THE VILLAGE CHURCH - Journal of a Rural Evangelist

I had been seeing her come to church once in a while. On that day, I asked Rosemary what she was doing, and she responded, "nothing." "What do you mean nothing?" I asked. She responded she had completed her secondary School in 2016, but her parents did not have money to pay for her WAEC SSCE Exams; hence she came back from School and sat at home in the village while her mates were writing WAEC. After the encounter with Comfort (not her real name), the single mum that got pregnant again, I was skeptical about helping just a random person in the village. I wanted someone who would be serious and could see a glorious future beyond the village. I assessed her and noticed she spoke good English, was confident and level-headed. Her cousin, who finished secondary School but did not write WAEC too, had gotten married and already had a child at the age of 19. I did not want this for her. I asked Rose if she would like to go back to School and she quickly responded, ...

As it's my habit to occasionally hold, play, and pray with babies and toddlers after Service, I touched one of the babies, and I noticed a slightly high temperature. I gave the mother some money to buy Paracetamol syrup and give her, but I also told her to let me know how the baby was faring after.  I left and called later in the evening and was told the baby was getting better. I called again on Monday, telling the young parents to call me should the fever continue, so we could arrange to take her to the hospital. They responded that the baby was ok. The next time I would get a call was on Thursday, announcing the demise of the baby. I was shocked and depressed. What could have happened after they had told me she was a lot better. Later in the evening, they buried the child.  I took an excuse from the office and went straight to the village the next day. I got to the compound to see a lot of sympathizers sitting under the shade of a mango tree. They were also being serve...

The Sunday after the Family Weekend debacle of men and women, husbands and wives not knowing their birthdays,  I decided to make enquiries about the children. Before closing the service, I started asking the kids how old they were, and they all looked at their parents. I turned to the parents and asked them the dates of birth of their kids, and they were all blank. Only the interpreter could tell me his Birthday and those of his kids. He has a book where he kept the records. Kudos to him,  he kept records for some of his siblings, who were born within the time he had learnt how to read and write. So when you ask those his siblings how old they are, they will go and ask him, and he would tell them. Most times, he would remember the year but had to recheck his record, to be sure of the exact dates. Please don’t blame him. He has fifteen other siblings, some of who have become parents themselves! I asked some of the kids I had known before I got to the village their ages, bu...

As is the denomination practice, a weekend is set aside annually for family day celebration, tagged “Family Weekend”. It was the first I would celebrate with the parishioners in the church at Gbaukuchi village. I had planned with Missus on how the day would play out. I taught about the importance of the family as laid out in the manual for the program. I spoke about love and power of expressing it. I asked the men what they do for their wives to show appreciation and most of them were silent. Some said they give their wives money occasionally to buy wrappers during festive seasons. When the same question was put to the women, they were silent too but some said they would sometimes cook their husband’s favorite meals. Hmm the usual and traditional stuff! As a husband, you give your wife money for festive clothes (when you can afford it) while as a woman you cook your husband’s favourite meal when he has made you happy or when you want something from him…as passed down from generation t...