This Christian Race: A Memoir (Episode Four)

THIS CHRISTIAN RACE (4)

Greetings again my kith and kin, friends and fans. Welcome to Episode 4 of the weekly serialised memoir, ‘This Christian Race'. For a whole quarter I will be running thirteen episodes of it. Feel free to read, share, like and comment as the interesting novella reads on. Thank you and I love you.

Episode Four – Three Days without Food?

Now, it remained breaking the inertia to approach Pastor Tunji to give me a chance at interpreting for him. There were inertias like that in the past that I never succeeded in breaking.

The prominent and most recent was addressing the school fellowship even as a prefect. Well, I was not one of the main prefects. It was a second-class one. And come to think of it. Prefecture should be in the area of one's strength. This one was in the area of my dread. I was made the class prefect of the most notorious class in the school, JSS3. I wouldn't deceive you, I only went to the class once not to address the class but to assess my fear. They were unruly. The average class member was taller and more muscular than I. And in their eyes I saw readiness to slight and disobey constituted authority. These ones would damn the consequences and would not fear the repercussions. I couldn’t help sounding like the ten pessimistic spies that brought evil report of the Canaanland. Fear firmly confirmed, I chose the path of a figure-head prefectship. I saw to it that their path and my path never crossed for once in all my one year prefect misadventure. I loved my life so dearly.

Now, back to this fellowship reluctance. We usually drew roster of who would coordinate the weekly school fellowship among us the Christian seniors. I was sure I could speak good English. But the perfection my mind was looking for made my heart not so sure-footed as to standing before this student audience. 

‘What if I mistakenly fire lexical bullets or even throw grammatical bombs?’ ‘Will these auxiliary verbs not end up being my albatross! Which is correct: I shall come, I should come, I will come, I would come, I must come, I can come, I may come? These things are so confusing! Students will pick on my mistakes!’

I started dodging my turns. Everything, both the serious and not-too-serious, sublime and ridiculous, deliberate and spontaneous, mattered enough at my turn for me to ask another person to stand in for me. Turn in, turn out, they kept on standing in for me. I had hoped I would garner confidence over time and one day find myself standing before the students to deliver a most powerful message. But that hope never saw the light of the day. This complex held my tongue so tied that I wasted the one year opportunity of making input or impact in the spiritual life of these students. Not even once did I break the inertia. Lord, have mercy!

Here is another inertia festering.

Since I have started talking about inertia, permit me to jump the ship of inertia past to inertia future so that I can scoop to the full my frustrations with inertia. I will later come back to this inertia present and how it was broken.

It was in the maturing years of my faith in Christ. The journey was from Sagamu to Abeokuta in a commercial bus. I had the nudge, nay the pressing, to preach the Gospel to the passengers. I made a mess of it. No thanks to Mr. Inertia. I would want to open my mouth, but fear would almost immediately slap it shut. Fear of what? That the passengers would beat me up or shout me down? That they would not listen to me or give their life to Jesus? That the message may not be interesting or I may get stuck midway not knowing what more to say? That the driver may start the car tape or some passengers may start some annoying conversation to antagonise or distract me? I don't know. I don’t know what I was afraid of. Simply, it was fear of the unknown. And that was the tool inertia used to hold me dumb when I should be found speaking for my Lord.

It was getting more and more embarrassing. I was feeling more and more guilty. Minutes ticked further and further away. And the bus covered more and more distance. I needed to act fast. I devised a method. I sighted one of the roadside palm trees afar off and decided that immediately the bus get to that part of the road I would suddenly open my mouth and speak, damning fear and all its siblings. Perfect plan. Well laid out. In no time the bus got there. Quickly, I opened my mouth. Alas, no voice came out. Fear was faster, it had caught up with me again. No problem, I would be faster this time around. I picked another palm tree target. Now better prepared to open my mouth immediately we touched the finish line of my target. We breasted the tape as expected, I more quickly opened my mouth! Yes, the voice was coming, from the inside! Hallelujah! It would soon come out:

‘I'

That was all I could say, nay, utter, and my mouth immediately stopped and shuttered its intention. This fear was a good sprinter. It had outrun and overrun me again. I tried again and again but it never got better than that. I watched with a heavy heart as passengers disembarked at Abeokuta deprived of the message I had been sent to deliver to them. Blood, pints of blood on my neck! Lord, have mercy.

Welcome back on board Inertia Present. God helped me with this inertia of approaching Pastor Tunji. It never festered for long. Pastor Tunji was an approachable person. Has he not been coming to the dormitory to chat with us of his own volition. Somehow, I hinted him of my intention and he welcomed it. We worked the arrangement. And thank God Sister Tope was not all that a free person. She was in school in Abeokuta. So, her interpretation for Pastor was not a regular business. I had the opportunity clearly laid on a red carpet. I didn’t waste it. In a little time, I became Pastor Tunji’s official interpreter.

Being that close to the word of God greatly helped my spiritual life. To be a very good and proficient interpreter, you need to be close to your Bible. One of the reasons is obvious, the Pastor and his congregation will appreciate it best if you can give it to them phrase for phrase, and word for word, offhand, from the Bible translation of the language you are interpreting to. More often than not, the language was Yoruba in my own case. But, Pastor’s frequent code-switching made me to prepare as well in English, beforehand, in order not to be caught napping. So, having common and favourite Bible verses, both English and Yoruba, in my memory became a necessity and not an option. Gradually, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, the verses started moving from my head to my heart. And I grew in leaps and bounds.

Another aspect of being a pastor's boy that gave me an edge was being privy to people’s discussions with Pastor. That is, those discussions that might not require exclusive privacy with Pastor. I made good use of these other discussions that could accommodate pastor’s apprentice.

For example, a brother came to see Pastor. I could remember him vividly: Brother Wale, now Pastor Wale. As we were seeing him off, he and Pastor brought up a matter very strange to me. They talked about three-day marathon fasting. Three-day marathon fasting? They talked about it freely that suggested to me they had freely engaged in it. I looked at them as if they were from another planet. I’ve never heard of that before. I couldn’t hide my bewilderment.

‘Three days without food?! And one will not die?’

Honestly, I saw it as a suicide mission. They smiled at me and tried to explain. But that explanation never ‘entered into my head'. Considering my background, you should not expect anything different.

See you next week for episode 5 – Ojere, Here I Come?

This Fiery Trial (A Poem about 1Pet.4:12)

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to test you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: (1Pet.4:12)

This Fiery Trial

The enemy organised the fire
To roast thee
But God has ordained the fire
To refine thee

All the way the enemy never knew
But all the while, to God twas never new
That there lies in thee gold, raw
That needs around it fire, very raw
For its glory and honour
To shine in all power and colour

The enemy code-named it
Troubling by fire
But God coolly called it
Testing by fire
So, whose report
Will thou believe?

Abiodun John Soretire
January 2016

This Christian Race: A Memoir (Episode Three)

THIS CHRISTIAN RACE (3)

Greetings again my kith and kin, friends and fans. Welcome to a bit longer Episode 3 of the weekly serialised memoir, ‘This Christian Race'. For a whole quarter I will be running thirteen episodes of it. Feel free to read, share, like and comment as the interesting novella reads on. Thank you and I love you.

Episode Three – I Can Do It Better

And as for the feminine temptation saga, God took care of it in a unique way.

It was an unusual way of taking care of temptation. Permit me to call it "rumour of war" method. You should remember the story in the Bible where God made an invading king to hear only a rumour of war and he had to abandon his mission and voted with his feet. Who would not? Just a rumour of war led to the death of one hundred and eighty five thousand soldiers in one night. I'm sure if I were in his shoes I would not want to wait to see the real war when just a rumour of it has done so much damage.

It was a rumour I heard too that forcefully disengaged me from my ungodly engagement. Up to today, it remained a rumour. I never bothered to confirm it.

A little bird told me that my lust-entangled mistletoe, Bernice, was caught red-handed in a love-tangle with another boy in the church who was our age mate but not my acquaintance. It was under the roof of our spiritual asylum building, Ile Aabo, they were seen to be committing such sacrilege. That did it. Nay, I mean, that undid it. Indeed jealousy was as strong as death. This jealousy forced me to die! I had to die. Yes, I had to die to this sin stronghold once and for all. 

Imagine, the one for whom we engage ourselves in fasting to save from predicament setting his table outside having a gourmet lunch. It was painful I allowed the perfecting of my salvation dragged for what was not worth it. Even though I didn't jump on a fact-finding mission immediately or thereafter, I instantly saw my folly. If I had died in the sin-struggle of not letting go of her, then I would have been forced by the cold hands of death to let her go anyway and in addition, face the pangs of hell all alone. I came to my senses like the biblical prodigal son and finally let go.

If my memory would not be failing me, not too long after, I wrapped up my secondary education in Lantoro High School. But just before we dropped our pen, we had a destiny visitor to the school. It was the principal of one Odeda Farm Institute, Eweje. He had come on an awareness campaign of a one-year general agriculture course in his Institute for secondary school leavers like us. He advised us to avail ourselves the opportunity of the course to fill the time space between the completion of our WASSCE and the eventual admission into our tertiary institution of choice.

The aspect I found most interesting in his speech was that we would be boarding. Whaoh! I've never been a boarder all through my education thus far. Here is my golden opportunity to have a taste of the pudding. I grabbed it with both hands. A life away from parent! My curiosity had the better of me. And I got Mama Sho, that is, my mother, informed. Of course, my longing for freedom away from her was edited out of my presentation. Thank God, she had no objection.

God worked in mysterious ways! I went to Eweje looking for freedom from parental encumbrances. But He had a better deal for me.

Eweje was an experience indeed. It will need another memoir to recount that side of my life. But I will have to stay with the brief of this memoir. I was a nominal Christian for the greater part of Eweje episode. I lived my Goje life of student fun to the fullest within the first four or five months of our pilgrimage. Being together as students in a dormitory all through the day and night could not promise anything less. The experience was better than the one I could have had in a secondary school boarding house. Here, there was no housemaster, no light out and no other signs of externally regimented life. Apart from lecture and agric practical periods, we were f-r-e-e!

It was in short some sort of a tertiary hostel. We fended for ourselves, food and cooking inclusive. And that comes at times with "kre" moments: moments of short or stall in supply as my pastor will call it. And we were very creative in managing such situations. 

Have you ever heard of jollof Eba? It was there I came across and got involved in its preparation and consumption. The recipe is simple. Just put ground, grated or cut pepper (any pepper will do) in a pot of water. Add palm oil, salt and diced onion if that is available. Heat the concoction to boiling. It is time to put your gaari and turn it to a cream. Yours sincerely, there you are with jollof Eba ready to be taken without meat or soup. But please, eat it while still fresh and hot. At times, when we get buoyant courtesy of fresh supply from the headquarters, Mama Sho in my own case, our pots get a feel of soup.

And as for animal protein, we don't go to far. It is either "tapa-titan" or "mortal". I will explain before you crucify me for using foreign lingo from the Mars. "Tapa-titan" is the "technical" jargon for the head and legs of chicken which have been cut off from the chicken sold or supplied to eateries and hotels. We were there as the waste management agents to mop up the head and legs into our pot at "shikini" money. But, "Mortal" is the senior of "Tapa-titan". These are the chickens that have just freshly died from the poultry around. We were always on time to take delivery of them at a ridiculously reduced price. Whatever killed the bird is none of our business. Even if it is bird flu. Let it go and be explaining itself to the boiling water if it can. Whenever we "jam" such luck, it will be festivities for us and our pot. We tried inventing another animal protein from the abundance of strange sounding, smelling and looking bats living between the roof and ceiling of our dormitory. The adventure was a failure. Those bats tasted horrible, just like their sound, sight and smell.

The only aspect of Eweje life I hated was the "face your arable" part. Cutting grass or clearing farm would never come easy for me considering my build and background. Even if suburban, I had lived in the city all the while.

Eweje life sped on with speed, to be cut short three months to go with an admission offered me by Ogun State Polytechnics. But it was not meant to end uneventful with respect to my spiritual life.

All along, a man usually come to our dormitory to spend long hours with us discussing about football and politics. He was so versed in many fields that one could be tempted to label him a living encyclopaedia. We called him Booda Tunji. That was all I would have known about him but for two or so months to parking my bags and baggage out of Eweje when I discovered this was my destiny helper in waiting. Booda Tunji was neither a football analyst nor a politician. Here was the committed and word-of-God-rich pastor of the only Pentecostal church in the immediate neighbourhood using one of the school's deserted dormitories for their services. It was an interesting discovery as I sat with my mouth agape watching the hitherto football analyst ministered as a guest minister in a church where many of us students had been invited to for this their special programme. The sleeping born-again giant in me instantly awoke. Indeed, the deep would definitely call unto the deep. Automatically, I gave his church a try. And that was it. My spiritual life has found a breeding ground. In no time the divine destiny that has brought Booda Tunji and I together transformed our togetherness into a mentor-mentee relationship. And so it is till date.

The first step in the coming together was the title of this episode.

It all started out when I sat under his ministration and his younger sister, Sister Tope, interpreted for him. That desire to see simple and correct English spoken and written jumped over me. I started re-interpreting to my heart audience what Sister Tope was interpreting to the public audience. And after the peer review, I concluded, "I can do it better."

Now, it remained breaking the inertia to approach Pastor Tunji to give me a chance at interpreting for him. There were inertias like that in the past that I never succeeded in breaking...

See you next week for episode 4 – Three Days without Food?

1 Corinthians 10:13 and My Observations

1Co 10:13 There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Song: God will never lay on you a load too heavy to carry

He will never put you in the river you cannot cross

Whatever the trials or the evil may be

He will never lay on you a load to heavy to carry

He will never put you in the river you cannot cross

My Observations:

1) One thing is sure: God weighs every cross against the capacity He has built in us. So, if the cross is weightier, it is not meant for us.

2) Even if length of time will want to make the bearable cross unbearable at a point, God has already prepared a Simon of Cyrene (Mat.27:32) waiting to take it up at that point as a way of escape.

3) What is left us as a responsibility is learning to summon up the God-built strength in us to endure the cross to its end. Only those who endure the cross will enjoy the crown.

Action Point: At the end of the story lies the glory, please, finish the manuscript.

Prayer: Lord, help me to endure the cross so that I can enjoy the crown.

Sun, Very Soon - A Poem for Waiting Mothers

You waited till you are worn
When will you Pampers your newborn
Night may seem long and forlorn

Soon, it will be the turn of the sun
And you will see your long-awaited son
Nay, daughter to start your new morn

Abiodun Soretire, April 2014

Note: This is IniOluwanimi Isaac Soretire, the covenant firstborn child that came after seven years into our marriage. We had to wait for seven seeming long years.

A fertility expert/doctor had even declared ours an impossible case if we were hoping for it to happen through natural unassisted means. We needed the medical assistance of IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation), he had given the verdict. Fortunately for us, we rather chose to hope in God and wait on Him and His long-standing promise of fruitfulness for us. Lo and behold, on the 26th of June, 2014, we have Ini in our hands as the proof of God's faithfulness.

I minister to you, you waiting mothers and fathers, your waiting shall soon be over. Your tears shall be wiped and your bouncing bundle of Isaac shall be delivered unto your hands, safe and sound, in Jesus' name. Amen.

This Christian Race: A Memoir (Episode Two)

THIS CHRISTIAN RACE (2)

Greetings again my kith and kin, friends and fans. Welcome to Episode 2 of the weekly serialised memoir, ‘This Christian Race'. For a whole quarter I will be running thirteen episodes of it. Feel free to read, share, like and comment as the interesting novella reads on. Thank you and I love you.

Episode Two – Me and My Big Mouth

Another aspect of struggles in those days that cumulatively severed my born-again claim off from time to time was my sharp mouth.

I need to rewind again a bit to my pre-born-again era. Pleasantly bear with me.

I don’t know whether to say nature cheated me or I was the one trying to cheat nature. But starting school at five years was never a bad idea in a time when it had become archaic for primary school entrance and suitability to be about touching the tip of one’s other ear with the near hand stretched over the head. Moreso, I’m a teacher's son.

Intelligence supported me all the way but my physique chose to be intentionally lagging behind all the time. Worse still, the gap yawned the more when I tried cheating nature further in my transit to secondary school. I moved in from Primary five. I was a runt among my peers.

But I have a consolation: what I lacked in terms of stature, it was made up for me in terms of my big mouth.

Ah! I can talk. Gossips? No! I don’t do tale-bearing. I do tale-telling. I’m a sanguine to the core. I have my specialisation in story-telling, spinning yarns and fables (“oduology”), spontaneous reprisal verbal attacks and ...to bring my business card up to the present-day format... general (humour) merchant.

I competed in many war of words and I won. My favourite was when I would have to have the last laugh when I used one of D.O. Fagunwa's borrowed missiles to finish my opponent. This one example of such expressions never leave my memory: “we are looking for someone with well-placed back to piggyback a child, the hunchback jumps out. Is it on your deformed and scattered back we will place our dear child?” When well delivered, you will hear the unsolicited audience shouting my praise to the high heaven. Goje! Goje! Goje has carried the day. That was my nickname. (The story behind the name is for another day.)  I love it when I fire a fiercer return salvo before the first salvo has done any real damage. We call it “ajaabale”. Something like serving it while still hot and fresh.

Of course, many of my friends were taller and of more blessed stature and build that I. So, if it would boil down to fisticuffs, I know I would be beaten black and blue. I attempted fisticuffs in an uncompleted building once. But I had chosen my opponent carefully: we were relatively of the same build. Even then it ended up an unofficial tie with both of us sustaining varying degrees of non-fatal wounds. We had to stop the fight on our own, to our shame, out of exhaustion because we had to go to “oju-olomo-o-to”, a secluded discontinued building, where there was neither referee nor spectator. Apart from this, I traded most conveniently in “verbal cuffs”

I usually had a funny episode with my friend, Lateef. That was a strongly built, Yoruba-born, Hausa-bred boy. I had two close friends, he was one of them. The other one was Dekunle. Lateef helped Dekunle with the nickname “Emo” (Mr. Field rat) while Dekunle, in return, helped Lateef with the nickname “Omo Mala” (Hausa boy). That was how secondary school friendship was back in those days: it would not immune you from verbal attack. Imagine, Dekunle got the name because of a cutlass stroke he received from Umoru, the school guard, while we were trying to capture a field rat during a school grass-cutting exercise. Umoru's cutlass was coming on the rat at the same time Dekunle's hand was catching the rat. It was a blood bath and we all sympathised and cared there and then. But the following day, what do you see: an illustration of a cutlass hitting a hand on the board, drawn by no other but Lateef! And beneath the illustration was boldly written: Emo. And that became our friend’s new name.

Sometimes, Lateef's hand did give friendly smacks on my occiput, that is, the back of my head, and some other parts. On many of such occasions, I would first of all move far from him having silently counted the number of smacks. From the safe distance, I would shout at him, “Lateef, God really saved you that you didn't smack me the third time, you would have seen your mother and mistaken her for your father.” I have created a scene. The hornet's nest is stirred. Lateef would not take it lightly. He would zoom off after me. Of course I have been on red alert all the while. I would vote with my leg. In D.O. Fagunwa’s parlance, I unwrapped the pounded yam without waiting to have the soup. The chase could be hot at times. The pendulum of victory could swing either way. But if Lateef's way, I would be thoroughly drenched with smacks. Still, that might not be the end of the story. I could be obstinately big-mouthed. Even, when I am eventually released from the lion's den, I would still repeat the cycle: “God saved you you didn’t make it forty one smacks...”

With respect to cracking and sharing all sorts of joke, a colleague, Man Bello, was our ring leader. We would sit round him trading in both practical and verbal jokes, and laughing as if tomorrow would never come. It really did not matter how hurt you felt if you were unlucky to be the butt of our jokes. I remember this girl we called “You Kont” just because she pronounced “you can't” that way in a class reading comprehension exercise as a result of interference of mother tongue. She did not like it at all. But we never cared, we loved it so much. What of a bit elderly student we named "Etiyeri" (sarcastically sizeable ears for a befitting head); even about physical attributes we were no-holds-barred jokers.

Although calling people names like “olosi” (miserable one), “were” (mad fellow) “oloriburuku” (ill-fated fellow), “dindinrin” (moron), “apoda” (imbecilic individual), “ode” (fool) and expressions like “ori e o pe” (you're a half wit), “won n sa si e” (you’re under a spell) and “aye n se e” (witchcraft forces are after you) may neither be found to be surplus nor far in-between with respect to this oral prolific phase of my life, they were with me anyway. Such a character like me cannot be immune from them, most especially on the spur of the moment when anger or verbal war raged on.

So, when I first heard the biblical condemnation of “jestings that are not convenient”, “every idle word man speaks” and “calling one's neighbour ‘fool’ or ‘Raca’” from the fellowship, it hit me like the Hiroshima’s atomic bomb. These were the things I thrived on. The struggle then began. It got so bad that when I subconsciously, courtesy of my old nature, told someone, “Gbenu e soun” (Shut your crap), the scruples filled me deeply with guilt. At times, it might get so worse when I fell into the familiar temptations of these speech sins that I would feel I had lost my salvation and would need to grab a new one at the next altar call.

I must be honest with you, the struggle my rudderless mouth brought on was way more grevious than that of the beautiful-faced temptation. It was a bumpy gallop down the path of eternity for months. So my salvation dates grew in leaps and bounds. I admit the battle was fierce because the foundation must be solid. But God allowed it to teach me to allow the Holy Spirit appropriate the finished work of the Cross in me and to stop falling back on the energy of the flesh to tame my tongue. 

I learnt the hard and long way. But it was worth the effort. Why? Fast-forward twenty two years to the present time. Now, I have been driving for the past eight years on the highly provocative Nigerian roads. I have never for once had a cause to use a foul or offensive word on another road user, motorist or pedestrian, whatever the case or provocation. Thank God my big mouth has become a tame mouth in that respect. But I'm still a work in progress. 

And as for the feminine temptation saga, God took care of it in a unique way...

See you next week for episode three – I can do it better.

This Christian Race: A Memoir (Episode One)

THIS CHRISTIAN RACE

Greetings my kith and kin, friends and fans. For a whole quarter I will be running thirteen episodes of this weekly serialised memoir which I titled ‘This Christian Race'. Feel free to read, share, like and comment as the interesting novella reads on. Thank you and I love you.

Episode One – Born Again, Again and Again

When asked my salvation date, I easily reel out 22 April, 1994. I'm sure many will clap for me and quickly add, “Eh, it’s people like you that have genuine encounter.” Thank you Sir. I can’t agree less. We are expected to know our salvation date like our birthday if something tangible and remarkable really happened to us that day. But my own story is not that straightforward.

That date is one of my born-again dates! I adopted this because it was the one that lingered most: maybe because I wrote it with chalk on a corner of our rented “face-me-I-smack-you” apartment then. If I can remember vividly, that date had to do with Nigeria doing something in solidary with South Africa's Mandela that involved us students going to Asero stadium then. Meditating on the theme of freedom became the spark that got me “re-born again.”

No, I’m not joking. They say a cat has nine lives. My salvation, covering the period of my secondary school days, has more than nine dates.

I used to be a nice boy that grew up to follow my mother who had us, five children, in her custody and care having been separated from our four-and-a-half-wifed father after many rivalry world wars, to a white garment church. I mean I was nice. I had only one girlfriend, Bernice. She used to be Basirat but a convert from a non-white garment Christian denomination christened her such on assuming the duty of taking us the young ones Sunday school. Bernice was a tall, fair-complexioned, beautiful girl with inviting smile always playing around the corners of her mouth as if she had some food bit there. I think a pair of dimples completed the profile of her beautiful face.

My girlfriend being one was not the main thing that gave me the impression that I was nice. It was my keeping sex out of the whole affair. But I was not totally innocent: I craved and sometimes created occasions that our walking together would lead us to some dark corner or another so we could quickly play a fast one about necking and petting before any hapless passer-by interrupted.

With respect to sex, I used to tell her: “You know I’m a child bred well in the norms and nuances of the elders, I will not want us to taste the forbidden fruit until we are married.” And she would smile her concession. Though I usually had a feeling that if I had demanded illicit sex she would have oblige me. 

Between you and me, my presented reason before her for the abstinence was not the whole truth. The other part was partially fear – I’ve never done it before, what if pregnancy results, God's anger factor – and partially an unconfirmed concern that my manhood size then might be a disappointment. Of course, I kept that to myself.

In the midst of that relationship, I got born again. But the cord was too strong for me to break. When the passion got the better of me and I could not resist this beautiful face, our necking and petting episode involuntary played out. My grief became great thereafter.  It became great. Really great. Its conclusion: the end of a born-again period. Days or weeks after, when another altar call opportunity came, that was the forum for me to enter another born-again phase. Ignorance or deception, I wouldn’t know: I felt rededication would not be potent enough.

I actually tried some means to separate from this beautiful temptation. I created distance. But I can’t deceive you. Rather than her matter waning in our away period, it would actually ferment. And when we eventually met, this lust would brew to overflowing. An end to another born-again era was in sight.

My understanding opened and I discovered I am bereft of God's word and uplifting fellowship with brethren. I discussed with Mom to let me be attending a Bible-believing church. Of course I got the red light hey presto. She said: “You can’t leave ..., it's a glorious church”. It was a glorious church indeed. Service starts on Sunday by ten ‘o’ clock. Many of us will turn in by eleven, that is, we the early comers. That was because my mother was among the faithful ones: we put our white garment on from home, meaning our bare feet were spoiling for punishment from the heating macadamised road covering the greater part of our twenty-minute walk from home to the base of the church mountain. Some others would wait till they had scaled the one-hundred-and-twenty-three-stepped stairs' hurdle of the church mountain before they got to remove their shoes and transformed from mufti to the “holy garment.”

Yes. We resumed service ten ‘o’ clock and the worship could extend to two or three in the afternoon. A lot of items found their ways into the programme but top on the list was singing and dancing. Even outside the denomination we were known for that. We are singers and dancers. When praises are high and mood follows in the trail, spontaneous visitations from the realm of the spirit become the order of the day. Prophetesses and prophets are sighted here and there jumping up, raising one leg, rolling on the floor, gyrating backwards and displaying many other manifestations of the spontaneous spirit possession. Our service did even accommodate chairmanship competition. Well, that was a creative way of raising money for the church. A male is invited forward and seated on one side as the “chairman” and a female is equally invited forward and seated on the other side as the “chairwoman”. Ladies and gentleman, it is now time for flexing of financial muscles between the menfolk and the womenfolk of the church. 

Not that we do not have a time for sermon. But the content and context of such sermons have not been able to convict or convince me in my spiritual pilgrimage. But Mom could not see that. I didn’t expect her to. She was an unrepentant faithful that always saw the best in the church; a prophetess of repute.

Do we really hold Bible study? Honestly, my memory is a pitch blackness on that. So, I continued wobbling and fumbling in my Christian race. The only place of real spiritual contact for me being once-in-a-week school fellowship; not the general all-comers fellowship during the school hour. This fellowship was after the school hours and few of us with thirsty souls were being ministered to weekly by a mature Christian brother that looked a deeper lifer. That was the place of altar call opportunity I earlier referred to.

My instability continued through my secondary school days.

Another aspect of struggles in those days that cumulatively severed my born-again claim off from time to time was my sharp mouth...

See you next week for episode two – Me and My Big Mouth.