“Wow! I am lost for words… but it just shows me how full of potentials you young chaps are. If you concentrate on the right things, you will produce a lot of great things. Wow! So, when do we do this?” I said as I was in between happiness and surprise. At that point, I understood that if teens and youths think less of sex, pornography, masturbation, boyfriends and girlfriends, we would have more geniuses. We would have more computer programmers, more deep thinkers, but the devil knows this, so he tries to divert their attention to what will not make them productive. “Like right now…!” they said very excitedly. “Ok, how do we go about it?” I said very excited, hoping that Favour was happy about the development. Kenneth brought out his expensive phone. I wondered where he got money to buy that kind of phone as he was working at a restaurant as a cleaner, but that was not the right time to challenge him. They had it all planned out. They used a selfie stick on the phone… “Who is going first?” I asked “Me…” the rebellious, Pastor’s child said. “No, let Ajaara go first, Mercy will recognize Ajaara,” Abigael said. “That’s true!” the Pastor’s daughter said and everyone agreed likewise. Ajaara took hold of the selfie stick and started talking… “I have always admired you Mercy from a distance, I was always wishing I had a mother like yours. You made me miss my mother anytime I saw you walking on the street probably to run errands for your Mum. I saw a cultured girl who I would love to be if I had the opportunity. Then suddenly like an answer from God to an unworthy sinner like me, God decided to give me a space in your house, close to you that I may draw from the same well you drank from that has made you who you are… but suddenly it seemed like history was about to repeat itself with me again. I lost something precious. You! I have been out there in that place where you may be now… that place of searching for love, fulfillment & freedom. Yes! You will find freedom, but you will never find love and fulfillment. You will find freedom to hurt yourself, you will find freedom to reduce yourself, but love can only be found at home. I wanted to have your life and now I am in it, I am happy to be in it, but I know you trying to have the life I once had, will bring you nothing but sorrow. I hope you watch this and know home is where true love and fulfillment is,” Ajaara said and I can’t describe the atmosphere she brought in, but it was heavenly and deep… She stepped aside. The rebellious, Pastor’s daughter was next. “I know what it feels like when your parents want you to go to heaven by all means and thereby want you to be as holy as Angels but they tend to forget that we are humans first. They tend to forget that as humans, we also have our reasoning faculty where we want to reason out our own salvation. They push rules down our throats and let us live a religious life instead of living a life which is guarded by a personal relationship with God. In a bid to live our own lives, we break their rules and unfortunately for us, we hurt ourselves. Yes! We hurt ourselves… And that’s what I don’t want you to do right now, Mercy… I know you want to find out what life really is all about by yourself, but by going out on your own, you will hurt yourself. I read in the Bible yesterday after a very long time and I saw written in Proverbs that ‘A person far away from home is like a bird that is far from its nest…’ I believe you know what that means, a bird without a nest will keep jumping from tree to tree but will not find a resting place… Now I live from one friend’s house to another like a bird without a nest. You don’t want to be like me who went out on my own some years back and yet to return home, but one thing I have realized is that much more than hurting my parents, I have hurt myself and my future, because I have done things I never thought I would do… I am not proud of my choices but someday I hope to return home… You haven’t left home that long… Turn back now, hoping you will know your way back,” Dabira, the rebellious, Pastor’s daughter said and on dropping the phone, she ran away from the compound crying. I knew her words hit her as well… I was out of words to say, so I decided to stay, watch and learn from the kids. Tunde, the boy whose father complained about running away from his vocational school took the selfie stick and silently, I wondered what his proud self had to say. He was still a pain in his father’s heart, so what advice did he have to offer Mercy, but I decided not to judge his level of wisdom by his outward disposition. He said… To be continued.
