Miriam Deborah lived in destitution and spent half of her youthful life as a sex worker in Rwanda, Uganda, Dubai and Paris. Her life was in tatters. However, three years ago, she re-discovered herself and turned to Jesus Christ. The 31-year-old founded a new church, Deborah Ministry, located in Nyamirambo, a Kigali Suburb, from where she has now dedicated her life to spreading the word of God.

I am the first born in a family of four. I never saw my father because he never lived with my mother. My mother and siblings died of HIV/Aids.  All of them. I was in Senior Three when my mother passed on.  Later, I went to stay with my relatives in Nyakabanda in Nyamirambo.

By then I had already dropped out of school due to lack of school fees. In 2004, when I was 18, I met a man in a nightclub in Kigali. Our chemistry was immediate and got married soon after. 

At first I was very excited because I looked at him as a savior. The only person that showed me love was my mother and she had died. I put my faith in his hands. We had a child and named her Keza (Pretty). We had loved each other and we had plans to marry legally.

But months later, I discovered that my husband had another wife. This betrayal made the world so thin for me. Deeply hurt, I became so wicked. I never wanted to meet or see this man again. The best way to avoid it was to find another hiding place.

I had a friend who was living in Kampala, Uganda, and persuaded me to relocate. Initially, I had planned to go as far as Europe but I was conned in Kampala when I was given forged travel documents including a passport. When I went to Paris, I was deported because they discovered I had fake papers.

I came back and settled in Uganda. In life I have learnt that the more you run away from the devil, the more you run towards it. While fleeing Rwanda, I was trying to escape the man who ruined my young life but little did I know that I was actually running towards a bigger evil than I was fleeing.

In Uganda, I met another man. He was my friend’s boyfriend. One day, we went out (me and him) and later retired together at his home. The following morning, he said he had HIV/Aids and that he had longed to infect me with the disease.

He said I was silly to have accepted to sleep with him. Later, this man’s girlfriend tested her HIV status and found out she was positive. The news hit me like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.

Revenge

Now it was over. I had wasted my past and my future had been nibbled in the bud. I started going out with every man but would love no one. My intention was simply to revenge. To kill many men before I die.

It didn’t matter to me how long I had to wait in order to carry out this evil act – only if I could do it before I died. Soon, I found home on the streets and teamed up with other sex workers. Before I knew it, I had become ‘cabbage’.  I had developed belief that for one to forget daily worries, she had to drink and smoke daily.

I would smoke marijuana non-stop on a daily basis and would not stop until I blacked out. I can’t count how many men I went out with.

I had become a disgrace and started asking myself how I would survive the hostile society back home. Because every friend and relative in Kigali had heard about my habits. I would cry every night. I found solace in booze and men. The year was 2006.

I tried to go to Dubai but life there was full of exploitation, revenge and sex slavery. I stayed there briefly then returned to Uganda. I changed my identities several times. Today, I would call myself Mbabazi, tomorrow Aisha, then the next day Pamela.

I moved to Juba, South Sudan where sex workers were getting a lot of money. There was a time a man offered me $1,000 a day. I made a lot of money and I even started a bar. I fell in love with a minister in South Sudan. Everybody knew him as an HIV positive person. He was a wealthy man. At this point, I didn’t have any problem sleeping with anybody as long as I would get cash in return. He would get me whenever he wanted. He paid for my air tickets and rent as I wasted my life away (breaks down and weeps).

I got another child with a young man. I paid him to sleep with me. I think I paid around $1,000 to get him. I was now a sugar mummy. My aim was to trap young boys and kill them.

(At this moment, she is overcome by emotion and stops talking. She starts weeping again)… I knew I was going to die but needed to carry out my revenge quickly (breaks down again).

Turning point

So I was pregnant now and could not ‘work’. I lied the minister that I was carrying his child. He paid for my air ticket and I came back to Rwanda through Uganda.

I hid myself in Kibungo in a place called Kabarondo. My pregnancy had issues and I needed to go for medical checkup. The condition was that I had to test my HIV status. I knew I was sick. I asked my friends to buy me waragi so I could get drunk. I wanted my results to come when I was not conscious.

You see, when you are drunk you feel you have solved all the big problems of the world. But the following day, you realise to have only doubled the problems. When the results came out, I was told I was HIV negative! I could not believe the doctors so I decided to visit several hospitals. They, too, said I was fine. I felt like God had given me another lease on my life.

I have learnt to forgive all people who wronged me including my former man. But I keep asking myself why God saved me. Most of my friends died of HIV. I think of the fact that I slept with hundreds of men but found myself negative.

You cannot hurt me now. I have given the whole of my life to God because it is the Lord’s will that I survived.

In 2010, my friend Rose Iribagiza got me back to church. The church is called Christian Family Church. I later founded my own Church called Deborah Ministry based in Nyakabanda. Like the biblical Paul who was on his way to Damascus to persecute more Christians and God converted him, I am also converted and determined to spread the gospel.