When Abe left home at the age of seventeen, she left with her best friend who was a year older than she was. They had wanted so badly to join the army but could not at the time due to being underage. Both youngsters, however, decided to leave home on an adventure around their nation. After the first year in a strange city and their finances running dangerously low, their next application to be enlisted was successful. However, they got separated and were posted to different parts of the Arab world where there was crisis.
Little miss Abe surrendered her life to God in the strange land where she felt ostracized from both her fellow serving mates and the community where they lived in. Her newfound faith flourished and gave her so much needed comfort. Once when they had an invasion, her entire unit almost got wiped out. But she was among seven others who survived that attack. After many weeks in a coma, she woke up one day with no recollection of what had happened, who she was or where she was. Abe spent four years in a remote village in the foreign land of Smyragstan living among the locals. She picked up the dialect quite rapidly and blended well with them.
Towards the end of her fourth year, a western Salvation Army team arrived with medical aid for the local people. Who best than Abe suited the position of an interpreter? That team spent six months among these people and supported many sick folks to improved health.
One would wonder why or how the military left one of theirs in a foreign land. Wonder no more because Abe had actually befriended and fallen in love with an indigene during her time at the hospital. So, when she lost her memories, she insisted on remaining in that land where she felt comfortable. Her employers had no choice but to respect her wish. The onus was on them to inform her family. That young lady had no idea if they did or not.
Seven years had gone past before Abe’s memories began to filter through gradually. She got flashes of events prior to her enlistment and during her serving years which gave her many sleepless nights. She remembered just waking up one day screaming her younger sister’s name. She wrote it down alongside all other things that she could recollect. Bit by bit, she began to put the pieces of her previous life together until she had a full scrap book.
On a trip with her friend, Abbas, to a neighbouring town, she ran into a serving unit commander who promised to help her. But that help would take nearly two years to come true. He, however, supplied her with contacts addresses of her family. This tenacious woman sent several letters to her parents and only sibling. Unfortunately, none of them got any response. She never really shared her entire ordeal with them in any of her letters.
It so happened that while Abbas was at work one day, he overheard chats about some of the soldiers giving away items because they would be going back home in few months’ time. Knowing that Abe had been nostalgic in recent times, he notified her about what he heard. She made him know that although she loved him very much and would love to continue staying there with him, she missed her family and would like to go home to them. She also pointed out that if it was God’s will for them to be together, He would make a way for that to occur without either of them trying.
Abe sent letters to her family to inform them about her trip back home. That commander pulled strings and got her parents on the phone for her. They were all overjoyed to know that she was alive and excited for her to return. (Or so she thought from their conversation although she did not speak with her sister.) Hence her journey back to her home country. TO BE CONTINUED
© Jouyoz 14th October 2021
