Short Story: Beloved In Christ (Part Four)
 |
| christianity.com |
Sunday came with its normal sunny weather. I clad in a modest kaba and slit. The slit is very long that it covered up to my ankle. All the skirt and other revealing clothes which I owned have been shown the exit door immediately I had the confrontation with doctor Efua. Now it is my stature that finds me problem; everybody thinks that I am 24 anytime I adorned myself. Therefore, I know today might not be different.
Maa Christy was also done. I could hear her yelling my name for the fiftieth time already, right in front of the dressing mirror where she stood. I leapt to her room hastily. Her reason: “Since your father is away and you are done enjoying your days at school, resume your task — apply this Dustin powder at my back.” I did it and zipped her back and, she also zipped mine. I was not expecting anything again: we just have to walk outside and board a taxi to church. Not knowing she had something boggling to say. “Had the midwives swapped you with another child like I would have cursed the entire nation and no woman would have ever deliver again.” This was just for laughter because she had never cursed anyone before. The least she did was mercilessly talking to an ant who bit her at dawn.
Soon we got to the church, Final Stage Ministries. The building is not the usual one my mother used to speak about. They had built their own church now. Though it is not as big and old as my father’s church, it can house prolly ninety to hundred congregants. The building has some fine architecture. Everything inside seems futuristic. My head was still revolving in excitement. I saw Jesus’ picture at the northern corner of the building. That of Pastor Ntim and his wife, I could count like ten of them in all the four corners of the building. All the banners, bill boards, and sign boards at the road side are all of theirs, showing their pictures alone.
Even though Pastor Ntim was brooding on the need for paying tithes in his sermon, I had transposed myself into the last sermon we had had in school where, Ms. Sarah spoke about the pervasive trajectory the church is going nowadays. That, some pastors would rather want to be noticed and worshipped than our Lord and Master Savior. “This is why when you attend such churches you only see the church owners or founders pictures but not that of Jesus Christ, our personal savior,” words of Ms. Sarah I will never forget.
But hey, this is not why I am here, so I changed my mind and began listening to the sonorous sermon. I enjoyed Pastor Ntim that day. He preached so impeccably that I am not sure if I could ever forget his refrain: “If all Christians are to pay their tithes, poverty would be eradicated from the world. And no human being would have died of hunger.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
By Abdul Rahman Odoi
Copyrights Reserved.@2022
#storiestoldAreNotInnocent
(UNEDITED)
NB: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Post a Comment