01/07/2018 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – Adijah is living with a Christian family in Kisinga, Western Uganda, after she was threatened and disowned by her husband for becoming a Christian. One year ago, Adijah and her daughter Nuriah left Bwera, where they had lived for over 20 years, and headed to a new district in Kasese with very little hope of ever returning home. She shared her story with International Christian Concern (ICC) during a recent visit.
“All the years that I was a Muslim, I found nothing wrong with it. But last year, when I was listening to a radio program about Jesus, I started thinking about Christianity and why there was so much enmity between Muslims and Christians. I did not know [it then, but it] started my journey to Christianity,” said Adijah.
“My husband learned that I had accepted Christ when he found a Bible in the house. I pleaded with him to allow me to try out my new faith and see how far I would go, but he was reluctant. Within days, he became hostile towards me and Nuriah who had also started reading the Bible. I was given a one-week ultimatum to decide if I wanted to become a non-Muslim and follow the lost religion of Christianity,” she continued.
Adijah’s faith eventually became public. Then, her family and the Islamic community told her husband to cast her away, deeming her an infidel and an enemy to the family with deeply Islamic roots. Her husband, who is a former police officer and an Islamic extremist, soon threw her out of the house.
“You are an infidel; I do not want to see you here. Pick your clothes and leave with Nuriah because she has also started reading the Bible and singing Christian hymns. See the shame and destruction you have brought to us. Nuriah used to be a good Muslim, but now she hides and goes with you to church,” Adijah’s husband told her.
“We lack many things, but eternal life is not one of them.”
Adijah’s aggravated husband threatened to fully disown her and her daughter, and took all of their possessions.
Adijah said, “The following day before we left, he had uprooted all the cassava crops I had planted. Shouting at the top of his voice, he threatened to take back everything that he had put under my name so that I will not inherit any property from him. He said these were the dire consequences of forsaking Allah and his prophet and following after other gods.”
Although Nuriah, a primary 6 student, hates Islam, she is afraid to convert to Christianity because of her father. She said, “I am ready to become a Christian, but my father might look for me and beat me. I still love my father but he doesn’t want us to worship the way we want. He should not force us into Islam. One of our relatives has informed us that my father is looking for ways to kill us.”
Adijah’s husband has since remarried. “I hear that he has looked for a Muslim lady and they are staying together in the same house we used to live. We live in fear because we don’t know what he is planning to do to us.” Adijah told ICC.
For a year now, Adijah has not been able to work or secure a place to cultivate crops. She survives on gifts from well-wishers of food, clothing, and school fees for Nuriah. She confessed, “It has not been easy; though, through the trials, the Lord has been faithful to us. We lack many things, but eternal life is not one of them. The reward waiting for us in Heaven is of more worth than our current suffering.”
