Sade kept praying to have miscarriage as she wouldn’t want to use her own hands to terminate the child in her womb but the child kept growing inside her and as her protruding stomach became bigger and bigger each day.
Kehinde and the church mummy made sure that she went for antenatal monthly and also take every medications she was given.
On one of the few Sundays Sade agreed to go to church, she decided to sit at the back seat and avoided the gossiping looks of some of the church members as she maintained a straight face, focusing only on the happenings at the altar.
During the praise and worship, she couldn’t stand to her feet but right there on her seat, all she could do was cry as the worship songs came forth as she remembered the very same altar upon which she had stood severally to minister and brought down the presence of God through worship and the microphone she had handled so skillfully being handled by another person who didn’t even seem to be serious with the songs she was singing.
“Lord, if only you will give me a second chance, I will worship you in spirit and in truth with my life and will never again let either secret or open sins come between my relationship with you…” She was praying silently when someone tapped her shoulder.
She turned to see who it was and standing there before her was Mr Afolabi , the vice principal of the school she was teaching.
“How far?” He asked her rhetorically and bursted into a provocative laugh even while the praise and worship was ongoing.
“How far with your born againism? I heard you are pregnant, so tell me, is it Jesus that impregnated you? because the last time I checked, you are not yet married.” He mocked her still laughing.
” oh! No wonder you are no longer coming to work. But you see, you can’t hide bad news for long, everyone in the school have heard about the mysterious pregnancy of miss Sade the holy Mary…
I’ve been coming to this your church ever since I got the information in order to confirm it with my two eyes but haven’t been seeing you and finally here you are,heavily pregnant. Now tell me, who is finally the sinner between you and I ?…” He continued mocking and laughing at her and she couldn’t bear it anymore, so she pushed him aside and ran out of the church back into her room in the parsonage crying.
The church mummy noticed what was happening from where she was sitting and stood up to meet the strange man, but before she could reach there, Mr Afolabi had hastened his steps out of the church seeing that he had created a scene in the church.
The ushers rushed at him but he was smart enough to have gone faraway from the church premises, so they returned back to their posts while the church mummy rushed into the house to meet Sade. She met her on the bed crying and after so much questionings and trying to calm her down, Sade told her who Mr Afolabi was and how he mocked her because of her condition. The church mummy spoke to her until she stopped crying but she refused to follow her back to the church service.
“Mummy, I’ve become a topic of discussion among the church members and unbelievers, I think I need to change location. I need to travel faraway from this area to a place where nobody knows anything about my past” she said as the church mummy was about going out and she turned back and sat down on the bed again.
” Sister Sade, you can’t run away from your shadow. Even if you will change location, it’s shouldn’t be now because you need to stay close to where your spiritual life can be revived back to life. Daddy and I have agreed that once you put to birth, we would release you to go home to your parents in the village to nurture the child and also cool off your head and then plan your life afresh.
Sister Sade, life is not over because you got pregnant out of wedlock, God’s plans for your life is still intact. Don’t give up just yet” the church mummy encouraged her more and then excused herself when she saw that Sade was a bit relieved.
Kehinde kept visiting the parsonage once in a while and took Sade out for walking exercises and also made her laugh in order to make delivery easy for her until nine months were completed. Sade gave birth to a baby girl and stayed in the pastor’s house for an additional one month before the Pastor and his wife drove her in the company of Kehinde to her village in Ondo where she would have to live with her aged parents to raise her baby and possibly start a new life.
After about three hours’ drive from the city, they arrived Sade’s family house which was built with mud and in no time, little children and elderly women gathered around at a distance looking at the car and those coming out of it.
On hearing the car horn in front of their house, Sade’s parents ran out of the room to see for themselves what was happening. Her father was the first to come out, but couldn’t move any further on seeing Sade in the midst of strange faces with a woman carrying a new born baby which he believed was Sade’s child.
He managed to force out a smile at the Pastor as they approached him and not knowing what else to do, he pocketed his hands in his old native clothes as his wife came from behind and shouted Sade’s name in surprise….
Continued reading here
