๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐’๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐
๐
ฟ๐
ฐ๐๐ ๐๐๐
ด๐
ฝ๐๐ ๐๐
ด๐
๐
ด๐
ฝ
Exactly two weeks after Deaconess Beatrice returned to Kano, she was presented to the church to be disciplined. The process looked more like bringing an accused before a judge for sentencing. The church was packed full because the news of her misdemeanor had gone viral, courtesy of the church members themselves. The interval between Deaconess’ disclosure and the discipline was enough for the news carriers and rumor mongers to spread the news far and wide, and even distorting it to their own taste and desire.
The disciplinary committee had summoned Deaconess at different times. They had drilled her, took her statement and did their own investigation. Deaconess only told them what she wanted them to know. Whenever they come near to asking her about the man responsible for her pregnancy, she would clamp down and refuse to talk. Her action made most of them to conclude that she was trying to cover something and that she wasn’t fully opening up to them. Some of them were of the opinion that she must have been sleeping around a lot; jumping from one bed to the other, if not, she would not find it difficult to pinpoint a single man that impregnated her.
Deaconess stood her ground that she wasn’t going to expose Kola. Her action wasn’t for him alone but for his family as well and herself. It was bad enough that she had been labelled as an adulteress and a pretender. For her to be called a home- breaker would be the height of it. And that is what people would term her once they know about Kola.
She tried to be strong, but her strength began to wane.
She was getting to her elastic limit.
If she happened to snap, no one who would be there to hold her together.
She had refused to tell her children about her predicament. They loved their father to such an extent that they would take her action as an unacceptable betrayal against his memory if they get to know. They wouldn’t believe that what happened between her and Kola was a one- off thing.
At her lonely moments, which were far more than the moments that she mingled with people, she would bury herself in the bible, take solace in it, read, meditate and anchor her faith on the word of God.
๐ฌ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐…
She personalized the scripture.
๐ฌ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐; ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐.
She knew that the season of shame and humiliation that she brought upon herself would pass. But after the season, would she be able to hold her head up again? She would remain tainted like Tamar, David’s daughter in the bible. People hardly forget things. They would never remove the label of an adulteress from her. They would always see and take her as an unstable woman that can never tame her emotion. Even now, most of the members of the disciplinary committee speaks to her condescendingly, as if she’s the worst sinner in the whole wide world.
The Pastor was good to her. He and his wife had been consistently visiting, in order to talk and counsel her. They’d also been persuading her to reveal the identity of the man responsible for her pregnancy. The pastor’s wife insisted that Deaconess musn’t go through the ordeal of facing the church discipline alone. If the man is a member of the church, deaconess would be doing them a lot of good by letting them know his identity. Who knows, he might still be going around to prowl on other vulnerable individuals.
While they tried to persuade her, Revd. Alhassan took his time to study Deaconess’ body language. He got the confirmation that he needed. The man that impregnated deaconess is in the church. Reverend’s heart lurched against his chest. Now, he knew that the matter would go beyond disciplining deaconess.
Sunday came. Deaconess was presented to the church as a church worker, a minister and a role model that allowed the devil to take hold of her to commit the sin of adultery.
She got pregnant but kept her state hidden from the church for more than six months. She is also adamant on not telling the church of the person responsible for her pregnancy. That and other reasons made the disciplinary committee conclude that deaconess is a hardened sinner and had all along been a wolf in sheep clothing in the church.
The pastor read from ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ 6:1 “๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ …
“What we are doing today is not because we hate our sister, but we want her to be restored in order for her not to miss it at the end.
This will also serve as a deterrent to people living in secret sins.
๐ณ๐๐๐ 8:17
๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐
๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
, ๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐.
You might be able to conceal your sins here on earth. You live your life anyhow and commit all sort of atrocities. You fornicate and abort in order to hide your sin and evade the earthly judgement. You act as a saint in the church but you are something else outside. Whatever you do, remember the day of God’s judgement when the activities of all men on earth will be revealed.
If you are in the congregation today and you are living a double standard life and hiding a grevious sin because you are scared of what men would say, or you don’t want to be exposed just like our sister is being exposed, remember it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of God. Fear God. Do what is right. Forsake your sin. Embrace truth.
Kola was in the congregation seated beside his wife. He cringed at every word that the pastor spoke as if he was throwing an arrow at his chest.
He regretted being in church that day and wished he had just given an excuse to stay at home.
He was absentminded as the pastor read out the terms of Deaconess’ punishment.
Suspended from all positions of responsibilities for 1 year.
She will no longer be a Deaconess in the church.
Has to undergo the believers foundation class all over again like a new convert.
.
Deaconess bowed her head and refused to look up. She would soon be led to the “seat for sinners”.
That would be her seat for the next 1 year.
The pastor asked the congregation to rise up in one body, stretch their hands forward and pray for her. Every other person stood up except Kola.
His wife tapped him.
As they journeyed back home, Kola remained quite in the car. He didn’t even respond to his wife’s chitchats. Jumoke watched him closely. She concluded that something was wrong with him. He had been very okay and lively until Reverend called Deaconess to the front. When he spoke about people hiding their sins, Kola looked like he would bolt out of the church.
Could he be hiding something from her?
Does he know anything about Deaconess’ predicaments?
Maybe he knew the man that put her in her present state, Jumoke rationalized.
They were close at a point in time when Kola was frequenting her house. Maybe all along, he knew that she had a lover because he was meeting him at her house and now, he’s feeling guilty about what the pastor said. Kola might be feeling like an accomplice.
In as much as Jumoke tried to agree with her own rationalization, she still had a feeling that something was off. It was Kola’s body language that gave him away. He was downright distressed with what happened at the church. When they got home, he excused himself into the room that he needed to rest. He claimed to be having a throbbing headache.
Jumoke couldn’t stay still. She kept asking herself if Kola could be responsible for Deaconess’ predicament. No! She shook the thought off. It is not possible. She weighed in her heart if she should come out straight and ask him. No! She shook her head again. She has to be tactical about it.
She was in a daze as she cooked the afternoon meal, but became more disturbed when Kola refused to eat. He said that he wasn’t hungry.
A plan formed in Jumoke’s mind and she went to meet Kola in the room. He was face up on the bed, gazing at the ceiling.
“Please can I use your phone?” She said.
“For what” Kola asked in a subdued voice.
“I don’t know where I dropped my phone.I want to use it to trace it.”
Kola handed the phone to her without another word.
Jumoke set out to work.
With shaky hands, she began to search for Kola’s WhatsApp messages to Deaconess. Nothing gave him out. It was either they weren’t communicating or he was intentionally deleting their conversations.
“Are you not through with the phone?” Kola asked from inside.
“I’m still looking for my phone,” Jumoke answered with a shaky voice.
She quickly went to his call logs and searched for a particular date, the day she returned from the women’s fellowship and told him about what people were saying about Deaconess and he got angry.
His call log. Yes, he called that day … Once. He called her once. Then, he went out with an excuse that he was going to meet his business partner.
There was no other call around that time. No business partner called him.
Jumoke’s body shook as she returned Kola’s phone to him.
“I want to pick something in town,” she said.
“Okay,” Kola responded in a nonchalant voice.
Jumoke got into the car and drove off.
TO BE CONTINUED
ยฉ BOSEDE FAGBEMI
