Pastor Robert’s Story
13years ago, we went to preach the gospel in Sheema district and the church that hosted us is where we found an old woman who approached Pastor Bagonza Robert during the counseling time and she asked him to pray for her for God to provide for her family’s basic needs since she was taking care of many grandchildren. Among her grandchildren, she had two who were abit grown, one was 19 and the other was 18years old, their grandmother requested Pastor Bagonza Robert to atleast give these two grandchildren any kind of jobs, by that time Pastor had no maids at home so he decided to take them home to work as his house maids, he talked to them and requested them to atleast save the money he will be paying them since he was providing for them everything they needed.
Pastor’s wife always bought for them pads so one day she took for the girls pads but when she reached their room, she found that they hadn’t used the pads she gave them last month but she did mind so she just dropped more pads for them in their room, after a month she brought for the girls more pads but she found they hadn’t used the pads for the last two months so she called them and asked them why they are not using the pads, they told her they have not been going in their periods, she got scared and told Pastor Robert everything when he came back, he called the girls asked them if they are pregnant but they said no so he got angry, changed the tone of my voice and asked them for the last time, the young one said we are not sure but maybe we could be pregnant, Pastor got shocked and asked her to tell him why she thinks they are pregnant, she told him that they have boyfriends whereby one was our deliveryman and the other was a builder around their home area that immediately gave Pastor a reason why the delivery man has not been picking his calls so he went to the bodaboda stage where he used to stage but they told Pastor he travelled to Kampala, Pastor went to the construction site and asked for the builder who got the other girl pregnant but he was told that he has spent around one and half months away. Pastor felt so angry went to the bank and took the girls back to their village and told their grandmother that the girls got pregnant, she felt so hurt and bad but Pastor told her he have brought back the girls and he gave her the money they had worked for while at Pastor’s place.
Pastor came back home and he explained to his wife everything that happened when he took the girls back so after some time as he was on Mbarara high street, he saw one of the girls who was working for him, he rushed and greeted her then asked her if she gave birth and she said yes the baby is fine so they went to a baby shop and he bought some clothes for the baby then he asked the girl to take him so he can see the baby, the girl took him somewhere and told him that is where they sleep, she said she had forgotten the key and had taken the baby somewhere, she asked him to stay there so that she can go and get the keys to her house but time kept moving and Pastor realized he had stood there for around 40minutes so he was forced to enter the gate, he asked the neighbors if they know the girl and her baby, they said they know her but they have never seen her with any baby though she lives with another girl, Pastor didn’t believe what they said and asked them to please tell him the truth but they said we are telling you the truth because the girls have spent here four months but we have never seen them with any baby, one of the women said she has just entered the gate and used the behind gate and ran away, time was running and Pastor had a lunch hour service to attend so he went, preached and went home for lunch where he told his wife everything and she told him that they shall go and visit them on Sunday, they went to their church on Sunday found them there and asked the other girl if she had also given birth but she just kept quiet so they asked the other one once again since he was doubting her after the words her neighbors told him but they girls said pastor the truth is when you took us back home we aborted with the help of our auntie since even the ones that had gotten us pregnant had switched off their phones, we don’t know where they stay and there is no way we could even start looking for them, you had also took us home where everyone was just laughing at us, the only option we had was to abort, Pastor felt very bad and told his wife we should go, with time Pastor kept thinking about these girls, he felt guilty and starting blaming himself that atleast if maybe he had stayed with these girls they wouldn’t have aborted, he felt so guilty that he was capable of taking care of these girls and their babies but he pushed them away.
He was forced to ask God for forgiveness because he had lost peace, after some time he went to see the girls and asked them again to tell him everything but they told him the same thing, he went back home looked at the clothes he had bought for the baby so he had to do something to make him forget about the girls and babies, he got the clothes he had bought and gave them to a woman who had a baby but it didn’t change anything, so after some time he went to our church radio program to preach the gospel so after preaching a woman called him asking Pastor to pray for her after she had gotten pregnant and chased away from home, she said she is staying at her friend’s home but life is still not good since the place is small and that they have nothing to eat at times, Pastor said that his heart told him that he must help her so that she doesn’t abort like the other girls, he kept talking to her, praying and counseling her until he met her at church and he told her to come and stay at church, after some time another girl called him with same issue, when he went for the radio program, another person called him with the same issue saying she has been staying in different places for help but wherever she goes they ask her to bring her man, he asked all the three girls to stay at church, their pregnancies grew and by God’s grace he was able to provide for them, when the first two where about to give birth, he went to preach the gospel and gave a testimony for what the Lord had done, encouraged other pastors to do the same. Among the people in the service, there were four women with the same problem , then the other two had the same issue but one was staying with the grandmother and the other with the mother so he took only the four who totally had no where to stay but counselled the other two and that’s how the story of helping the women that face unintended pregnancies started.
The women at the church were now 16 in number and taking care of them was becoming a challenge so he prayed to God and as he was still praying the number of women increased to 23 whereby they had to eat, sleep, get medicine etc, he started searching and that is when he found a woman called Dayer who gave him a link to a website which was also helping girls like he was doing, he asked for some advice on how they are keeping up through a woman called Denise Stein, she was a very good and kind person, she taught him different ideas, gave him curriculums and knowledge about many things which kept him moving after she told him that it’s possible, she started giving him money to support the girls, promised to come and see them which she has been doing. That is a brief background of how PRO-grace started however as days, months and years keep moving as PRO-grace, we now have a total number of 4500women and 1300 children from 91 centers in 17 districts.