“I Am Healed Beyond Measure”: Seline’s Story

As Seline gathered with Untold team members in January 2025, she used the word “strong” multiple times to describe herself. While accurate, that adjective only grazes the surface of her response to the circumstances that brought the 37-year-old mother of two to that moment in Kisumu, Kenya. Seline radiated more than strength. Maybe it was the beaming yellow dress she had hand made that communicated what words could not, or the gentle way she spoke about her children and her faith. “I feel like I now have a new life,” Seline says.

That new life began taking shape after a long and difficult journey. In 2011, during a routine prenatal check-up, Seline discovered she was HIV positive. While she was motivated to take her ARVs to prevent transmission of the virus to her baby, that drive dissipated after her daughter was declared negative.

At home, stigma quickly took hold. Her once-festive house, a gathering place for family, grew heavy with stigma. Relatives accused her of “bringing shame” after hearing her medicine bottle shake, and others refused to drink from the same cup as her. Under the weight of rejection, Seline began taking her medication inconsistently.

By 2024, her health had deteriorated. She spent two months in the hospital, and even after being discharged, she remained bedridden and struggled with severe memory loss. It was during this time that Untold counselors met her and recruited her into the program.

At Untold, she created a new foundation for herself, building a space where friendships, self-acceptance, and her relationship with the Lord would thrive. “The word of the Lord has made me very strong. My entire hope is in the Lord,” she says.

And the one thing she’ll always have to show for her time in the program is her skill of tailoring. Seline is devoted to expanding her skill set even further, and practices in the meantime by making clothing for her children.

Seline now sees herself as capable in multiple facets of her life: capable of living a long, healthy life, raising her children, and taking her medication daily. “I don’t use the phrase, ‘I’m sick,’ because I am just like every other person,” Seline says. 

“I am healed beyond measure,” she says.