2025 was a great year for QuadW Tarime.

Our spirits were high in January, after the success of the 2024 Girls Camp, where we protected 147 girls from the FGM rituals. We thank God that FGM is on its way out in Tarime. Fewer girls are cut each year than the year before. 

(What’s FGM? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation)

This included one girl whose extended family fiercely resisted us, as they insisted that she be cut and married to an older man as soon as possible. 
We started 2025 with her living with us here at Wesley House. She stayed with us for 3 months, until we found a relative who we trusted to take care of her. 

We can’t share her picture.

We continued working with our house churches in the slow work of God. Old patterns of violence die hard, so this is slow church, with no outcome demanded. Walking with the disciples towards transformation; slowing learning to let go of selfishness, greed, and violence, and learning to live a life of love. Going through the pain of our wounding, together, in a community of love, as the wounded healer makes us whole.

A few men decided to stop beating their wives, and to see if a life of love could really be better.

A few young women made the brave decision to stop selling their bodies.

Single mothers, neighbors to each other, locked in a cycle of passive aggression, jealousy, and backbiting, chose to forgive each other and start supporting each other.

Many of these disciples found that this was a good life, and took the tangible step of being baptized. The old is gone, the new has come.

From the outside, it seems plain that a life of love means no more FGM. For many of the disciples, though, it was tough to put 2 and 2 together. So we started community education events, run by Kuria, for Kuria. The message was simple; if we as a people let go of FGM, everything will be okay. We will all be safe, we will all be protected. Nothing adverse will happen. And, our girls will be safe. No more excruciating pain, no more fistula, no more deaths due to blood loss and infection.

Our Kuria residents did a great job with this, and they invited discussion. The events were lively, and sometimes fierce.

“We had to name our daughter Mwikwabe, you know. Like Mwikwabe, our family spirit. And when she’s old enough, she has to be cut, as an offering to Mwikwabe. Or Mwikwabe might kill her. Right?”

“You say love should be the foundation of marriage. But if love is the foundation of marriage, how do I know if my husband loves me?”

“Do you mean… I should ask my wife? Ask her if it’s okay for me to send our daughter to be cut?””Didn’t the Germans start the FGM rituals when they colonized us?”

“Wait, didn’t God start the FGM rituals?”

Over 3 months, we did 8 events, with a total of 315 people in attendance.

And then when we met with our house churches again in November, asking for their help with protecting girls from FGM, they agreed to help. A new life, letting go of old patterns of violence. 

There was only one exception, a family who stubbornly insisted that they can follow Christ and still practice FGM. We reaffirmed that it wasn’t possible, and we had to let them go, at least for now. We’ll be here if they choose to come back.

The cutting rituals are every other year, and 2025 was an off-year. So instead of a protection camp, we did a short education camp for the girls and we had 223 girls in attendance; the most to date. 

The girls camp has grown from 95 girls in 2022

to 171 in 2023

to 147 in 2024

to 223 in 2025

It was a party.

Now we look forward, hoping to protect 250 girls from the 2026 cutting rituals. 

Our wonderful QuadW residents have already started meeting with the girls and their families, doing community education events, and training disciples to be ambassadors for the girls in their villages. 

Engaging with their fellow Kuria at the heart level, as we all come to see that life can be better without gender-based violence.

P.S: Our little Camellia is now two years old!