THE CALLING. (PART ONE)

“God did not direct His call to Isaiah – Isaiah overheard God saying “Who will go for us.”

Oswald Chambers – My Utmost for His Highest.

It was the worst of times and it was the abysmal of the abyss. It was the depth of squalid trenches and the darkness of a closed lightless tunnels. It was in those times when women locked their pot of soup with heavy padlocks in fear of rabidly hungry neighbors. It was those times when a bag of rice cost an arm and a leg and unemployed youths trudged about in the streets with disappointed features cradling dry looking files in the crook of their arms and armpits looking for non-existent jobs in organizations that were discarding staff like it was going out of fashion and owing their employees like it is the trend not just dictated by the times but enforced by it. One either worked or left to be replaced by him who would work without pay or who would be able to count his abstract remuneration in his dreams and possibly get one of the malignant spirits that prowl through the nightmares of men and women serving delicacies and offering other delectable afterwards to serve him three square meals.

It was in those times when one would pack a barrow full of naira notes just so he could buy a loaf of bread. It was in these sorts of times when the igbo folk tale will most certainly tell you that the tortoise would be up to some sort of mischief whether he was naming himself “All of you” when invited to a heavenly feast or he was feigning fantastic tales of a dancing tree to scare men and women off the markets so as to grab himself enough foodstuffs and condiments to sustain his wife and his family.

The igbo wielding entrenched wisdom have already through time and folk tales established that it would take great cunning and craft to survive these times and Ogbunta considers himself a true Igbo man, a son of the soil that starts every prayer with libations of kola and gin thrown to the ground with strong prayers to the ancestors below and the gods above to answer wishes of long life and prosperity and sometimes merciless vengeance meted out to enemies who he may not know. He may not even eat before he had thrown some lumps of fufu or some spoonfuls to the ground to feed his ancestors. But that was before the recession when one can afford to throw food underfoot to people that may not even be there.

In these times, he felt that they should pay him back for all his faithfulness he has shown through the years of plenty, when people needed to simply trek on the road to pick some money from off the ground, or climbed trees to pluck them. But in these times of recession, the gods and the ancestors may have taken a recess. Definitely, their jobs may have gotten a lot more difficult as men and women fall down in prayers triggered by hunger and hardship occasions by unpaid salaries, economic strangulation, unemployment and rising inflation. He could sometimes imagine the gods sleeping upon a mountain of prayers, too tired and worn out by a litany of requests each one more insistent than the other one and all insistent, threatening suicide, disloyalty and sometimes attempting a blackmail.

Ogbunta knew that survival is hinged on being as crafty as the tortoise  and as flexible as a yoga practitioner, that is why he chose the easiest job available in the market but the job has a very good return. It is the job of intermediating between God and the increasingly desperate Man. It is the job of telling people what they want to hear, telling them anything but the truth. It is the job of assuming knowledge on behalf of the increasingly ignorant men who won't take responsibility even when it falls into the palms of their hands.

At the height of his hunger and desperation,  Ogbunta decided that he was going to become that intermediary men sought to relate their endless requests to the unreachable beings above. He firstly thought about being a native doctor. He could dress the part and knew enough  igbo proverbs and some more Ogene songs and that helped add the much-needed mysticism to the running scam. He also knew some thoroughly bitter herbal concoctions with questionable efficacy that he would give people  to cure their wide range of ailments which he would always tell them was spiritual.

He had the withered looks of a native Doctor, hunger made sure of that. His forehead was permanently furrowed probably through habitual worrying about hunger and family engagements. His cheeks seemed to have been sucked into his mouth with a suction pipe. He had a brown teeth which  was a little too large. It could be scary when fully bared, thus whenever he grins, he was told that he looked like grinning tiger who was amused by its prey. His eyes are red-shot often, as a result of his arduous hours spent in the dusty Oze market carrying loads which are never his for some small charge. Those eyes, considered fiery whenever he was angry could be to his advantage, the mastery of this game would be hinged on his ability to maintain eye contact with his clients and customers, choosing carefully the time to feign disapproval, anger or disgust especially when the usually gullible customers stumbles upon some sliver of wisdom. Shouting often worked, often as much as as muttering unintelligible gibberish which sounded as sane to him as it does to the startled customers.

Having resolved to market God as a commodity, he had to choose between being a native Doctor and a ‘Man of God’. Those men never go hungry, he thought wisely. However, he was convinced that Men of God did better than their native counterparts.

There are at least two offertory sessions that guaranteed a hearty three square meals, one could easily get a car if he was aggressive enough. There was a little work involved. Ogbunta knew there was also a bit of work involved. Being a spiritual con artist is hard work, especially in these recession times when even the most ardent believers are using their supposed tithes to feed their families and save up food for the rainy day because the storms have been gathering since the previous year when an unpopular government lost power to an even more unpopular one. It was not long before Banks started firing their staffs, foreign direct investments started disappearing like smoke and soon, the Construction Company where he worked as a labourer, the company that had been owing him for three months of work, declared bankruptcy and left him penniless and almost hopeless.

He started dreading his sick mother’s calls. Her drugs are often too costly for his bare pockets. Of course, he always had the intention to return her calls but calling her sick mother in the village to tender an empty sorry devoid of monetary backing insulted him.

He had plans to start calling her frequently. Men of God rarely ever get broke or run out of money. People will always have testimonies and would credit these to the last Man of God they spoke to. Furthermore, there are more Christians than they were traditionalists which was considered fetishist from the onset of colonialism. Ogbunta considered his margin of error too large. It's a numbers game and he fancied himself lucky. The law of the average was with him. The sea is large enough that he is fairly sure that he would catch something. He was going fishing with a net and not a hook.

But his sort of fishing had its sort of tools, so he went to the market and with the last money he had on him, he bought the biggest Bible he could find in the bookstore. He had entered there with a specific requirement that the book seller give him the Bible that he could not carry. However, he settled for one that he could scarcely carry without some level of discomfort. Carrying that Bible was exerting and would easily substitute for a strenuous workout. However, that was what he wanted and that was what he got. He also got the biggest silver crucifix with the biggest rope he could find and tied it around his neck. The crucifix was made of heavy metal and forced him to bend his neck often times under its sheer weight. His marks would consider that an act of perpetual prayer and not a physiological imperative occasioned by the humongous weight he suspended around his neck. The imperatives of the 21st century Christianity favored big over small, loudness over subtlety and any ‘Man of God’ that failed to appreciate this would end up very hungry and frustrated. Prayers are required to be long and sweaty while incorporating as many tongues as one knew, the more indecipherable, the better. The argument is biblical, since the time of John The Baptist, the Kingdom of God went somewhere and suffered violence and now belongs to the violent and the loud.

Ogbunta started reading the scriptures but cannot wait to digest it fully. He could learn on the job and thus he started buying videos of preaching of the successful Men of God who had private jets, convoys and wore impeccable designer suits. The preached the things he liked. They spoke about how blessings and grace is tied to faithful tithing. They preached of ‘Abrahamic Blessings’ that grew from his faithful tithing practice. They spoke of full measures that would be pressed down, that will be shaken together and that would be spilling over which would be handed to those who were generous. God loves a cheerful giver was cliché. They rarely spoke about the poor, about the schools they built from the sweat of the poor which the poor could not even afford, they forgot to mention that even the houses raised through the mite of the poor would be used to accommodate the rich, leaving the poor as they were, homeless, hopeless and disillusioned. These preachers that Ogbunta adored had private jets in a church where some of the members could barely afford to eat.

Ogbunta had to learn first, the response he would give to anyone who would dare point out that there was a lot he could still do with that money he would use to buy his dream car, a Mercedes G-Wagon.

“Christ had died poor so that we would all become rich.”

Let no one tell him that Christ had also told the rich man to sell off all he had and follow him and that whoever placed his hand on the axe and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom for he would not know how to respond to that.

When he was ready to deploy his skills, he had nothing to start with. There was no naira to his name so he got one landowner and made a deal with him. He would stay in the land and doing his business there while he garners the needed resources to start developing the land. The land was located in an area where an empty plot of land could be sold to seventy-seven people by someone who do not even know the owner.

Thus, the arrangement was mutually beneficial to both parties. He becomes the caretaker of the plot of land for the landlord.

He built his church by his own hands, literally; from bits and pieces of wood he was gathered while he cleared that plot of land, he roofed it with old corrugated roofing sheets. However, when he was done, he worried about the rain and the gale that could easily compromise the shambolic structure.

However, the Lord that called him was with him and no rain fell for months as it was during the dry season. He wrote the name of the Church there with white chalk with upon the brown wood “HolyGhost Opreshion Intanashonal Church.” He loved the sound of international despite his wooden shambles being the only one in Oze and in the whole world. There was nothing wrong with big dreams. Great things starts small. Jesus Christ did feed 5000 people with just five loaves and two fishes.

He has designs of going international. He will grow in the business, organize as many crusades as he can and do a minimum of twenty prophecies in a day.  He cannot be all wrong with twenty especially if he can be perceptive and sensitive to the needs of the congregation. Thus, there is no need prophesying to an unemployed youth that he will be getting married soon when he is even finding it difficult to get a three-square meal per day. A beautiful spinster would definitely have suitors and the not-so-beautiful ones will always think that do, so for the young ladies, prophecies of an impending, imminent marriage is a very safe bet, however, he cannot guarantee a happy one. Since sickness and death is a part of human existence, it is only wise to prophesy to the sick that they would be well if they do not die. They cannot be anything else.

So he resolved to start with these core branches of prophecies that addressed the needs and fantasies of people.

Would the people know any better?

He was sure that they will not. There are a lot of men who have gotten away with it.