CHAPTER TWO
I was mercilessly beaten, whipped severely with my belt stripped from my waist as I set out to preach the word of God for the recent cross-over night at Rumuozoche.
Everything I had was forcefully taken, except my Big Bible that revealed my identity to them, and yet there was no fear of God in them. I was left marooned in a lonely road, and then I whimpered like a forsaken bird in an uninhabited place.
My soul unconsciously groaned, “Where are you, Lord?”
Then I was reassured that God was with me, and that was why I was not shot dead.
My mind returned to the gun they pointed on me, disorganizing me, making me to moan, “You can take whatever thing I have, please, but spare my life.”
Thereafter, I was left with bruises, and I writhed in pain with no one to help.
“Well, such is life,” my soul yelled, and then what Paul said in the scripture, “If I tell you what I passed through in Antioch” resonated in my mind.
I stood up from where I was lying down. I walked towards my station with many thoughts in my mind, making me forget I had reached my station.
“Grief can distort a man's reasoning,” I uttered when I regained myself.
As I entered in the Church, I saw many members, both old and new faces, who had sat waiting for me to begin the cross-over service. I saw a pail of water, and then used it to wash myself.
“Today, I have washed away my sorrow and grief. I shall no longer be a victim of robbery again,” I prayed.
I came into the church, feeling nothing had happened to me, but one thing which I guessed might disturb my members was that I wore no belt and my blue shirt that was a bit dirty. My coat was battered with dust and sand when I was rolling on the ground as I was being beaten.
I maintained myself quietly. I did not want what happened to me to affect the program. After the program, I told my members what happened to me as I was coming. They wanted me to call down fire from above to consume the armed robbers. It was then I knew that these were radical Christians who would not cherish any illusion. Even as they wanted me to pray for those men to die, I told them we Christians were set apart from the others, that our prime duty was to pray for the good of our enemies.
After this, something I had never seen during five years of my ministerial function in Rumuozoche began to be made manifest. Mr. Opurum Alili gave me some money to buy fuel, while my church secretary brought me one liter of fuel to put in my motorcycle, since I had not come by my car. The members were all giving God thanks not only that my motorcycle Mate 90 was not snatched from me but also that my life was spared.
I reminded them about my dream I had shared with them in the Sunday morning service before the cross-over night. In the dream, I drove a bus owned by someone else, and I had no driving license. I saw a police officer, and he asked to see my driving license, which I did not have. Since I was unable to provide the driving license, the police officer then flogged me with a small cane he held in his right hand.
As he flogged me, some persons who were begging the police officer to allow them to go, then asked the policeman, “Don't you know that he is a man of God?”
The policeman was very sorry for what he did. He pleaded with me to flog him seven strokes with the same small cane, which I did not. I forgave him.
As the dream was recounted, the members were able to recall the sermon, “Remember Your Identity as Christians,” which I preached to them in the morning service. My biblical reference was taken from 1 Peter 2:10, and 1 Corinthians 1:2.
“Today, it was as if I knew what was going to happen,” I said.
I waited for my brother to return from where he went to with my Kinco motorcycle. I was aware that he went to Umunka Igbodo to play music for them. Umunka villagers were celebrating the cross-over night.
As I waited, and he was not forthcoming, I decided to use the Mate 90 to go for the cross-over night program. When I reached Umuihe, my motorcycle quaked. It sounded like there was no fuel either in the carburetor or in the tank
.
“Aha, what a problem!” I groaned.
I applied my brake, and the motorcycle stopped rolling. I put on the light of a big torch I borrowed from my little cousin. I discovered that there was no fuel. I placed my mouth firmly on the little opening of the tank, and then released some air that flooded the remaining fuel inside the carburetor.
I then started the motorcycle. Once it reached the middle of my journey, it broke down again, and I did not know what to do again. Time was not on my side. I bent down to see if I could do what I did before that did get it started. Nothing happened. The motorcycle did not make a sound. There was no fuel.
I looked up to heaven. “Lord, have You brought me out to suffer in the middle of the journey, where no one could be found for help?” I groaned.
I did not know that God was planning for me.
As I looked to my front, I saw a light, and I heard a sound of a Qualink motorcycle roaming towards where I was.
It was then that I knew that I was in a dangerous place.
“You, come here,” they commanded. “Bring everything you have, or I fuck you up with gun."
My body began to shake, and soon I found myself rolling in the sand, being beaten. By then, all that I had possessed been taken away from me, including the big torch I borrowed from my little cousin.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!' I moaned.
The armed robbers left me with my fuel-less motorcycle. I remained unconscious for some minutes. There was no one to rescue me.
When I told this terrible story to my members, they were all sad. I then remembered when I met a man with his rifle during the 2014- 2016 crisis in the land, when there were Dey Well and Dey Gbam. It was at that place I was beaten that I met this man as he hissed out from the bush like a python chased by a hunter.
I melted with fear, but the man saw me as a man of God and he allowed me to go. This happened on a Sunday morning when I was going to church. As I drove, I noticed that the road was lonely, and there was no way I could not go to church. I began to sing a hymn,
"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand."
Two weeks later I heard that the man had been shot dead by his rivals. I wept for him. He did not harm me, and, I believed, God had intervened, as I made my plea through the hymn.
I declared that a priestly office was not what every man should desire because it was an office reserved for those who God called upon to function. “If you are called, no matter how little you may appear before kings and princes, you are exalted before them, by His grace,” I said.
After the cross-over night, I endured the pains and conducted the New Year Service before leaving for treatment. My message was, “Put off Your Old Sinful Nature.” I backed it up from Ephesians 4:22-25. My major emphasis was on the members shunning lies, stealing, sexual immorality, hatred, and all forms of ungodly manners, and instead embracing Christ as their personal Savior.
After my sermon, Mildred, a daughter of Levi, an elder in the church came to me privately, and was reduced to tears.
“Man of God," she moaned, 'how will I avoid sexual sin? As an unmarried girl, many men would come wanting me as their wife, and before they would pay the bride price, my back must have seen many winters.”
As a literary scholar, I knew what she meant by “seen many winters.” Her visit to me gave me another opportunity to deal with such a sexual sin.
What Paul said in Romans 12:1-2 came to me, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
As I was speaking with her, her responses indicated that she was receiving the Word of God, and I believed that was the time she denounced her sins. She began to study her Bible, and many changes happened in her life. Thereafter, I asked her about her parents and her brother Fabian, because I did not see them in the church service.
Mildred then told me that her dad had been taken to a hospital. Though I knew that Levi was a lung cancer patient and had been taken to various clinical centers, no one had told me that his sickness had escalated. I took Mildred to the sanctuary, where we prayed together for her father's health. As I was praying, Mildred felt the anointing; I opened my eyes a little and saw where Mildred was rolling to and fro consecutively. It was then that Mildred received deliverance. I concluded the prayer, asking that God extend His gracious healing power to Levi, and his entire household.
I was mercilessly beaten, whipped severely with my belt stripped from my waist as I set out to preach the word of God for the recent cross-over night at Rumuozoche.
Everything I had was forcefully taken, except my Big Bible that revealed my identity to them, and yet there was no fear of God in them. I was left marooned in a lonely road, and then I whimpered like a forsaken bird in an uninhabited place.
My soul unconsciously groaned, “Where are you, Lord?”
Then I was reassured that God was with me, and that was why I was not shot dead.
My mind returned to the gun they pointed on me, disorganizing me, making me to moan, “You can take whatever thing I have, please, but spare my life.”
Thereafter, I was left with bruises, and I writhed in pain with no one to help.
“Well, such is life,” my soul yelled, and then what Paul said in the scripture, “If I tell you what I passed through in Antioch” resonated in my mind.
I stood up from where I was lying down. I walked towards my station with many thoughts in my mind, making me forget I had reached my station.
“Grief can distort a man's reasoning,” I uttered when I regained myself.
As I entered in the Church, I saw many members, both old and new faces, who had sat waiting for me to begin the cross-over service. I saw a pail of water, and then used it to wash myself.
“Today, I have washed away my sorrow and grief. I shall no longer be a victim of robbery again,” I prayed.
I came into the church, feeling nothing had happened to me, but one thing which I guessed might disturb my members was that I wore no belt and my blue shirt that was a bit dirty. My coat was battered with dust and sand when I was rolling on the ground as I was being beaten.
I maintained myself quietly. I did not want what happened to me to affect the program. After the program, I told my members what happened to me as I was coming. They wanted me to call down fire from above to consume the armed robbers. It was then I knew that these were radical Christians who would not cherish any illusion. Even as they wanted me to pray for those men to die, I told them we Christians were set apart from the others, that our prime duty was to pray for the good of our enemies.
After this, something I had never seen during five years of my ministerial function in Rumuozoche began to be made manifest. Mr. Opurum Alili gave me some money to buy fuel, while my church secretary brought me one liter of fuel to put in my motorcycle, since I had not come by my car. The members were all giving God thanks not only that my motorcycle Mate 90 was not snatched from me but also that my life was spared.
I reminded them about my dream I had shared with them in the Sunday morning service before the cross-over night. In the dream, I drove a bus owned by someone else, and I had no driving license. I saw a police officer, and he asked to see my driving license, which I did not have. Since I was unable to provide the driving license, the police officer then flogged me with a small cane he held in his right hand.
As he flogged me, some persons who were begging the police officer to allow them to go, then asked the policeman, “Don't you know that he is a man of God?”
The policeman was very sorry for what he did. He pleaded with me to flog him seven strokes with the same small cane, which I did not. I forgave him.
As the dream was recounted, the members were able to recall the sermon, “Remember Your Identity as Christians,” which I preached to them in the morning service. My biblical reference was taken from 1 Peter 2:10, and 1 Corinthians 1:2.
“Today, it was as if I knew what was going to happen,” I said.
I waited for my brother to return from where he went to with my Kinco motorcycle. I was aware that he went to Umunka Igbodo to play music for them. Umunka villagers were celebrating the cross-over night.
As I waited, and he was not forthcoming, I decided to use the Mate 90 to go for the cross-over night program. When I reached Umuihe, my motorcycle quaked. It sounded like there was no fuel either in the carburetor or in the tank
.
“Aha, what a problem!” I groaned.
I applied my brake, and the motorcycle stopped rolling. I put on the light of a big torch I borrowed from my little cousin. I discovered that there was no fuel. I placed my mouth firmly on the little opening of the tank, and then released some air that flooded the remaining fuel inside the carburetor.
I then started the motorcycle. Once it reached the middle of my journey, it broke down again, and I did not know what to do again. Time was not on my side. I bent down to see if I could do what I did before that did get it started. Nothing happened. The motorcycle did not make a sound. There was no fuel.
I looked up to heaven. “Lord, have You brought me out to suffer in the middle of the journey, where no one could be found for help?” I groaned.
I did not know that God was planning for me.
As I looked to my front, I saw a light, and I heard a sound of a Qualink motorcycle roaming towards where I was.
It was then that I knew that I was in a dangerous place.
“You, come here,” they commanded. “Bring everything you have, or I fuck you up with gun."
My body began to shake, and soon I found myself rolling in the sand, being beaten. By then, all that I had possessed been taken away from me, including the big torch I borrowed from my little cousin.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!' I moaned.
The armed robbers left me with my fuel-less motorcycle. I remained unconscious for some minutes. There was no one to rescue me.
When I told this terrible story to my members, they were all sad. I then remembered when I met a man with his rifle during the 2014- 2016 crisis in the land, when there were Dey Well and Dey Gbam. It was at that place I was beaten that I met this man as he hissed out from the bush like a python chased by a hunter.
I melted with fear, but the man saw me as a man of God and he allowed me to go. This happened on a Sunday morning when I was going to church. As I drove, I noticed that the road was lonely, and there was no way I could not go to church. I began to sing a hymn,
"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand."
Two weeks later I heard that the man had been shot dead by his rivals. I wept for him. He did not harm me, and, I believed, God had intervened, as I made my plea through the hymn.
I declared that a priestly office was not what every man should desire because it was an office reserved for those who God called upon to function. “If you are called, no matter how little you may appear before kings and princes, you are exalted before them, by His grace,” I said.
After the cross-over night, I endured the pains and conducted the New Year Service before leaving for treatment. My message was, “Put off Your Old Sinful Nature.” I backed it up from Ephesians 4:22-25. My major emphasis was on the members shunning lies, stealing, sexual immorality, hatred, and all forms of ungodly manners, and instead embracing Christ as their personal Savior.
After my sermon, Mildred, a daughter of Levi, an elder in the church came to me privately, and was reduced to tears.
“Man of God," she moaned, 'how will I avoid sexual sin? As an unmarried girl, many men would come wanting me as their wife, and before they would pay the bride price, my back must have seen many winters.”
As a literary scholar, I knew what she meant by “seen many winters.” Her visit to me gave me another opportunity to deal with such a sexual sin.
What Paul said in Romans 12:1-2 came to me, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
As I was speaking with her, her responses indicated that she was receiving the Word of God, and I believed that was the time she denounced her sins. She began to study her Bible, and many changes happened in her life. Thereafter, I asked her about her parents and her brother Fabian, because I did not see them in the church service.
Mildred then told me that her dad had been taken to a hospital. Though I knew that Levi was a lung cancer patient and had been taken to various clinical centers, no one had told me that his sickness had escalated. I took Mildred to the sanctuary, where we prayed together for her father's health. As I was praying, Mildred felt the anointing; I opened my eyes a little and saw where Mildred was rolling to and fro consecutively. It was then that Mildred received deliverance. I concluded the prayer, asking that God extend His gracious healing power to Levi, and his entire household.
Comments