ate dinner with their mother and stayed the night, having made preparations to return to town in the morning.
"At this time, I had not even received Christ. I had prayed for my father not to die, but he was not spared. I was annoyed and bitter with God."
In the middle of the night there came a knock on the door. “Today we are finished,” said Jeneth's mother. “Today Jeneth will not escape.”
Upon opening the door, they saw nothing but the bright light of a torch (flashlight) in their eyes. The LRA soldiers flashed their torch across the room, spying out the people who were in the house. Tearing the blanket from Jeneth's head, they ordered her to come. Shakily, warily, Jeneth looked into her mother's eyes as she obeyed.
"My mother was crying, but I shed no tears. I was so bitter, and I wished only bad things on me."
Jeneth was led out to a group of other children- both girls and boys, many of them her age, many of them younger- where they were tied together like slaves. Wrists were bound, and ropes tied around their waists linked them all together in a line. They were ordered to walk, and walk they did, now as soldiers and officers' wives.
Jeneth looked at me with tears in her eyes as she continued with her story. "On abduction, Robin, I was a virgin. I had never even had a boyfriend. I was wearing my school uniform when I was abducted, and the men called me Student. I was sixteen years old, and so I was grouped apart from those whose bodies had not yet developed.
"The commanders gathered and were told to choose their women. You have no options. If you refuse, they shoot you or hit you over the head until you die. You can only go with them.
"I was chosen by an old man, older even than my father. The image of him is still in my head. But I have forgiven that man..." By this time, tears rolled down Jeneth's face, and, I realized, mine as well. "They choose you, and then they start sex then and there, however they want. He took my virginity, and the next morning ordered me to walk. If you don't walk, they shoot you.
"I thank God. He loves me!" Jeneth exclaimed to me through her tears. "So many girls got pregnant while we were in the bush. If they escaped, it was often with two or three children they’d had by one officer or another. But somehow, my period disappeared while I was in the bush, and did not return until four months after my escape. It's been normal ever since.”
She continued, "Some girls were forced to carry luggage, but this man who chose me did not trust me. He was convinced that I would run away, because I was a student. Forcing my hands into his armpits, he threatened to kill me if I ran, and we walked with my hands under his arms.
"I hated everything during my time in the bush, including myself, including God. I asked all the time, is there even a God? But He loved me even then.”
Their group was bound for Sudan, where the LRA took many of their abductees to train them as soldiers. Once they crossed the border, the children did not come back unless it was as a soldier. Although Jeneth spent six months in the bush with the LRA, she determined from the start that she was not destined for Sudan.
One day, the commander of their group sent Jeneth to fetch water. Following her out away from the group, he asked if she wanted to go back to school. By this time, Jeneth's school uniform hung in tatters across her body, but she answered confidently, "Yes."
The old man that had chosen Jeneth was a womanizer. When new girls were abducted, the commanders were again told to pick their women, and the man forgot about Jeneth. Now it was a new girl whose hands he kept under his arms as they walked, and Jeneth carried luggage with the other girls.
“We cooked a lot of beans, sometimes goat, and then we would eat and get ready to walk. At three in the morning we would leave, carrying the luggage. If government soldiers were close, we would run, but otherwise we walked slowly.
“This one morning we reached a place in the road filled with deep holes, and I knew it was time to risk an escape. I jumped into the hole instead of across it, wondering the whole time if anyone had seen me. I didn’t have time to question if things were in the hole- if something lived in the hole. I just risked it and sat quiet.
At eight in the morning, the line of soldiers and children was still passing by the hole, but no one saw Jeneth hiding inside. The commander of the group was last in the line, acting as the rear guard. Jeneth did not realize he was there, and slowly peeped her head until they made eye contact. If I rise and he doesn’t like me, he will shoot me, she thought.
“I decided to rise though he might shoot. They don’t allow escape, but this might be the only chance I would get. I looked into his eyes and shed tears.”
“Young girl,” the commander said to Jeneth, “do you want to go back to school?”
Her uniform in tatters, Jeneth nodded through her tears. “Yes.”
“I’m not going to kill you. Return to school- maybe you will even help my children in the future. May your God send you! Study hard. Struggle hard. Go!”
Jeneth hardly dared to hope, afraid that the commander would pretend to let her go and then shoot her as she ran. “No, I’ll not kill you,” he answered to her questioning eyes. “Let me be the one to disappear.”
She watched him walk until his shape was gone into the distance, and then she took off running deep into the bush.
How will I make it? she wondered as she ran. He who made me to escape will save me!
One day into her escape, there was nothing and no one.
Two days into her escape, there was nothing and no one.
Three days into her escape, she found cassava (edible root similar in taste and texture to a potato). Chewing as she walked, she wondered how far she could go without water.
It rained that night.
Four days into her escape, she saw a woman in the distance. Jeneth began running toward her, crying for help with what little energy she had left. The woman, fearing Jeneth was from the LRA, ran away, but stopped when she heard Jeneth’s plea:
“I need your help! I am a woman, like you. Please, I beg you, take me where there are people. I prayed to meet someone like you!”
“She dropped her basket and picked me on her back,” Jeneth said with gratitude still in her voice. “She told me, ‘God wanted to save your life, and He sent me.’”
The woman reported Jeneth’s case to the leaders of her community in hopes of somehow tracing Jeneth’s family. While she was being nursed back to health, she was introduced to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that provided support for former abductees. She was allowed to make a broadcast over the radio telling her family that she was alive, and, if they were alive, to come and pick her.
“I thought I was not loved,” Jeneth said with wonder, “but all of the students at my school were the first to reach me. My mother came the next day to take me home, and we cried as we hugged each other. Every day at my mother’s home, a vehicle came from the NGO to counsel me, to preach the Word to me.
“God loves me. Our heart’s healing does not take a day- I still cry. I still must release it.
“In 2004, at Christmastime, I confessed Jesus. I will serve God with all my heart for the rest of my life. This year, in 2013, I have finally reached forgiveness. I’ve forgiven, released, and surrendered all. If you don’t forgive, you cannot surrender. I even have forgiven that man; I even have forgiven myself. I like myself now!”
****
Jeneth received counseling from two different NGOs and is currently sponsored to finish her high school education. Against all odds, she tested negative for HIV, and is completely healthy. She wants to travel abroad, meeting people and sharing her story, in the hopes that people will be made aware of the plight of vulnerable children.
When I asked if I could share her story, she smiled and answered, “There is no problem. Share my story where you think it will change someone’s life. Testimonies can do that- change the lives of broken people who think their burdens are too great. See where I’ve come from! Nothing is impossible.”
