Dear Pastor,

There is something that has been giving me cause for concern for a number of weeks and I am not sure how to handle it. My brother and I both share a house. He is older than I am and we are really very close, at least we used to be.

He has recently started corresponding with someone he met over the Internet. She lives in the U.S.A. I am concerned because my brother who normally earns a pretty decent living is suddenly short of money all the time. I have money that he was saving up to buy a place of his own and he has now told me he needs it. I have given it to him even though it broke my heart to know that the money it took him six years to save was now gone in a matter of days.

My husband thinks I should mind my own business and let him do whatever he feels is right for him, but I remember how difficult our lives used to be and now we are both getting somewhere, I hate to see him regress. But ever since he started talking to this young woman who has promised to marry him so they can both live in the States, he seems to have lost all perspective and has undone all the progress he has made.

He says he is in love with her and that he is sure she feels the same. How can you love someone you have never met in person? Is the person he is talking to on the phone the same in person? I am truly worried because if this relationship does not work, he will not only be devastated emotionally, but he will have to start his life over from scratch.

Please pray for me and my family and offer your guidance.

S,F., St Catherine, Jamaica

Dear S. F.,

I understand your concerns. Although your brother is a grown man and can make his own decisions, I agree with you, he may be on the road to disaster. He should not be sending his money to this woman. She may not be speaking the truth about herself. He has never met her and he has no way to verify what she says about herself. He is playing with fire.

Why does he have to send her money? She doesn't have a child by him? Why is he blowing his money? I understand why your husband is saying to get out of his business, but how can you? You are quite in order to warn him. If he wouldn't listen to you, allow him to fall on his head. He may not die, but his skull may get fractured and that will bring him to his senses. The only problem with that is, he is going to look to you for financial assistance after this girl "nyam" him out.

Poor man, he is trying to buy his way to America and he is doing it through a woman he has never met. Any woman, who can get a Jamaican man to give her his money while she is in America, must be very clever. May God open the eyes of your brother before it is too late.

Pastor