During the burial activities of my Chairman, Raymond Dokpesi, something happened and I’d like to share. It is a church-centric.
There is no way to describe the mammoth crowd that thronged Agenebode. Hospitality facilities were overstretched.
Guests went as far as Idah, Kogi State, to get hotels. Some others went to Fuga and Auchi. Everywhere was jammed.
We had registered well ahead for our accommodation slot. On Wednesday night, after the wake keep, I was informed that my hotel was in Auchi. I was told it was some distance. The road not too safe. The heaven had opened its gates: the downpour was torrential. It appeared as if I was stranded. Where was I going to sleep?
It suddenly occurred to me that I am a church girl. I belong to a church community. I serve in church. I am known in church. So I put a call through to my head church in Goshen. I was given the name of the pastor of the church in Agenebode. I called him, introduced myself and explained my dilemma. All I wanted was to know if any church member owned a hotel he could help us with two reserve rooms.
He promised to get back. He did. Asked how many rooms I needed. I told him two. One for me. One for my sister and her husband. Again he asked to call back. Again he did call back, informing me that he was on his way to pick us up. He located us and we drove behind him. He drove us to his house, where two rooms had been prepared for us with very hot bathing water waiting.
It didn’t matter that my two guests were not members of our church. It was more than okay that I was a church member. By morning, breakfast was waiting. People of God, this is how this pastor gisted us for the duration of our stay in Agenebode. We bonded so well and indeed we have made new friends.
Wonderful pastor.
Wonderful wife.
Wonderful children.
Being Lara Owoeye-Wise did not get me this miracle, neither did being a broadcast journalist. Being a member of a local church and being known there helped me in trouble. This is part of the benefits of belonging to a local church community and staying there.
May God bless our host. They are igbos. We are Yorubas; but in the Body of Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek…
As soon as I realised that the pastor had taken us to his house, instead of a hotel, my mind did a summersault…
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Rewind!
Growing up in the seventies in Kafanchan, Daura and Katsina, before my parents retired from medical practice, what greeted my eyes in the house of this pastor was normal occurrence in every home we lived in. It was something I personally hated and did not understand as a child.
Total strangers brought home by my parents, because they were stranded, because they had nowhere to sleep, because they had patients in the hospital and needed where to sleep, and because they were human beings, most importantly.
My parents would bring out mattresses and lay them on the sitting room floor and we would all sleep there, while total strangers took our rooms. It was always an awful feeling for me, as a child. Not only were they given our rooms, we made breakfast for them, cleaned up after them and I was always happy to see them leave.
For as many mornings as I could remember, every day on her way to the hospital, my mum would make us boil water in a flask and make pap in another flask and she would take them to the hospital. Why? “Just in case someone had had a child overnight and didn’t have hot water or pap to feed on,” she would reply us. It didn’t make sense, especially when she would send back her office messenger to the house, asking us to refill the two flasks.
Our house was a dormitory of sorts to people of every tribe and tongue. We grew up having domestic staff who were paid to wait on us, but my parents ensured we did our chores ourselves. No domestic staff was maltreated. None was cheated.
Back to this pastor’s house.
The moment I realised he had cleared his rooms for us, I called my elder sister, Dele Bamgboye, who had been monitoring my movement all the while and I asked her if she remembered how mum and dad used to clear our rooms for strangers.
The moment I entered my room, I blew a kiss to the ceiling; the kiss was for my parents. I muttered under my breath: “I am eating the fruit of your labour in far away Agenebode.” I also prayed for my children, that wherever they find their feet on the surface of this earth, they will eat the fruits of my goodwill towards all men. May our children eat the fruits of our labours. Amen 🙏
No seed dies.
They grow.
Some immediately, others take years to bear fruits.
Sow good seed today.
This is from my church mind.
Lara Owoeye-Wise is an Abuja-based journalist.
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