IS IT A BRIBE? (PART 1)

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I had just moved into my new apartment. It was a pretty nice one except for the fact that the community where it was situated was a bit crowdy - crowdy in the sense that there were many “face me, I face you” houses around. A very noticeable feature of the community where the house was, which I noticed on the very first day I was walking towards my house was the number of Churches on the street leading to the the house. I started counting- one, two, three, four, … Till date I can’t say specifically how many churches are in that locality. Some of them even hold their services in the sitting room of one of their members.

Despite the presence of so many churches in the locality, I observed that some of my closest neighbours attended none of the churches and in fact, they were not interested in joining any. In the house closest to mine, there lived a family of five. The oldest of the children was about 12 years old at the time. As a typical son of Yoruba land #wafrca who knows that greeting people when you walk past their house is non-negotiable, I greeted whoever was outside each time and as such it wasn’t difficult to notice me. I later got to know the children by their names and gathered a little more information about them.
One of such information was that they had no interest in being part of a Church for whatever reasons. I had observed earlier that the father turned down invitations from members of the numerous churches who came to them. I was also counting the number of occasions when this happened - one, two, three, four, five … until I lost count. This made me suspect that Mr. Kingsley was a pagan, until one day, some preachers came to him and surprisingly he gave them a listening ear (I guess he was in a good mood). He even got deeply involved in the conversation. From his contributions or questions as they sounded to me, he had a pretty good knowledge of the scriptures. The conversation went smoothly until the point when he was invited for church services. As though he saw it coming, he was quick to reject their offer. Little did Mr. Kingsley know that I had gotten the much information I needed about him – He had knowledge of God, but was not interested in fellowshipping with God’s followers. That incidence was going to change everything.

I had the impression that he must have had some ugly experience in the past with church goers and he could probably be justified for whatever actions he had taken. Who was I to blame or judge him? After all, I knew nothing about his past. Nevertheless, I was interested in knowing what must have inspired that decision he took. Moreover, I wanted his children to grow up attending a church, because I knew what I gained by attending church programs as a young child. It sped up my knowledge of God and His principles. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to Mr. Kingsley and possibly convince him to at least give his children the opportunity to go to church, but I always knew that was a tall order. So, I chose the option of playing politics.

I started my quest by getting close to his kids. I also tried as much as I could to buy some fruits for the family when returning from work. Then, I began to spend at least ten minutes to chat with the kids whenever I met them outside; asking them how they fared at school and whatnot. I also offered to assist them with their home work if they had any difficulty with it. My offer was accepted and it further helped me build a relationship with them. It was really not a difficult task doing this as they were very bright kids. Besides the ‘academic’ relationship, they started getting fund of me and would rather spend their leisure at my place. They became my siblings, no less. The interesting thing was that their parents endorsed our ‘friendship’ and did not even mind their children spending the night with me, especially on Fridays when they won’t have to be in school the following day. I seized that opportunity to teach them the word of God and they really loved it. The first child in particular was enamored with Bible stories.

Not quite long after our newly formed relationship, the children started requesting to go to Church with me, but I declined their request for obvious reasons. I didn’t want Mr. Kingsley to think otherwise and end up restricting their relationship with me. My plan was to take things step by step until I became part of the family and become irresistible. Nevertheless, I continued showing my love towards the children until one of such acts really moved the parents greatly such that Mr. Kingsley and his wife had to come to my apartment for the first time to show their appreciation. This happened when I bought the kids school items (school bags, notebooks, stationery and sandals) for the new session. Mr. Kinsley explained to me how worried he had been about how to purchase those items until, according to him “God used me to provide them.” Our friendship grew even stronger afterwards. We were officially family members!

One Saturday morning, Mr. Kingsley invited me to his house for an important discussion. When I got to his place, I met he and his wife waiting for me in their living room. I was still wondering what could be the reason for this impromptu meeting when his first sentence interrupted my thoughts. He said he wasn’t happy with me and the reason he gave was even more confusing. He said with a bit of humor in his voice that I was playing with his children’s emotions. He continued by asking the most unexpected question “Why have refused to allow your siblings go to Church with you?” Before I could respond (it’s not as if I had an answer anyway), he told me how unhappy his children were about my reluctance to grant their request. If I had never hesitated to take them to other places, what made the Church different? I eventually decided to answer his questions or rather respond to his accusations. I explained to him that I ha observed that he didn’t want to be part of any Church and had overheard him discussing with several members of churches in the neighborhood. He responded by telling me that he was going to narrate to me what prompted his decision not to be part of any church, but before that the first thing to be done by me was to agree to grant his kids’ request to go to Church with me. Immediately, he called his children to the living room and told them that I had agreed to take them to church as from that. You needed to have seen the excitement; they ran towards me and embraced. I had never seen them happier. Afterwards, Mr. He stood up and came to seat next to me and said I have never narrated this to anyone, but I think you deserve to know this. Then he started to tell me about his harrowing experience ...