I almost got saved twice in my life. Thrice, if you count the day Pastor Pius Muiru asked me to go near the radio and repeat after him “Mungu baba…futa jina langu katika kitabu cha mauti, liandike kwenye kitabu cha uzima blah blah blah.” I don’t really count that one because by the time we all got to saying that croaky ‘Aaaamen!’ I already was feeling like I had been scammed. So I confessed that one as a sin and chose to wait for my turn.
Most notable was in the year of our Lord 2007, when there was this major weekend challenge pale ‘Ice Cool.’ No, no, no, calm down. Weekend challenge is not a type of survivor series where you have fun by riding bicycles and swimming and walking and lighting fire without matches. Unless of course you got your education from a Group of Schools.For us, it meant a Friday to Sunday religious event where you praise and worshipped (someone differentiate the two for a brother) and read the Bible non-stop. 24/7. Depending on the moderator, you may also exorcise different demons dogging the school…demon of poor grades, demon of strikes et al. Weekend challenge wass also a time when a lot of underhand business takes place, simply because the school schedule is largely lax.
So we are there singing and praising and jumping and dancing like nobody’s business. Okay, like God’s business. For some reason, we used to enjoy those sessions greatly, albeit with no religious feelings attached. I think the colonial era African Christians felt the same too, reason they broke off to form happy clappy churches. It was just another weekend, to sing and dance and sleep during preachings. A few ganja heads would get saved here and there, but no one would expect that salvation to last more than a week. There was no major exam coming up anyway.
But this was a different weekend. For some weird reason, I found myself staying awake during preachings. Well, you couldn’t blame me. I had been in and out of school for a while, my mother was not so healthy and the Old Man had given a strict warning that he might as well withdraw all kinds of sponsorship if I didn’t tackle the grand moral corruption in my teenage mind. So I was there thinking maybe I should try God. Well, I read my Bible and prayed every day, but I had heard in salvation you get a more personal relationship, something like unlimited internet connection.
Then this lady preacher happened. She came on Saturday, and we were informed she was taking up the remaining part of the program till closure on Sunday evening. Boy was that girl of God energetic! With her theme of ‘It’s time to leave Misr; Canaan here we come,’ she did her thing like a woman possessed. She took the whole school around the football pitch making us do personal confessions, all the while singing ‘Misriii, sitaruuudi……nasema misri mimi sitarudi.’
I normally am not a fan of such dramatized showings, but this one was different. I keenly followed the daughter of God and actually resonated with her. You see, her Misr to Canaan theme absolutely matched my intended transformation. And that disturbed me majorly.
By the end of Saturday, I was sure that something was not the same in my life. That night, I did not attend ‘game ya soldier’ and I also skipped ‘meeting in the dark.’ I was supposed to commander both operations. Relax, it is not like those were drug lord or extremist expeditions. Game ya soldier was an operation of rounding up all the food left over by teachers, guests and watchmen, then having a small feast. Authorities cracked down on the practice like it was organized; I felt they needed to feed us better. Meeting in the dark was, well, a meeting in the dark corners of school. Mainly meant to harvest where we did not plant…avocados, bananas, milk etc from the school farm.
Saturday evening I lay on my bed and thought. Am I a sinner? Everyone is, says the good book. What are my major sins? Aaah, not so much, just the kawaida stuff…. Are there some things I will need to stop doing if I get saved? Mmmh, like what now? Will I need to change friends? Scary. So what now? Sleep, Field Marshall, sleep. Everything will fall in place, just give the preacher lady a chance with your heart tomorrow. Que sera sera. And Now I lay me down to sleep…
Sunday. The mother of all praises, the mother of all preachings. I am surrendering my life. The preaching session was long, I think the message was already home before it was a quarter done. Call us out already, preacher lady. We need you to organize this meet up with Jesus. My mind again shifted to debate mode. The same questions from yesternight. I am okay. I am not okay. We can work with God the way I am. No, god wants you to profess. I can just make it a personal decision. No, you have to acknowledge before everyone. Am I sincere or am I doing this out of fear……
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I was woken up by one meeting in the dark mate. Then, the lady preacher was making her summary. “For those we have welcomed to the fold today, please remain behind,” she says, “We need to assign you elder brothers in faith to nurture you.”
Ayaayaya! How did I miss that chance? The devil must have gotten wind of my plans. Or the lady preacher could have worn me out with her intense sessions since yesterday. I don’t know. Both ways, I think I have just slept a sleep deeper than what God put Adam to when He wanted to dissemble Adam’s ribs…for Eve. Should have told someone to wake me up when salvation time came.
And just like that, I missed a chance more open than those ones Edin Dzeko was missing at Roma before he found his scoring boots. Or like Portugal missed their penalties against Chile in the Confed semi. And they were open, those scoring chances at Roma.
But there are plans of man, then there are God’s plans. So the good book says.