Mary Wambui

Many of you remember the story of Mary Wambui. In 2009 I met Mary( pictured here) She was smart and very small and frail. Each day of the clinic she would wait to come and talk to me. Each day she told me she needed funds to go back to school. Her father had died ( I believe) and her mother was sick. She told me one day that God told her I would help her.

So... I was busy working in the clinic and finally on the last day, we got some supplies for her to go back to school. We visited her house and met her sister. She came on Saturday to help us pack things up from the clinic. It was there that I saw how quick she was and how anxious she was to learn. She told me that she wanted to go to school and have a good life.

We left the next day. And there was still something troubling me about Mary.  The next year when we returned, I wanted to find her and see how school was going. A local pastor knew her and he went to her mother to try to find her. There was something "strange" going on. We were told that Mary was a house girl for someone in Nairobi. We searched for her while we were there. We did not find her before we left. So, from the US we continued to search for her. Peter, my brother, and our pastor friend found her. We got her back to Nakuru and she even moved in with Peter and Mama Chico and their family. We got her into boarding school. We were all so pleased.

And then as time went on, we started to understand what her life had really been for the last year or so. She had actually married and had a baby - and there was far more to the story than we ever realized.

She left school. It was too late. She had become a woman and now her life would never be the same.
I wept, because I had not done more quickly enough. I felt like I had not listened to God and because of that, it was too late for her.

Since then, we have gotten several other young girls into school and it feels good to be making that difference.

Today, I received tragic news. Mary Wambui who was married and had a 3 month old baby ate poison and took her own life. I vow never to put off another young girl. It breaks my heart and I will never forget her. If I had gotten her in boarding school in 2009 she might be alive today.

My heart is very heavy. But with the Lord's help, we will find the other young girls who are in danger.