“Either you abandon the child, or I will abandon you.”
The ultimatum fell on Pendo’s ears like the blows she had endured from her husband ever since their son Daniel had first shown signs of disability. The boy’s seizures had begun when he was four months old. Then, at six months of age, he became unable to lift his head. Soon after, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
“When [my husband] discovered the child had a problem, he showed no love for me or the child,” Pendo recalled. “He would beat me while I was holding the child. Every day, all I could do was cry.”
Driven out of her home, Pendo tried to support herself through a roadside stand, but the same cultural stigma that had led her husband to blame her for her son’s condition also repelled customers. She daily cursed her husband, wishing he would suffer as Daniel did.
Feeling completely alone, she decided to attend God’s Tribe Church, where she met ABWE missionaries Joe and Brittany James. Brittany, along with Tanzanian ministry partner Joseph Boon, leads Dar Health Initiative, an advocacy and health education ministry that helps patients obtain medical care. Evaluating Daniel’s needs, they provided a custom wheelchair and assisted with the cost of physical therapy, while also supplying mosquito nets and water filters to help alleviate Pendo’s suffering. More importantly, they taught her to know Christ through studying the Bible.
“I have become someone who puts God first,” Pendo shared with a smile.
Changed by the grace of God, “her life now is marked by extending forgiveness to others that have wronged her,” observed Brittany, “because she knows the forgiveness she’s received through Jesus.”
Even in hardship, Pendo encourages others to turn to Christ. “I tell [them] that God is there, and God is able, and that they should not lose hope.”
