Juggling 3 Wives and One God in São Tomé

Carlos Freitas prayed and fasted over which wife to keep.

By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

Carlos Freitas had three wives in São Tomé, capital of the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe off the West African coast.

He and his seven brothers grew up in the home of a Seventh-day Adventist grandmother. But he and his siblings drifted away from the church after their grandmother died.

When he was 21, Carlos moved in with his Sunday-keeping girlfriend, Edite, and they had a baby daughter.

An argument soon erupted. On the island, it is customary to put earrings on a newborn girl to supposedly protect her from harm. Although Carlos no longer went to church, he was opposed to jewelry and asked Edite not to pierce their daughter’s ears.

As the couple heatedly discussed the issue, Edite had a priest baptize the baby without Carlos’ knowledge.

Carlos left Edite when he learned about the baptism and found a second wife, Maria.

Edite, however, wasn’t ready to give up on the relationship and kept calling Carlos.

“So, I ended up with two wives,” Carlos said.

Then he found a third woman and began dating her. They moved in together and had a child.

Carlos wound up with 10 children — five children with his first wife, four children with his second wife, and one child with his third wife.

Many Commitments

As Carlos split his time between his three families, his first wife grew lonely and befriended an Adventist couple. She started attending church with them and was baptized.

Carlos, meanwhile, was working for Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded news broadcaster, and had little interest in God. But he accepted an invitation from Edite to attend the baptism of two daughters one Sabbath.

The teenage daughters sang a hymn from the church platform that made him weep. He remembered attending church as a child, and he hid his face so people wouldn’t see the tears. After that day, he started attending church with his first wife.

When his second wife, Maria, learned that he was going to church, she accused him of planning to abandon her.

“Adventists don’t allow couples to live together without marriage, and this means you are planning to get married to Edite,” she said.

Carlos denied going to church to look for marriage. 

“I went to look for salvation,” he said. “You also need to be saved. Please attend church with me.”

Maria started attending church. Every Sabbath, Carlos picked up his first wife and drove her to church. Then he drove his second wife to another church. He took turns worshipping with his two wives.

Around this time, his third wife left him for another man and things got complicated. He wondered which woman to marry.

Then the complications started.

“The question was: which of the two women I would chose to marry,” Carlos said.

Looking for Answers

He prayed and fasted every Sabbath for two months. He read the Bible and gained a new understanding about the sin of adultery. He felt badly about the way he had been behaving.

At the end of the two months, he drove to an island mountain at 5 a.m. and climbed a circular 2-mile (3-kilometer) path to the top. He stayed until noon, praying and fasting. On the second visit to the mountain, he felt impressed to marry his first wife, but he longed for confirmation from the Bible. He invited Edite to join him on his third trip to the mountain on Sabbath and told her about his conviction to marry her. The couple fasted and prayed together all weekend.

On Monday, Carlos opened his Bible during a break at work at 2 p.m. and prayed, “Help me to find the answer in the Bible.”

He looked down and saw that he had opened the Bible to the book of Malachi. He read the section headings and stopped when he saw the title, “Treachery of Infidelity” in Chapter 2. He found his answer in Malachi 2:14-16, which says, “The Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. ‘For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously’” (NKJV).

Carlos thanked God on the spot and prayed, “Help me to do Your will.”

The second wife, Maria, was devastated when Carlos broke the news. They wept together, but she understood his decision.

Carlos married Edite on Dec. 29, 2013, and was later baptized.

“Then I started having a new life,” he said. “Now I am a new creation, prepared to go anywhere to tell the world my testimony about what God has done for me.”

His prayer now is for God to touch the hearts of his children.

“The challenge that I have now is to bring all my children to Christ so they can be saved,” he said. 

Part of a 2019 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering is to help construct a church building in São Tomé. Thank you for your mission offerings.