I am having a baby with my 'brother'

Dear Pastor,

This is the second time that I am writing to you. I am having a problem. I am a 19-years-old girl, and I am working. I grew up with my grandfather and grandmother, but they are not my grandparents by blood. When I was two years old, my real mother asked them to keep me because she was going to one of the islands for six months to work. My grandparents agreed. They had two girls who were big women, and one of them had a son.

This son was about four years old when I was two. We grew up like brother and sister. My mother came back after two years. She tried to take me, but the people I was living with told her that they had got attached to me, so she left me and went away again, but this time to America.

She did not send any money for me, but she sent barrels of food and clothes. When I was 13 years old, the grandson of the people I was living with started to fool around me. When I was bathing, he would come and peep at me. I told his mother, but they did nothing about it. After a while, I got to loving him. He was learning a trade, and I was in high school. Every time he got money, he would buy me something.

My grandfather suspected that something was going on, and he warned the both of us. When I was almost 16 years old, my grandfather came home early from bush and caught us having sex. He had to sleep in the outside kitchen. I told my grandfather that he held me down, but I was lying. It wasn't the first time we were having sex.

His mother told my grandfather that she saw me showing him my breasts one time and that she spoke to me about it. Both of us are in love, Pastor, and it is real love. We have left the district, and we are living on our own. I am pregnant for him, and some people from the community say that I am pregnant for my brother. But, he is not my brother. Even my mother told me that because I had been living there so long and we had been living there as brother and sister, I shouldn't carry the baby.

I will be 20 years old in January 2019. I didn't want to get pregnant now, but it happened. My mother says that I don't have any ambition. What should I do, Pastor?

T.R.

Dear T.R.,

Have your baby. Your mother was irresponsible. She left you in the hands of total strangers. These people tried their best with you, and at least you went to high school. But their grandson never saw you as a sister, and he harassed you, and you responded. Eventually, you all started to have sex. Now you are living as husband and wife. Don't allow anyone to tell you to terminate the pregnancy.

However, if you believe that this child is going to hinder you from getting a career, you and the father should give the baby up for adoption. Do nothing to make this child suffer, but please don't have an abortion. And please, go back to school.

Pastor