“How many times am I going to tell you, Eniola? I am not going with you to the youth camp. It is not my kind of scene.” Jade dismissed her friend with a wave of her hand and looked away. Her friend had been pestering her about going to the camp, and she was more interested in the arcade program organized by some of her friends from college.
Eniola sat by the window and stared at the night lights from the neighbouring house. She knew Jade was more upset because it was a church event than the fact that she would have to expend social energy, which she claims to be too introverted for. When it came to church and everything else related, Jade was like a wall, and it didn’t make sense because they had both grown up in a Christian environment. But it was clear that it did not always turn out to be the case- the apple sometimes falls far away from the tree.
Jade dialled her friend’s number the next morning.
“Let us make a deal, Eny; I would go with you for the last three days of the camp, if you go with me to the arcade for the first four days.” Jade said to Eniola immediately she picked up the call. She had decided to call her early the following day to settle things. She had known Eniola for too long to understand that her friend could be stubborn. As far as Jade was concerned, attending such things was unnecessary. Church people were hypocrites, in her opinion, and she had her own fair trauma of church hurt.
“Good morning to you, too. Yes, I slept well, thank you for asking.” Eniola said with sarcasm.
“Sorryyy!” Jade laughed. “So, what do you think? deal?”
“Three days each, one day to ourselves.”
“There is one more thing.”
“What?” Eniola was still very sleepy.
“My friends are cool people, so be cool.”
“Go away!”
“You were right! This is so much fun-” She was interrupted by a splash of paint right on her face. The group had taken time out to paintball before the next set of arcade games, and Jade could tell by the way her friend was laughing heartedly that she was enjoying herself. That was before Lekan shot her face with a ball of sticky yellow paint! Rushing to the bathroom to clean up, Eniola caught one of Jade’s friends; she had heard someone call her Nikky, staring at her intently, and followed her into the bathroom.
“Nikky, right? ” Eniola asked with a tone of concern. “Do you have something to say to me?”
“Jade tells me you are friends with Michael Orisan.” Nikky’s eyes held spite.
“Yes, he is the convener of a popular prayer meeting called–“
“PUSH, yes, I know it. It was where we met. He is the reason I stopped going to church altogether.”
“Oh wow, are you serious? what happened?” Eniola was shocked.
Nikky sighed. “The summary is that we were in a relationship a few years ago; he brought me to his church and introduced me to one of the protocol leaders, Temi, who helped tell me about the church and give me a tour after service. She even followed up on me up until a month after I joined.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Eniola wondered what was so bad to make her quit church.
“It was…until a few days after our engagement, he called it off and said he was in love with Temi.”
“What are you guys doing? We have been waiting. We need to start bowling.” Toke, another member of the group, called out to them.
Eniola and Nikky exchanged glances and walked towards the group. Toke poked Eniola gently and whispered, “I overheard. She is not the only one; many of us have experienced similar things. It’s one of the things that brought us together.”
“Including you? ” Eniola was yet to recover from what Nikky had told her.
“Yes. In my case, I invited one of my friends to church, and one of the pastors was praying. He called her out and told everyone that she was a witch. He told the pastors to gather and pray for her. They nearly poured water on her head in the name of deliverance. I was too embarrassed for myself and my friend. I left the church.
“I am really sorry you went through that. I am-“
“No, don’t worry about it. Oh good! The game has started. You would have to come in between me and Lekan.” Toke picked up a bowling ball.
Eniola was sad. No wonder Jade was always so upset. Is this what they thought about the church? How was it that all of them had similar experiences? Wait…did Jade have one as well? How come she never shared it with her?
As the last round of bowling began, Eniola was visibly distracted. She couldn’t shake her mind off what had transpired- Nikky, Toke. It started to show as none of the pins were hit, and this was her third throw in the round. Lekan approached her. They were playing as opponents as they had both reached the final stage of the competition.
“If you plan to lose this round, you are doing well,” Lekan said as he threw a green ball, aiming it at the centre. It rolled straight at the middle and knocked off all the pins for the third time in a row!
“I am so distracted.” Eniola blushed, slightly embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“It’s just that meeting everyone, hearing their stories, I am trying to be cool; Jade told me not to embarrass her.” She laughed.
“I think you are cool. Why did Jade think you would embarrass her?”
“Oh, it was just that she was asking me not to talk about church or try to preach to anyone. But it was even Nikky who first talked to me about church.”
Lekan laughed loudly.
“Don’t mind, Jade; it has been lovely meeting you. Erm, about Nikky, what Michael did to her all these years has never really left her mind. It is very hurtful-“
“Wait, how did you know that was what she spoke to me about?”
“Oh, well, she mentioned that she would ask about it. Jade told us you are friends with the guy, and she was determined to find out for herself. Personally, I think a lot of church people don’t really know as much as they claim to do. They preach one thing but turn around to do the opposite. That’s just hypocrisy.”
“Have you also stopped going to church?”
“Something like that. Not totally, though.” Lekan replied as he passed another ball to Eniola to bowl.
“Wow, do you want to talk about it?” She held the ball, steadily pacing herself before taking the shot.
“Sure, it was a cumulation of many things, but the final straw was when my elder sister confided in her HOD that she was being physically abused by her husband.” He stopped. Eniola’s ball hit 7 pins. He cheered her on.
“Oh my God, that’s horrible; she must have been devastated. So, what did the HOD do about it or say?”
Lekan chuckled.
“She reported to the pastor, and they told her that she could not be separated from her husband because she was a worker and that it would look bad for the church if she left her matrimonial home. The pastor himself told her to endure.”
“Endure being beaten?” Eniola was dumbfounded.
“Apparently, and that if she still insisted on moving out, she would need to relinquish her status as a worker in the church.”
“It’s a lie!”
“I wish it were. Anyway, my sister is better now; she actually still goes to church, a different church and more recently, she became persistent that I go back to church.”
“Wow, that’s rough. I am thrilled your sister is better. Even more glad that she kept her faith. Thank you for sharing, Lekan. I promise to sit down and talk things through with you another day. For now, I need to find Jade. I think she has set me up.”
Lekan smiled. “Thank you, too. For what it’s worth, Jade talks about you a lot, and I think more Christians should be like you.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, smiled, and walked away.
“Jade! Did you set me up? ” Eniola grabbed the arm of a startled Jade, nearly causing her to trip.
“How?” Jade shoved her friend in retaliation.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. It is just that I have had different conversations with your friends who have conveniently chipped in how they stopped going to church. It’s like an anti-church group. No wonder you have refused to listen to me. You will need more than this. You know that you have experienced a level of spiritual growth incompatible with this.”
“I am sorry, Eny, I didn’t plan it. Admittedly, some of them have shared their experiences with me, and I told them to share them with you if they came up because I wanted you to understand how I was feeling. You make it seem like church people are perfect and Christianity is without loopholes, but hearing their stories has made me feel better and made things easier for me.
“What is your reason, Jade? I know something happened. We both had similar childhood backgrounds and attended the same secondary schools. Have you forgotten that we met in the children’s church? What happened?”
“Okay.” Her friend sat on a chair and offered Eny a seat. It was time to tell the truth.
“Remember I did summer with the teens camp just before going to Uni.”
“Yes, I do; it was the last time you were in church.” Eny gave her a knowing look.
“Good, remember you also were not around for the camp-“
“I was away on holiday with my family.”
“Exactly. I was in charge of fundraising for the end-of-camp party, and I was the one keeping the money. Theresa was my assistant because her mother, a pastor in charge, needed to know everything. I had excellent ideas for the fundraising, but Theresa hated my guts because she wanted to be the centre of attention.”
“Typical of Theresa.” Eniola rolled her eyes.
“Well, one day, I guess she couldn’t stand me anymore, and before I knew it, the cash I had kept in a place where only Theresa and I knew about went missing.”
“What? How? who took it? Why didn’t you tell me? I often called Jade, and you were always saying everything was fine.
“My dear, I didn’t want to bother you; plus, there was nothing you could have done. My regret was volunteering to actually help with fundraising.”
“Wow, so did you find the money?”
“Till today, that money has not been found. All I know is that I was blamed for it. In fact, when it went missing, the pastors and the committee leaders agreed to keep things quiet until the investigation was over because they knew I couldn’t have stolen the money.”
“That’s great. So, what was the problem?”
“Theresa started telling everyone that I stole the money, and before I knew it, parents called Pastor Jerry to say that they were uncomfortable with having a thief in their midst and threatening to withdraw their children from camp. I became the black sheep.
“I can’t believe this. That is wrong. What did the pastorate do? What of Theresa’s mum. Did she know what her daughter did?”
“Her mother convinced the pastorate to strip me of my leadership title as head of fundraising because I was giving the church a bad reputation. Of course, the pastorate agreed because everyone wanted to save themselves. You can imagine the embarrassment. Everyone in the camp assumed I was removed from my position because I had stolen the money. My mum picked me up that same day after giving all of them a piece of her mind, of course.”
Eniola gave her friend a hug. She was devastated to hear that she went through this. No one deserved to be humiliated like that. She wished Jade had told her sooner. She would have done something about it. No wonder she was reluctant to go back to the church.
“I am sorry I didn’t tell you, Eny, when you got back, you had so many ideas, things you wanted to do in the teenager’s church now that we were in University. I didn’t want you to change your mind because of my experiences. I also felt you didn’t get it because you haven’t experienced church. I see how you value the idea of church and God’s plan for it, and I just see hypocrites lined up every Sunday. I am not saying I have stopped believing in God; I just don’t need a church to worship God; I can do it in my house.”
Eniola smiled sadly. Jade had no idea what she had also been through. The difference was that she understood that her purpose was more significant than any hurt she was feeling. She was too important to God’s kingdom to allow the hurt from one person and change her mind set about what God meant in her life, what fellowship meant, and what God’s idea was and is for the church. Being planted in a local assembly and growing there was too important. She had also stopped attending the church, but because Uni was in another city, she had found an excellent local assembly there. Her friend, however, had thrown away the baby with the bath water and was relishing in her decision by her little ‘anti-church’ group.
“Jade, trust me, I understand how you feel. I have been there.”
“Really? Is it as bad as being publicly humiliated and embarrassed for a crime you didn’t commit?”
Eniola sat up.
“Remember Pastor Jide, Theresa’s cousin?”
“Yes! Pastor Jide! he left before our final secondary school exams. I heard he relocated. I miss him; he was a nice bible study teacher and fond of you!” Jade laughed.
“He was. He was really fond of me. I also felt he was one of the good ones…well until he raped me.”
Jade’s mouth fell open as she stared in shock.
