Mary's Story: Part One

Here is a story about a girl called Mary. I must warn you in advance that the photos are beyond shocking; I don't post these to emotionally manipulate you, but because they truly capture the heartbreaking reality of a girl whose life has been turned upside down.  If a picture speaks a thousand words, you couldn't find a more eloquent way to add to this story...

Mary in early 2012

In November 2012, the JENGA staff were asked to pray for a young 17 year old girl called Mary who had been maliciously burnt. Sadly it is quite common here that young girls, desperate to find love, affirmation and financial security are often lured into relationships with older (and even married) men. It seems that Mary had fallen into the same trap and had met a ‘pastor’ who she had got to know over a few weeks. It started off as just prayers together but inevitably led to something more.  

A sister-in-law of the man was angry about this relationship, as she had intended for him to marry her sister. She decided to resolve the issue and attacked Mary by pouring incredibly hot boiling water over her.  We don't know exactly what happened, but severe burns covered Mary's entire face, torso and parts of her legs; a malicious attack intended to permanently maim Mary. 

This is how we found Mary.
We have the photos of her straight
after the attack but they are too grim to
post here

As the local hospital lack the facilities to adequately look after such cases, they had referred Mary to Kampala. Mary's family were, like most people here, unable to pay for her medical treatment, and so she was discharged and returned to her village where she would inevitably die a slow and painful death. This is when we heard her story. 

Domestic cases like this are common, and we don’t have infinite resources, but as a team we felt a strong urge to go and investigate. The team found Mary lying in the dark in excruciating pain, with dirty old bandages around wounds so severe she had to lie naked and eyes that couldn’t stay open. It was truly heart-breaking and we felt we just had to help, so that night, a car was hired and Mary was taken to Kampala. We found out that Mary was a few weeks pregnant – it got more and more complicated, but we knew we had to at least try and help her.

Mary's stomach when we found her in the village

Mary stayed in Kampala until Christmas, being treated in Mulago Hospital. Throughout this time, we provided dressings and drugs for Mary, along with food and living expenses for her caregiver. (In Uganda every patient has to have a caregiver with them as there are neither staff nor facilities to cook for, provide clean bedding or bathe the patients.)  As Mary’s treatment continued there were talks about terminating the pregnancy for the sake of her recovery but nobody wanted to take that step and the doctors decided ‘to let nature take its course’.

In December we moved Mary back to Mbale to J.O.Y. hospice, a community-based clinic we regularly use. It was nearer to home and gave the rest of her family a bit more of a chance to help where they could. Her wounds were still extensive and healing poorly mainly because they were so deep and had not been treated as well as they should have been in Kampala. Her stomach was the biggest struggle because as it contracted for the baby, the wounds had little chance to heal. Her body was using all of its resources to keep the baby alive – there was little left to heal her wounds.

As the months passed, Mary continued to make progress. Amazingly the baby continued to grow, but Mary had lost a lot of weight and her wounds remained raw and very painful. The reality of Mary’s situation was grim, scarred physically and emotionally she had little desire to fight for her life, or that of her baby.

In April, Mary was finally physically able to undertake a scan - previously they had not been able to because of the open wounds on her stomach. They estimate she’s somewhere between 32 and 36 weeks at the end of April.  We find out that the little life that has miraculously reached this far is a boy.  We can’t wait to meet him!

Hope is in the air… but it’s tinged with a hint of fear on all of our parts… everyone who had been involved in her care for the last 6 months is more than a little scared that after this long battle something will go wrong at the last hurdle. I wish I hadn’t had that fear… because life is not in our hands …But its so hard sometimes not to be overwhelmed by the sight in front of you, especially when from human perspective what I was seeing was a young girl, permanently scarred, still in pain, far smaller in stature than when we first met her even though she was carrying a baby.  Mary was almost skeletal apart from a tiny bump and had no evidential hope or excitement to meet her baby. It is hard to have faith in that situation, but it turned out God was still going to surprise us!

To be continued...

Mary in the village in November. 

Mary’s care has so far cost us over £1000. This far exceeds our normal budget for health support but we were left with little choice than to continue with sponsoring her care in faith.

If you are able and would like to contribute towards Mary's care (previous and ongoing), please do so here. 

If you would like to generally support JENGAs Hospital Ministry 'Hands of Love', which seeks to help other patients unable to afford medical care, please click here.

For more information about JENGA please go to www.jengauganda.org. 

Thank you