TEACHER CHUKS; Season 3 (Part 11&12) – Opeyemi Akintunde

Part 11
TEACHER CHUKS; Season 3
Opeyemi Akintunde

The week after that day was one of the most emotional weeks in my life. At some point I had to tell God, what I was going through was more than I expected. The teenagers had tripled, and they came with different baggages. Some were homeless and had made Baba Agba’s corridor their sleeping place. They also came hungry for spiritual food and physical food. After going out to sell water, I would give them the stipends to eat as I didn’t want them taking from Baba Agba’s food.

We didn’t hear from Mercy, she was not at her grandparents’ or at school. Favour was losing it. She had to still go to work. She called everyone she thought Mercy might run to but no one knew where she was. Ajaara was always with Favour assuring her that Mercy will come back home.

We had a prayer time on a daily basis to intercede for her.

Ajaara’s uncle got back from detention very angry. He came to see me…

“ I heard you have found a new house for Ajaara, let it just remain that way, I don’t want to ever see her near me, or else I will kill her. Even her parents’ property in my custody she should forget it. She almost took my uniform from me.” He said as he walked out of my compound angrily. Fortunately, Ajaara was not present.

The children kept coming for the daily class and the number increased also. The more I spoke with them, the better I became with the Scriptures. Whenever the children asked me questions I couldn’t answer, I would sit with my Bible and find answers.

Their zeal to get closer to God strengthen me to do more. It wasn’t easy combining my water selling business , the classes , the midnight prayers and the expectation of Mercy’s return to her home.

Ajaara shocked me six days after Mercy left home. Favour was present during the class, but you could tell she was worried sick about Mercy as she occasionally glanced at the entrance of the compound

“ Uncle Chuks, please do I have permission to ask for a Favour!”

“ Please go ahead!”

“ Thank you, I know what it feels like to be lonely and have no one to talk to, for years I lived that way. I therefore can understand how Mercy must have felt being the only child who never had the opportunity to have friends and be social. She wasn’t any different from me… but I have a great fear… and that fear is I don’t want Mercy to turn out the way I turned out, I don’t want her to make the mistakes I made… Right now, she is out there trying to find love and acceptance, she will be searching for friendship, but I can tell you the friendship she will get out there, will destroy her….”

Everywhere was silent…

“ Kenneth said he saw her with a group of friends he was sure were into drugs. They were hanging out at the restaurant he works as a cleaner. He said he tried calling her, but she pretended not to know him. As we speak, I won’t be shocked if by now, she has pierced more holes in her ears, I won’t be surprised if by now in just six days she has started trying out scandalous wears…Please let us get her back before we lose her completely.”

“ Yesterday I went back to reading my Bible and this verse in Proverbs jumped at me….Prov 24:11-12…..It states ….”Rescue those being led away to death;

hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”

does not He who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not He who guards your life know it?

Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?” ….And I knew this was meant for us. I guess that was the mistake my parents made with me. They felt since they had three other good children, if I was rebellious it wasn’t a big deal.., but maybe if they had tried to find me, I wouldn’t have become this way, sleeping from one friend’s place to the other.” Said the rebellious pastor’s daughter.

I was shocked and move to tears. My heart was heavy. Over the week I had seen the teenagers whispering and talking in low tones in circles.

“ What do you advise we do, because from the look of things, you all have something planned” I said as I watched Favour’s reaction. She had tears In her eyes as she kept watching Ajaara.

“ Kenneth noticed Ajaara still logs on to her social media accounts…” Ajaara was saying

“ She is even online as we speak…” Kenneth cut in

“So, I was thinking apart from praying, I think we should reach out to her. Right now the voices of the new friends is all she can hear, but we need her to hear our own voices telling her we want her back. We can do a video talking to her and telling her we miss her and if her Mum can talk to her also, we believe it will go a long way to bring her back. We will tag her in the video, that way she gets to watch it and with our joint prayers, I believe she will come back…”

Wow… I would never have thought about that. I looked at Favour and her face could not reveal what was going on in her mind.

Did she like the idea or not? Was it necessary for us to do a video begging her to come home. Was that not going to give her more power and make her think that what she was doing was fine?

.

Part 12
TEACHER CHUKS; Season 3
Opeyemi Akintunde

“ Wow! I am lost for words… but it just shows me how full of potentials you young chaps are, if you concentrate on the right things , you will produce a lot of great things… Wow!… So when do we do this?” I said as I was in between happiness and surprise. At that point I understood that if teens and youths think less of s€x, p0rnography, Mast¥rbation, boyfriends and girlfriends, we would have more geniuses. We would have more computer programmers, more deep thinkers, but the devil knows this , so he tries to divert their attention to What will not make them productive.

“ Like right now…!” They said very excited…

“ Ok, how do we go about it?” I said very excited hoping that Favour was happy about the development.

Kenneth brought out his expensive phone. I wondered where he got money to buy that kind of phone as he was working at a restaurant as a cleaner, but that was not the right time to challenge him… They had it all planned out. They used a selfie stick on the phone..

“ Who is going first?” I asked

“Me…” the rebellious pastor’s child said…

“ No, let Ajaara go first, Mercy will recognize Ajaara..” Abigeal said

“ That’s true!” the Pastor’s daughter said and everyone agreed likewise. Ajaara took hold of the selfie stick and started talking…

“ I have always admired you Mercy from a distance, I was always wishing I had a mother like yours. You made me miss my mother anytime I saw you walking on the street probably to run errands for your Mum. I saw a cultured girl who I would love to be if I had the opportunity. Then suddenly like an answer from God to an unworthy sinner like me, God decided to give me a space in your house, close to you that I may draw from the same well you drank from that has made you who you are…but suddenly it seemed like history was about to repeat itself with me again.

I lost something precious. You!

I have been out there in that place where you may be now… that place of searching for love, fulfillment & freedom. Yes! You will find Freedom, but you will never find love and fulfillment. You will find freedom to hurt yourself, you will find freedom to reduce yourself, but Love can only be found at home.

I wanted to have your life and now I am in it, I am happy to be in it, but I know you trying to have the life I once had, will bring you nothing but sorrow.

I hope you watch this and know home is where true love and fulfillment is…” Ajaara said and I can’t describe the atmosphere she brought in, but it was heavenly and deep….”. She stepped aside

The Rebellious pastor’s daughter was next …

“ I know what it feels like when your parents want you to go to heaven by all means and thereby want you to be as holy as Angels but they tend to forget that we are humans first. They tend to forget that as humans we also have our reasoning faculty where we want to reason out our own salvation. They push rules down our throats and let us live a religious life instead of living a life which is guarded by a personal relationship with God. In a bid to live our own lives, we break their rules and unfortunately for us, we hurt ourselves.

Yes ! We hurt ourselves…

And that’s what I don’t want you to do right now, Mercy… I know you want to find out what life really is all by yourself, but by going out on your own, you will hurt yourself. I read in the Bible yesterday after a very long time and I saw written in Proverbs that “ A person far away from home is like a bird that is far from its nest…

I believe you know what that means, a bird without a nest will keep jumping from trees to trees but will not find a resting place….Now I live from one friends’ house to another like a bird without a nest.

You don’t want to be like me who went out on my own some years back and yet to return home, but one thing I have realized is that much more than hurting my parents, I have hurt myself and my future, because I have done things I never thought I would do…I am not proud of my choices but someday I hope to return home… You haven’t left home that long… Turn back now, hoping you will know your way back…” Dabira, the rebellious pastor’s daughter said and on dropping the phone, She ran away from the compound crying.

I knew her words hit her as well…

I was out of words to say, so I decided to stay, watch and learn from the kids…

Tunde, the boy whose father complained about running away from his vocational school took the selfie stick and silently I wondered what his proud self had to say. He was still a pain in his father’s heart, so what advice did he have to offer Mercy, but I decided not to judge his level of wisdom by his outward disposition….He said….

CLICK HERE TO READ “TEACHER CHUKS S3” (PART 13&14) – OPEYEMI AKINTUNDE.