How I Survived Sexual Abuse From Age 10

• ABUJA Pastor, ATINUKE ASEGIEME Reveals

Pastor Atinuke Asegieme is one of the wave making female pastors in Abuja right now. She is a lawyer by training and an extremely intelligent woman who is passionate about the word of God and about protecting the girl child from all forms of abuse .She is also an eloquent public speaker who has no inhibitions using her personal life story to offer hope and support to the distressed and abused girl child, like she did at the recently held ARISE Women Conference convened by the enigmatic Siju Iluyomade. Pastor Atinuke was one of the Speakers at the event and she literally brought the roof down with her compelling true life story that revealed her sexual abuse ordeal in the hands of her parents domestic staff when she was a young girl.

This fire brand energetic pastor is the first daughter of a family of seven children. She attended the Holy Child College, South West, Ikoyi, Lagos.

She bagged a degree in Law from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife and was among the first graduating set of lawyers from the Nigerian Law School Bwari, Abuja, where she got connected to her heart-throb and husband Pastor Kennedy Asegieme who she’s been married to for almost 20years. The union is blessed with two lovely and beautiful daughters, Jemimah and Shekinah.

She is the convener and founder of ‘Lineage of Hope and Life Empowerment Initiative’ with seven volunteer professionals.

Her passion is ‘womanhood’ and ‘the family’. An assertion that is evident in her teaching and life style. Her mandate is to restore the dignity of ‘womanhood’ back to women and young girls. “Catch them Young” is the programme for girls in secondary school and secondary school age. ‘Queens Indeed’ is for women of marriageable age and the last segment is an outreach for battered women with the ultimate desire to ensure every woman discovers her God-ordained purpose and assignment no matter who she is, where she is and at what level in life she finds herself to fulfill their destinies.

‘Mama T’ as she is fondly called is a Mentor and Coach to many women, young girls and married couples. Pastor Tinu is a greatly respected minister and conference speaker in much demand at home and abroad with great passion for the word of God. She is well known for her clear and practical message of hope and family values. She has a burning passion to see the empowerment of women in her generation, her nation and the world at large.

Meet her any day, she is extremely interactive and easy to get along with.

She has ministered in several churches and conferences to men, women and singles in Nigeria, Canada, United States and UK.

She presently features on 106.3 WeFM, Abuja on We Woman, a show that aims to Empower, Enlighten, and Entertain women.

Pastor Tinu Asegieme is co-convener of one the fastest growing marriage institutes in Africa; Cana International Marriage Institute, with base in Abuja. The mandate is to restore the value of marriage with strong inclination of the Scriptures through the ‘Marriage Enrichment’ , to help singles get the right scriptural perspective to living and marriage through the “Missions To Singles” programs.

She recently released her best selling book “Purity Rocks “ , a practical guide for young people bordering on issues on sex and sexuality and God’s perspectives.

Pastor Ken and Tinu Asegieme both serve as Associate Pastors at the Guiding Light Assembly, Abuja Worship Centre.

At the recently held ARISE Women Conference, she stunned everyone when she revealed how she was sexually abused by the domestic staff hired by her parents. This is her story:

“I was very young at the time. I was just about ten years old. I was always left alone in the house with the domestic staff because my mum and dad were always away at work. They were very busy people. Our security man, the driver, the cook, they were all engaging in sex once my parents were not around, and they dragged me into it. I was young. I didn’t know what I was doing. And these full grown adults took advantage of my innocence and sexually abused me. This went on for a very long time. I was scared. They threatened me never to tell anyone about what was going on. I didn’t know who to speak to. My parents were hardly around. Please, do not be too far from your children. Whatever you are doing, no matter how far away from them your work takes you, always connect with your children. Till when my parents died I never had a chance to share this with them. But I told God, not under my watch would any little girl be molested again.”

“The enemy wanted my destiny when I was too young. He came for me even before I turned ten. They abused me severely and I had only one mission in life, to find those men and drown them in Maroko river and God said you would not do that. That is a wasted energy. Your greatest revenge is to become a voice to the nation. Your greatest revenge is to be a voice in a secondary school. Your greatest revenge is to make sure that no kind of person goes through these kinds of ordeal again. Your greatest revenge is to stand like I’m standing today and declare, I am that child that was molested. I was that child that was left for dead but God’s mercy stepped in. If you’re not telling your story, you’re doing your world a big injustice. If you don’t step out, you owe your world. Get up, step up! Stand up, say it! Are you the first that would’ve gone that way? Your story is your own. Your story is your blessing. Your story is your lifting. Your story is your own, nobody can take your story from you. You have not written that story and you say you’re broke. Stop lying about your story, don’t lie. It’s going to come out. Step out, write that book, tell that story, not for the purpose of revenge but to liberate your self. Can’t you see how free I am? Can’t you see how liberated I am? I am one of the happiest women on earth.”

“I can thrive in yellow, blue, orange, anything, because he that the soul has set free is free indeed. I am free to sing, to shout and to declare on the mountain top that my God reigns. If you don’t do what you need to do, you will be robbing a generations of their freedom. Imagine the number of people that need to know that you did an abortion when you didn’t know any better. And you’ll say, ah, its your story, you did not know. Because if I say certain stories it won’t be sweet in the ears of the listener, but when you, the owner of that story tells it, you would’ve won a whole generation over. So, I came here today to just say to you, arise, put on your strength, put on your beautiful garment, stop feeling sorry for your self. Nothing do you. Don’t say, ah, I didn’t go to school, that’s why. Go to school! It’s never too late to go school. What is it that you are sorry for yourself about? Step out of that confinement. Come out of the grave. Come out into the light of day. I read the story of Ahab and I said even God did not hide her story, a woman that was a prostitute. But I’ve come to know something called the mercy of God. He took a prostitute, somebody that everybody had written off. She came from Jericho, she came from a cursed land, and turned her life around. You that other people should be envying, you’re the one now envying another person. Pick yourself up from where you are, wash yourself up all over again and make up your mind that by the time I come for ARISE next year, I will be a brand new girl. I will be a big celebrity. Pastor Siju will be looking for me because she would’ve heard my story. Stop begging, it is no longer in fashion. Look within, there is a king in you!”

– WALE LAWAL

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