Dear Pastor,

I am a country girl, but I came to Kingston to live with relatives and to go to high school. My relatives didn't treat me well, but I did not complain because I did not want to go back to the country. One day, when my father came to visit me, he asked me if I was happy. I said yes, but I started to cry. He asked me why I was crying and I told him nothing. He called my cousin and told her that he just asked me if I was happy and I started to cry. She told him a lot of things that were not true and my father was very surprised.

He told me that if I did not want to stay, I could come home with him. I dried my tears and told him I would stay. I did not want to go home with him. My father was a very intelligent man. He stayed with me and talked to me privately under an almond tree and asked me again if they were treating me well. I told him the truth and why I was so unhappy. After the school term was over, my father made arrangements for me to stay with one of my schoolteachers who took in boarders. This woman took me under her wings and helped me. She was very strict, but she was loving and kind and taught me how to cook. She had a car and two other girls lived with her, and wherever she went she took us. People who did not know us thought that she was our mother. The girls called her mother, so I called her mother, too. I passed my subjects and she encouraged all of us to go on to university. My father would bring ground provisions and other things for me. I told her that I would go to HEART and she discussed it with my father and told him that he should encourage me to go to university. He had no money, but he had cows and goats and she encouraged him to sell some of his animals and she would get people to be my guarantor for a student loan. I am currently finishing university. It has not been easy, but I owe so much to my teacher. Now I have a boyfriend and he cannot understand why I talk so much about my teacher. He says that I am putting her before him. I told him no, but had it not been for her, I would not be where I am. I will never forget what this woman did for me and for my family. Because of the way he is carrying on, I have refused to introduce him to my teacher and to my parents. Everytime we meet, he is pressuring me for sex and telling me that he does not know whether I am a man or woman. I am so upset with him because he wants me to be ungrateful to this woman. He tells me that all she did for me was board me. She has been a mother to me. Do you think I should continue with this guy?

Y.M.

Dear Y.M.,

I suggest that you drop this young man. He is not a good guy. He wants you to be ungrateful to your teacher. You know where you are coming from. You know what you had to endure when you were staying at your relatives' home and how unhappy you were. You had a wonderful teacher and an outstanding guardian who helped to guide you and to mentor you. You can never turn your back on her.

You have not said anything about your mother, but you speak highly of your daddy. But thank God for your daddy. You were his little girl in whom he had confidence. May you always be grateful to your teacher and to daddy and mommy if she is alive. But I repeat, get rid of this so-called boyfriend of yours.

Pastor