My prostitute mother tried to abort me, but God had grand plans for me

Dr Ron Archer overcame many odds in his early life to become an accomplished academician, businessman and preacher.

“My mother was a prostitute!” These are the first words Dr Ronaldo Isaac Archer, a father of four sons utters when asked to describe himself.

A summary of his life depicts a troubled childhood marked by sex abuse and rejection. At age ten, the man who is now a celebrated motivational speaker, at some point, wanted to die.

“In my mind, if the next ten years were going to be like the first ten years, I didn’t want more years,” says Archer.

Archer is now the board chairman at the Dunamis Institute International, a leadership firm based in Kenya and is planting a church known as the House of Champions in Kitisuru, Nairobi.

Archer says he shares a lot with Kenya because they share a birthday. Kenya gained independence in 1963 and he was born in the same year. The man of God overcame one challenge after another to be where he is today.

SECRET DISCOVERED

“My grandmother was German while my grandpa was an African Cuban. Both had migrated to the US and they got married,” he shares. During his grandparents’ time, the early 1940s, racism was at its peak in the US.

So Archer’s grandpa had to pretend he was an employee of his German wife so that the family could not be victimised. One day their secret was discovered.
“Grandpa and grandma had gone to celebrate their wedding anniversary at one of the public parks. Unfortunately, some white man saw them kissing and that was it.

“This is what he told my grandma in utter disgust: “Why would you love a big black nigger like that? And my grandfather was so angered by these racist comments he hit the man’s jaw and broke his neck,” Archer recalls.

This unfortunate incident would see his grandpa incarcerated for attempted murder and sentenced to the worst jail in Ohio.

Archer’s grandmother was fired from her job and had to do menial jobs to look after her seven children. From then on life was miserable.

“Grandma was doing badly and her health was failing. A tumour in the back of her left eye put her down. Doctors told her that half of her face had to be removed, or else she would die. What do you do when the American Dream becomes the American Nightmare?” poses Archer who also teaches at the Presbyterian University of Eastern Africa.

The surgery left his grandma disfigured for life but the worst was yet to come. Some clergymen came to see her and told her she would be flown back to Germany if she would leave her seven babies behind.

She was told: “You cannot bring this shame back to Germany. You know why you have cancer? God is punishing you for marrying a black man; the Bible says, what does light have to do with darkness?”

She refused to give in to their demands and was excommunicated from the church.

She succumbed to her illness and my mother and her siblings were left to fend for themselves.

FLESH TRADE

Archer’s mother has an equally moving story. Because of the stresses of life, his mum became a prostitute at the age of 14.

Out of the flesh trade, a baby would come into being. “By age 16, my mother became pregnant and she tried to terminate the foetus. She even tried swallowing pills and using a clothes hanger but it refused to die,” says Archer.

That baby was born prematurely with no pancreas; ears and a throat that did not connect properly among other kinds of disorders. The baby struggled in school and was a severe stammerer – that baby was Archer.

Archer continues:

“When I was in school, I would wet the bed and had a lot of trauma as fellow learners would tease me because of my stammering.”

To cope, he kept to himself. Then the madam who managed his mother’s business started to sexually abuse him in the basement. “When you are abused like that, there are four things you learn – it’s called the trauma of abuse. You don’t talk; you don’t feel any more pain; you don’t trust anyone and finally you just have to pretend somewhere in your mind that nothing is happening,” he says.

At 10, he had had enough and had the gun he picked to kill himself not refused to work, he would not be telling his story.

The turning point came when a teacher gave him speaking lessons. For the first time he says he saw the light. The teachers told him the story of another stutterer called Moses who delivered a whole nation out of Egypt. “Jeremiah Chapter 2 says: Before I formed you, I knew you... you shall pull down and plant and build,” says Archer.

That was the point that Archer saw his purpose from a single scripture that one woman read to him. He became a serious student and worked hard to improve his speech.

LIFE-CHANGING MANTRA

“I can choose to be better or bitter, angry or alive, a whiner of a winner because attitude determines your altitude,” he says.

After his transformation, next was his family. “My prayer was always for God to save my family. It happened and I even baptised my mother,” says Archer.

“God uses imperfect people to reach other imperfect people. Our imperfections are what make us useful.”

Archer’s mother is now in ministry empowering young single mothers. Archer has planted 25 churches in 25 years and built five corporations. He has also authored seven books.

“Every time God calls you to something, it will always be bigger than your ability to do it so that He can show you that He is able to make it happen,” says the man of God. His life-changing mantra is Faith, Love, Inspiration, and Power.

Archer signs off: “It’s not over until God says it is over; don’t give up.”