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Fadwa is from an upper class, educated family. Her father is a university professor and her mother is a doctor. Years ago she was in medical school and fell in love with one of her fellow students. Then one day while out for her typical walk, her life unexpectedly changed—for the worse.

A group of men stopped their car and abducted her; one of the men raped her. In a moment, Fadwa’s innocence was taken and worth devalued. The loss of her virginity to the man who raped her, an uneducated farmer, bound her to him.

This terrible tradition is called “bride-kidnapping” and is how many women still enter marriage in certain regions of Russia.

Since her marriage, Fadwa’s life has been one heartbreaking episode after another. In her husband’s home his entire extended family treated her as a servant and expected her to cook, clean, garden, and do laundry. Both her husband and mother-in-law abused her. After a few years, her husband took a second wife and kicked her out, separating her from her children. She spent several years living in disgrace with her parents but returned to live with her abusive husband so she could be with her children. Fadwa always longed for a daughter, but when she finally became pregnant with a girl, she lost the baby after her husband severely beat her.

Today she still lives with a man she passionately hates and cannot leave if she wants to maintain a relationship with her sons.

She stays and lives in silent, fuming submission.

Fadwa’s story is not unique. Heartbreakingly, it’s the norm for many women in this Muslim region. Stories like Fadwa’s show that Jesus is the only hope for this area. He came to bear Fadwa’s grief and carry her sorrows, to give a woman living in complete hopelessness hope.

Please pray Jesus would be revealed to her.

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