Local Open Doors partners recently visited Kuweni; they were met with a weary smile and an invitation into an eerily quiet home.
Kuweni recounted that horrible day with pinpoint accuracy and inexplicable pain in her eyes:
“When I heard about the blast, instead of rushing to the scene, I got down on my knees and prayed to Jesus. I said, ‘Please, just spare my son . . . Just give him back to me alive.’” But with tears in her eyes, she added, “God didn’t hear my prayer. He didn’t see what happened.”
Kuweni continues to grapple with the sovereignty of God, and how He could have let something so horrible happen to her son and family. She has many unanswered questions and has only attended church a handful of times since that dreadful event.
Dina, Kuweni’s daughter, also continues to mourn the loss of her little brother. She eats only one meal a day—if that—and spends much time isolated, locked in her room.
“She sometimes gets dressed to go to church, but then says, ‘What if another bomb goes off?’ and then decides to stay home instead,” Kuweni explained. “Other times, she bangs her head against the wall and breaks things in the house. She is just so angry.”
Dina was also at church that Sunday when the bombs went off. She suffered major injuries, is still recuperating and will need future surgeries to completely heal her jaw.
Local Open Doors partners have heard many stories from the survivors of the Easter attacks, and though many have begun to start afresh again, there are others, like Kuweni and Dina, who can’t seem to move forward through their painful, new reality.