My boyfriend cannot read

Dear Pastor,

This is the first time I am writing to you. I am in my early 30s and I am in a relationship with a businessman, but he doesn't know how to read.

I do not have children. My mother had two children for two different men. When she met my stepfather, she was pregnant with me. So I grew up knowing him as my father. I do not know my biological father, and my mother only knew him by his nickname. I have never tried to search for him. I have never had the urge to know him. I was registered in my stepfather's name. So he is the only father that I know.

I went to school and I did well. My brother and I love our father. He married my mother and we were always sent to church. My father couldn't read well, but he wanted to learn to read. So I taught him how. The time came when my father was able to turn in the hymn book and find hymn numbers when they are called at church. I sat with my father at church and we sang hymns. Church members used to admire us together. They did not know that my father could hardly read.

My father learned to sign his name very well. When he went to see the pastor at the church, and told him that he wanted to get married, the pastor was surprised that he and my mother were not married before. My father's brother sent him a beautiful suit for his wedding.

I am a university graduate and I have found myself in a similar position to my mother. I have met a man who cannot read very well. But he loves me and he cares for me. I laughed at him when I found out that he could not read, but I looked back on my mother's situation. She did not turn my father away because he could not read.

This man has two buses on the road and any amount of money I ask him for, he gives to me. He wants to turn over all his business to me, but I am afraid. He has his niece, who handles his financial affairs, but he has accused her of stealing his money. He is clean and puts himself together. Some people in the community know that he cannot read and I am embarrassed by that. What do you suggest I do?

K.L.

Dear K.L.,

I thank you for your letter. I am sure you love your parents and there is a special love in your heart for your dad. Your biological father impregnated your mother and never supported you. But your mother was able to find a man who took care of her and her children. Your father is special. He humbled himself and you taught him to read. Not all men would allow their children to teach them to read.

I once spoke to a lady. She was a teacher and it was after she got married that she discovered that her husband could not read or write. I was very surprised, so I questioned her about it. I asked her how could she be a teacher and marry someone who could not read. I further asked her whether the man signed the marriage certificate and she said yes. That man practised to write his name for a long time. So when the marriage officer told him to write his name, he proudly did. He fooled this teacher. She never knew that he was illiterate.

You are in a situation now, where you are having a relationship with a man who is in business and cannot read.

You love him. I want to say that you should not walk away from him if you believe that he genuinely loves you and you love him. You would have to teach this man to read and write. The Bible says that love covers everything. Although some people in the community know that he cannot read and write, you should put the shame aside if he would do so first and subject himself to becoming a student. Let the man start from the very beginning; let him know his alphabet and go step by step. He will love you even more as he makes progress.

Pastor