Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column and I am having a problem with my husband and his relatives. These people believe in obeah. They worship the devil. Every Friday morning my husband and his mother go to the back of the house where my husband's grandfather is buried and they carry food and rum and leave them on the grave. Then early on Sunday mornings they go back to the grave. I am getting to be afraid of my husband and his mother.

I told my husband that I do not want to stay here anymore. I did not know that he was like that. I met my husband in Florida and we got married. And we are here for just a little while. Now that I know the family, I want to get out of this marriage. Sometimes I don't want my husband to touch me and I don't eat anything from his mother.

Pastor, do you think that something bad is going to happen to my husband? Do you believe that it is right to take food to the dead?

I enjoy reading your column and thank you for reading my letter.

T.E.,

Dear T.E.,

I understand why you would feel uncomfortable staying at your mother-in-law's home. Evidently, your husband believes in the ritual of putting food and rum on the graves of dead people. And in this case his grandfather's grave. Perhaps his grandfather loved to drink rum while he was alive. So they believe that although he is dead and cannot speak, he has the power to eat and drink.

You ask whether I believe in doing such things and the answer is no. I consider food too expensive to waste. And I wish your husband and his mother would desist from practising such ritual.

I do understand why you would not want your husband to even touch you. You believe that his hands are not clean and that his mother probably believes in invoking the spirits of the dead and working obeah, etc.

Perhaps you should tell your husband that if he continues to carry on his rituals you will have nothing to do with him. On the other hand, you should try your best to ascertain his reasons why he and his mother have to go to the grave every Friday. Will you be willing to suggest that they take you along to see what they are doing?

Pastor