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Dear Pastor,

I am a long-time reader of your column. I am 26 and I have found myself pregnant by a man who came to Jamaica and promised to marry me.

I spent the whole week with him at a hotel and the day before he left, he told me that I should not worry, he is going to come back to Jamaica and marry me. After about three days, I felt so comfortable with this man. No Jamaican man has ever made me feel so comfortable. I was living with a man for two years and I left him because he was very cruel. We had a disagreement once and he slapped me and I had to seek medical attention. I lied to the doctor, who told me I couldn't fool him, so I told him the truth. But I also told him that I did not want to get the police involved because I am afraid of my boyfriend.

I met this man who got me pregnant online. We talked for many months and he told me that he was divorced. When I asked him for money, he told me he would bring some on a visit to Jamaica. Sometimes I wonder whether this man registered in the hotel with his correct name. He gave me cash when he was in Jamaica. At the hotel, he paid cash for everything. I don't know what to do. I am fretting because the number that he gave me is no longer in service and he has disappeared from online. He has pictures of me, but I don't have any of him because he said he did not want his folks to know that he was in Jamaica.

I am expecting to give birth in January. Friends ask me who is the baby's father and I have been telling them that he lives abroad, but I cannot talk about him. I am wondering why this man did this to me. I know that you are going to say that at my age, I should have known better and I should have protected myself from getting pregnant. But I was so glad to know that my boyfriend is from America and that he would bring me to live with him abroad. Please, I am depending on you to give me the best advice that you can.

S.T.

Dear S.T.,

You say that you have been reading my column for a long time, so I am wondering why suggestions that I have made about relationships have not helped you.

I have said on many occasions that many foreigners have come to Jamaica and lied to our women. These men would spend a week or so, and have these women in expensive hotels or cottages. This man whom you stayed with for a week did not use credit cards, but some use credit cards to pay for everything, including renting cars, and they travel all over Jamaica.

I know about an older gentleman who came to Jamaica and married a much younger girl. After the wedding, she tried to contact him on the number he left with her, but she did not succeed. He changed his number. To my knowledge, this girl has never been able to find him. He has never returned to Jamaica to visit her. He legally tied up this girl, destroyed her life and went away. He did not get this girl pregnant. But your so-called boyfriend did. This is not a man who loves you. He wanted sex from you and he got it for a whole week and now you can't find him.

I am assuming that you have gone to the hotel and enquired whether the name he gave you was the name he used to book the room. He is a wicked man. You can't trust every man who communicates with you on the Internet. Men lie, but so do women. I remember doing a wedding between an American woman and a Jamaica man. They were communicating as lovers; she lived in America and this man was living with his children's mother. The American woman flew to Jamaica not knowing that. This man was as poor as a church mouse, but after the wedding, the American woman demanded a certain amount of money which he did not have. She took off the wedding ring and threw it on him. She was demanding lots of things and she flew out of Jamaica.

I got a call from a relative of this man begging me not to register the wedding. I told them I had already done so because, under the law, I am obligated to register every wedding that I officiated. When his children's mother heard that he was married, she cried. So people do these wicked things and they seem to forget that God is watching. God is not blind and he will deal with such wicked people on his own time.

After you have given birth, I suggest that you give up the child for adoption.

Pastor