My name is Ilaa Singh and my story really begins when I was eight years old, it was then that my father who was a shopkeeper ran away with another woman. He did not divorce my mother he just disappeared. My mother did not know what happened but she knew that we must be fed. We had moved from Bangladesh a few years before with no family nearby, also she was not educated so she began working in the fields, she earned six rupees per day and that is all we had to live on. My mother kept looking for my dad, trying to find out what happened to him. Eventually she found him and at the same time discovered the hopelessness of our situation. She fell into deep depression and eventually ended up in the hospital. My sister began working in a garbage factory picking out plastic and helped to earn some money.

By the time I was ten my mother died, and after that my father came to take me back to live with him. I helped around the house and worked like other girls my age, by the time I was 13 my father decided it was time for me to marry so he began looking for a proposal for me. My uncle had a friend from Bihar from where he bought liquor and he thought it would be advantageous to give me as his wife and suggested this to my father.

Being only 13 I was not ready to get married and did not want to marry this man. But my uncle, father and step-mother took me to the slum where he lived and I was forced to marry him. Soon after this I saw him coming home very drunk, I did not know about being drunk so I was worried that he was sick. My neighbors told me he would recover soon so I kindly took care of him. But I soon learned that excessive drinking was a regular habit of his and our house was in constant turmoil. I told him if this was the way he lived then I was going home, his response was "if you are going to die, you are going to die here and if you are going to live you are going to live here." We would argue and he would become violent beating me regularly.

Eventually I just wanted to escape so I left the house when he was not watching and went to the train station to take a train somewhere, anywhere, to get away from the turmoil. A friend of his saw me at the station and and contacted my husband; they came and took me home to more beatings. My life was filled with misery and I had no hope in life. Somehow I was able to get a job as a maidservant, it did not pay but it gave a place for my two children and me to sleep and eat away from my husband. My husband had become a gangster committing crimes and voilence to maintain his alcohol and drug habits. One day I heard that my husband had died so I returned to the slum where we lived. Though it appeared that he had died by being hit by a train, I soon learned that he had been murdered by other gangsters and his body thrown into the train tracks to make it appear that he had been hit by a train. I had no place to live, no way to make a living, my husband was dead; I was without hope.

A close friend of mine began telling me about Jesus and soon after this I began attending a small church in our slum. The people from OM helped me build a small place to live. These people showed an amazing love to that I had never experienced before. And soon I became a Christian and took baptism. Today I am working for Feed India in manufacturing cards. It does not pay much but it is all I have. They have helped me place my Children in a hostel where they get good food and an education. Because I can't read I spend much time in prayer. When my daughter comes home, or when others come to visit, I have them read my Bible to me so that I can learn more about Jesus. I am very thankful to God for all the love he has shown me through the people of OM, and I thank Feed India for a job and the opportunity to support myself. Please pray for my children that they would stay healthy and get a good education so that they will not have to live the life in the slums anymore.

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