OluwabukolaRuth:
THE WORSHIP EXPERIENCE

The worship leader collected the wired microphone from the prayer coordinator, who had set the atmosphere burning with some capital tongue speaking in the rented hall.

“Lerogete aikolema ribainda, Endoskelesh endoski barabai!”

He had declared with ferocity and some vibration of hands. One could see that the few members who came to church early had caught the fire.

Sayo watched through thick concave glasses as the pretty assistant choir coordinator took her place behind the wooden pulpit. A glance at the choir stand made her wonder why the role of praying, using the ‘Prayer cord’ as a reference, usually went to the guys while the Eve gender huddled together for the singing role. Maybe God answered their prayers faster, she thought.

The young adult in a black gown with Ankara pleats at the sleeve murmured something while she held the microphone slightly away. She was telling God something that the congregation need not hear.

The pianist switched from the epic prayer beat fit for a Korean movie war scene to what the church lingo tagged ‘strings’. It was musical notes that went on continuously before it switched to another, descending and ascending. In an instant, the tempo of the atmosphere turned meditative.

.

“Lift your hands and worship Jesus this morning,” She said in a honey-laced voice. “Give your wer-ship to Jeeezes” She continued in thick phonetics that made her sound American before launching into singing in tongues. Gradually, her voice rose. It got louder and louder, and she got overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. She didn’t care for appearances anymore.

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OluwabukolaRuth:



AUNTY FEMINIST GOES TO CHURCH

The period when women were told to be silent in the church was over. This was what Aunty thought before returning home to Naija.

Unpacking her luggage, she thought about the foremost thing she wanted to do. She would show up in church, the home church she’d been nostalgic about in the UK.

Life as a working student had not allowed for too much church. She had only attended virtual church gatherings as much as she had the time. Homecoming, she dressed in the only native attire she had, a green agbada and trousers her UK tailor had sewn, ready for the non-virtual experience.

“You’ll like the style.” The overambitious woman had said. Yes, Aunty did like it, but as she passed by the ushers at the door, she knew she had made a mistake.

“You’re welcome,” The two welcoming ladies said as an afterthought.

“Your agbada is nice,” The woman seated next to Aunty whispered into her ears.

“Errm. But it is not church cloth, you know,” It was Ajibike, a friend she had made during her ushering days in the church. She looked like she was a fashion designer already, as that was where her passion lay since those days. As Aunty gazed at the intricate beadwork on Ajibike’s cloth, wondering how much six years had changed her friend, a baby cried in that row. Ajibike stood up to carry the baby outside, cutting short the brief reunion. She was the mother, and that was her third child.

Aunty sighed. It was alarming how much she had forgotten how things were at home. But it wasn’t only a lack of remembrance. She hoped that the church would have moved past some beliefs. And that had a subtle suggestion of having the church become worldly. But she was not going to play the Devil’s advocate.

She wasn’t Chimamanda (CNA) that would speak to a large crowd about how not to view the female gender. Besides, the church mothers who openly condemned feminism believed that Chimamanda was not a Christian. If not, she would write only faith-based novels like Opeyemi Akintunde or the renowned Francine Rivers. So, God could never be in support of the idea of feminism.

Well, the church women had varying beliefs, and Aunty had hers. The stay-home-mums among them believed that they were fulfilling the God-given roles of a woman. Unlike those who furthered their education like Aunty did, to the detriment of getting married. Her mates were already raising godly kids to the Glory of God.


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OluwabukolaRuth:


BLOOD SUCKING DEMONS

Mosquitoes, lice, and bed bugs, you hate them all.

Yesterday, you swatted an overly excited anopheles with your bare hands, but it danced out of your grasp, singing the same annoying song you didn’t want to hear. You clapped for it, hoping that the performance would end, but she went ahead to bring her friends to join in. So, you decided to spray the chemical that would kill them.

You are not supposed to have lice on your scalp because you’re a man, or you will be –you still live with your parents. But you once had lice as a boy. And you cried, scratching the little things with teeny-weeny arms and legs out of your hair.

You don’t want to talk about the bedbugs. Those who’ve had them invade their houses would tell you that it’s one hellish experience, cos the flat insects reproduce like the stars God showed to Abraham.

Turning on the bed for the fifth time before daybreak, you wonder if you should manage to get to church that morning or fumigate your room to get rid of those little things buzzing the wirin wirin yion yion sounds in your ears. They didn’t all die yesterday.

Church calls out to you, but you’ve been out of it for a while. So you don’t want to ‘show face’ there. In the past week, you thought of things that won’t happen. Your body might be in Ibadan, but your mind had wandered ten thousand miles in circles. And your parents wondered, voicing out their worries. “Why is your body hot? Oh, is it a fever? Why is your fever this severe? Don’t tell me you want high blood pressure at this age.

Your heart is heaving, and you’re wondering why you opened it to the person who hurt you. The poor love-shaped organ now has to pump precious blood into a sick body with a weary soul.

Last time at church, the sermon was about forgiveness. From where you sat, you watched the person you refused to forgive laugh with another person, and you prayed silently that the person realized that he was potential prey. Well, maybe the person would not be vulnerable enough to be manipulated. Maybe, the person was already as wise as a serpent and did not lose guard just because he was in a church.

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OluwabukolaRuth:


BLOOD SUCKING DEMONS

Mosquitoes, lice, and bed bugs, you hate them all.

Yesterday, you swatted an overly excited anopheles with your bare hands, but it danced out of your grasp, singing the same annoying song you didn’t want to hear. You clapped for it, hoping that the performance would end, but she went ahead to bring her friends to join in. So, you decided to spray the chemical that would kill them.

You are not supposed to have lice on your scalp because you’re a man, or you will be –you still live with your parents. But you once had lice as a boy. And you cried, scratching the little things with teeny-weeny arms and legs out of your hair.

You don’t want to talk about the bedbugs. Those who’ve had them invade their houses would tell you that it’s one hellish experience, cos the flat insects reproduce like the stars God showed to Abraham.

Turning on the bed for the fifth time before daybreak, you wonder if you should manage to get to church that morning or fumigate your room to get rid of those little things buzzing the wirin wirin yion yion sounds in your ears. They didn’t all die yesterday.

Church calls out to you, but you’ve been out of it for a while. So you don’t want to ‘show face’ there. In the past week, you thought of things that won’t happen. Your body might be in Ibadan, but your mind had wandered ten thousand miles in circles. And your parents wondered, voicing out their worries. “Why is your body hot? Oh, is it a fever? Why is your fever this severe? Don’t tell me you want high blood pressure at this age.

Your heart is heaving, and you’re wondering why you opened it to the person who hurt you. The poor love-shaped organ now has to pump precious blood into a sick body with a weary soul.

Last time at church, the sermon was about forgiveness. From where you sat, you watched the person you refused to forgive laugh with another person, and you prayed silently that the person realized that he was potential prey. Well, maybe the person would not be vulnerable enough to be manipulated. Maybe, the person was already as wise as a serpent and did not lose guard just because he was in a church.

CONTINUE READING HERE https://heartychristianstories.com/blood-sucking-demons-church-chronicles-3/

OluwabukolaRuth:


MY DADDY- LONGLEGS

When I was a little girl, my whole world went at a pleasantly slow pace. It was endless days of wanting to be an adult. And the calmness and stability of that little world seemed to last forever. The hopeful days of waiting and the protection from my parents from what the world had to offer slowly faded away. They couldn’t shield me from them forever. And I couldn’t stop growing up at a rapid rate.

This is what I always wanted. But I’m not even yet an adult. I’m just one leg in and another out, and it’s already looking like, “Why is this world so fast?”

Like this modification of a few lines from the Korean movie ‘Daddy Long legs’, I have my own Daddy long-legs but had no idea I did, even after I knew the difference between my right and left (hands) as a child.

I spent those earliest years just taking life as it came. Well, what did I understand? I was under the wings of my parents. They knew the next steps I had to take and did not need to consult me before doing that. From church to school and everywhere else, my little self trusted the systems they were taking me through.

From daycare to playgroup, I learnt my ABCs and 123s. The primary one to five came, not like a dream, as this was when I started understanding how slow the earth circled the sun. I could not wait to go to secondary school. And when I did, I realized that secondary school life was not worth hurrying the former experience.

“Write WAEC, JAMB and get into a University, study the course of your choice,” became the next instruction, and my mates and I burnt candles, reading like maniacs, grappling to the next level. Those who moved shared testimony in church, talking about A’s, three digits JAMB scores, and various tertiary institutions. Those who didn’t did not admit to feeling a little less of themselves but strived to move too, for there was a ‘next’ time.

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OluwabukolaRuth:


SABBATH

“Hi,”

“Hello,”

It was a weird conversation with a stranger down the winding staircase. It felt good. Sunday arrived early and in sync with the soft instrumental escaping from the second floor. It preluded the start of service.

Sunday was Sabbath. It was a special day of rest when people poured out the streets in their Sunday best. Aso ebi from a cousin’s wedding. The three-piece suit from last Christmas. Agbada from best man duties the previous month. Shoes that were a gift from a friend on her birthday.

The wig from the impromptu shopping for preparing for the Presidential visit to the orphanage. The neatly pressed choir robe. The friendship gift of a tie before she became his fiancé. The new white gown from Iya Aladura sewing enterprises. A worn rosary from late grandma and a new bell for the recently ordained pastor.

Hundreds of cars; Some drank water from time to time to avoid overheating, the ones representing the status of a middle-class family, and the tear-rubber 2019 car that a father would share testimony about in front of thousands of Christians.

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OluwabukolaRuth:


THROUGH YOUR EYES

The eye is the lamp of the body: when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light…

“What do you see?” Grandma Agbaje pointed at the small window to her right and returned her gaze to those of us in her teenage Sunday school class. Our gazes moved to the window, and some of us stood on our toes.

“The window!”

“A window with silver aluminium sill,”

“A tree just outside it,”

“A blue and white sky,” I said after others had made their tries.

“Is that all there is to see?” Grandma Agbaje asked instead of giving the reply we all anticipated. I prided myself on always getting an answer right and waited confidently. Instead, she launched into a Yoruba song.

To ba n rin l’okunkun

Ko le mo, afoju ni

To ba n jeun eleera

Ko le mo, afoju ni

To ba r’omoge to rewa eeeh

Ko le mo rara

If he’s walking in the dark

He cannot know, he is blind

If he is eating ant-infested food

He cannot know, he is blind

If he sees a beautiful girl, yes

He can never know

Tope Alabi—Afoju

“Is that all there is to see?” She asked for the last time, and I thought she only wanted to mess with our heads. Anybody with eyes could see what she pointed at.

That Sunday School, Grandma Agbaje had instilled something in us. My father was a tough man who had acquired a crisscross of wrinkles from frowning his entire life.

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OluwabukolaRuth:


DRIP DRIP

“Calm down now. Your phone selfie camera is on. Look into it and act like you’re enjoying the drip. Drip drip,” Eucharia said to herself, batting her eyelashes at the camera. Ifeanu rolled her eyes as both walked down the road to Chapel.

“Drip ko. In this land of UI. Two weeks of school stress and such vanity is gone,” She thought.

“You know, we’re supposed to be praying in tongues as we move,” She said out loud instead.

“So, here we are, with one of my friends, on our way to the AUCSF theme declaration.” Eucharia held her phone at a nice camera angle and talked animatedly, blocking out Ifeanu’s voice.

“It’s one of those once-in-a-while programs. You know, an assembly of Christians in the University of Ibadan.”

She slanted the phone to include Ifeanu’s face. “This is my friend. She’s so choked up and is surely praying in tongues under her breath. Share us from your well of wisdom ma.”

Ifeanu smiled. Eucharia’s whining skills had shot up in the eight months ASUU strike.

“Blessed are you, chosen one of God!” Ifeanu started, and both giggled. She was getting into the vibe.

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