Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column and hope you can help me with my problem. I am a young girl. I graduated a year ago from high school. My biological father has filed for me. I am waiting to be called. I am working but getting minimum wage. Whenever I get my pay, the lady I am living with wants me to spend it in the house to buy food and help pay for her little daughter attending basic school.

I can't save or to buy anything for myself. I I talk, she tells me that she can't wait to see me out of the house. My father tells me to hold on, everything is going to be all right, very soon. I believe him.

Pastor, I am a good girl. Sometimes my friends encourage me to seek a man who can help me. I tell them I will do without. One of my former schoolmates has three different boyfriends. They don't know about each other. She has two cell- phones and it is her boyfriends who bought them for her. She uses one to talk to her friends but the other one is to do her racketeering.

These men always give her money. She is never broke. I cannot tell my father everything because he would call and curse everybody. It would be worse for me.

My mother sent me six nice panties with a neighbour. The woman at the house gave me two. She took four of them. I cannot let my father know.

I don't have a boyfriend. I have never had sex. If I get a boyfriend, he would want to have sex, so I am waiting until I get to America to find a man who will marry me. I read your column everyday and listen to your show at nights. Keep up your good work.

D.E

Dear D.E.,

Continue to be a good girl. I know you could have taken the advice of your friend and keep boyfriends who would give you money, but that is not the way you wish to go. I congratulate you for that. Your friend has three men in her life. She is playing a dangerous game because people will eventually find out that her character is bad. They are not going to have respect for her, so although she might be having fun and getting money, she is developing a bad reputation.

It seems to me the people you live with are not considerate. They should know that it is wrong to have you spend all your money to purchase grocery and other items for the house while they contribute little. I hope soon you will be able to join your father in the United States of America.

Pastor