Victory at the End of the Tunnel!

My people!

Our second guest on the stories of Hope series is the faithful Stella Kirabo, a child whisperer, youth developer, great entrepreneur, loyal wife and proud mother of 1.

You can send her a friend request on her Facebook in the name of Nakibuuka Stella Phiona.

Over to Stella now, it is such an honour to have you here, girl!

In 2012, when I had just joined university, I bumped into this calm, eloquent and adorable guy at church who later became my friend. The truth is I liked his character.
The friendship grew, and we eventually started dating.

Being Christians, we decided to keep pure. Before I met him, I had signed a sexual purity card and committed to God to stay pure till marriage.
I would always voice it to him to wait to have sex till we were married.
One of my biggest fears was getting pregnant out of wedlock; I would echo it to him now and then whenever we were together.
On my birthday night, he paid me a visit to put some merry on the day. Meanwhile, I had decided to go for an overnight but how we ended up at my home is a story for another day. Things happened, and after a short while, I tested HCG +ve. I was pregnant!

I had to face my fears at this time. We were both ministers at church, he was the lead person for the audio-visual team, and I was part of the children’s ministry.

I thank God we had accountability partners inform of mentors and friends whom we confided in.
After we opened up to them, they advised us to speak to our pastors about it, which we did.
Our kind of church was the one where they call you at the front to confess your sins, oh my! It was hard, but we did it. It was a tough time for both of us, but our families were anchors of strength during that season.

Romans: 12:2 was my encouraging verse of the season, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…  it’s interesting how God speaks to us through his word. 
I had already conformed to the world’s standards by having sex before marriage, yet the part that says renew your mind was always my prayer.
I had to ask the spirit of God to help me renew my mind. And He did. 
Around the fifth month, my baby daddy got a terrible accident that almost took his leg; things became worse. Heavily pregnant yet had to take care of an accident victim in one of the government hospitals whose conditions were appalling.
The following year in April, our baby girl came.

Before all this, I always asked God to help me mentor young people; I remember one of my mentees telling me how my life seemed perfect in her eyes that she could tremble at the thought of opening up to me. After all that mess, the girl said she would now identify with me. 
She gradually laid bare her soul to me for connection, and our relationship became exciting and better.

One of the things I learnt during this season is that all things work together for good to them that love God, called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28.

 There is not one thing, whether good or bad, which has ever happened or will happen to us that will go wasted. The highest power will mould every single crisis, challenge, and joyful moment to align with our calling.

That crisis helped in steering me to destinations of effective mentorship relationship and ministry that I yearned for.
I overcame that fear, and I am now helping young people going through the same. 
I am currently mentoring about five girls, and the journey is fascinating.
We eventually got married last year in March 2020.
I am glad that God’s word at that time played a significant role in facing my fear.
Praise be to God who takes everything that the enemy meant for evil and turns it for good.