SHORT STORY - THINGS FALL APART

CONFUSION BY ANANIYA ALICK PONJE Joel’s conversion was an unanticipated thing to many. Those who had known him since the days of his boyhood could not believe that such a drunkard, a drug abuser and an armed robber would ever think of biding goodbye to all those evil things. His name was constantly synonymous with evil. He had reached a point where many thought he was beyond redemption. He had his own tag line that he used in his undertakings. To him, life had to be made then or never. He had been to rehabilitation centres for more than five times but it was as if the correctional facilities had only shaped him into a worse citizen. He had become a hardcore criminal who did not care about human life. He claimed with the courage of his conviction that there was no progress without opposition. He blandly told those who attempted to bring him into the right lane that if everyone in the world was doing what everyone else was doing, then the world would be a very dull place to live in. He had his own line-up of philosophies that he presented to justify his wicked acts. The more people talked about him, the more he thought he was having an impact on their lives and he found that to be a great achievement. Now he proclaimed with total vigour that he had bidden farewell to his ugly past. He made it clear to all and sundry that he was now the changed Paul who had carried the cross of Christ ready to follow him. “Brothers ands sisters, in every human being’s I have realized that there is a turning point. What matters most is to embrace it. We perhaps only choose to ignore it,” Joel was preaching at the market square one calm evening. He had entered into a deep ministry of preaching the word of God to the masses who usually never went to church or any other religious gathering. He had been one of them at one point and he understood them quite well. He slowly started believing that his church’s doctrines were archaic and that they did not comfort to the changes of time. Within three months, he abandoned the church where he belonged to when he was under the auspices of his parents. He was a new soul that could not hold with the archaic teachings of this old church. Thus, he thought that it would only be by starting his own church that he would excel in his ministry. He named his newly found church Salvation Day and he was its pastor and founder. The Salvation Day Church was growing at a rate of knots. Many people left their bonafide churches to join this new church because of Joel’s moving testimonies. They were the kind of testimonies that moved even hearts that were hard like flint. In a bid to win more souls, the pastor sometimes had to make up testimonies. He decided that that was by fair means or foul. His heart convinced him that he was only making a virtue of necessity because the whole purpose was that he should win more souls. The church had even expanded to other distant areas and it had been recorded as one of the fastest growing churches in the country. During one Festive Season, Pastor Joel targeted those who spent their times at beet drinking places. He had been one of them in the near past and he knew how to approach them. Winning to the love of God as many drunkards as possible would be a great testimony, Joel assured himself. His first destination was Spot 16 Club, a beer drinking joint situated at Mauni Trading Centre. The place was a favourite for many and he knew his message would reach a substantial number of drunkards, from whom he was cocksure some would abandon their past desires. At the beer-drinking place, he found so many people who had been his close friends during his time of ignorance. He believed that it was the time when God had turned His eyes to the other side so that He could not look at the filthy deeds of His prodigal child. When those who had been Pastor Joel’s booze mates saw him, they were terribly shocked. News had reached them that their colleague had received the good news of salvation and that he was a transformed man now. One of the drunkards looked at Joel and said to him: “What does a man of God seek in the midst of sinners?” And his colleagues shrieked with laughter. “Maybe God has betrayed him,” another one said. Pastor Joel laughed noiselessly. He placed his briefcase on the counter and unzipped it. Looking at the many people who were in the pub, both men and prostitutes, he walked towards them and stopped in their midst. “Children of God, I have come here to preach the good message from God. Today you can receive this good news and be baptized like the Eunuch,” he said and paused for a comment, but none came along. And he continued: “Count this a very rare opportunity, for your friends in other areas lack this news. Others have hankered for good news like this but they have passed on without receiving it. Evil shall never go unpunished.” Pastor Joel read many verses from the Bible and condemned beer drinking in the uttermost way possible. He also talked of how those who loved wine became poor. “What shall a man gain by finding all the pleasure in this world while losing his life? Remember that pleasure of this world is just transitory. It never lasts. Therefore, consider coming to the Lord. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything shall be added unto you,” he preached. He went forward towards the counter and picked three bottles of beer. He feigned drunkenness and asked the people in the pub what they gained by being in the state that he was demonstrating. By that time, one of the drunkards was busy recording everything, without the pastor’s knowledge. Hell broke loose the following Sunday. As Pastor Joel was standing behind the pulpit preaching, the drunkards to whom he had preached the good message of salvation stormed the church like a herd of buffalos. They had bottles of beer in their hands. The congregants were shocked to the bone upon seeing the drunkards. It was a thing that hard never happened before even in their former churches. After all, it was a holy sanctuary that was to be regarded with the utmost respect. How could such a sacrilegious thing happen to the Salvation Day Church? The pastor stopped in mid-air as the drunken people invaded the church with their reek of beer and cigarettes. One of the drunkards was carrying a DVD player and another had a television screen. The two walked deftly towards the platform and connected the equipment to an electric socket. All the people in the church were just watching with both amazement and shock. They could not understand what was happening. “People of God, this is high time you knew the truth which has to set you free. Your pastor is a trickster. Why are you still in darkness? Can’t you see that this pastor of yours is robbing you of the little that you have? You have eyes but you cannot see. He uses your hard-earned money to drink beer and here you are listening to his message. Poor souls! And you believe that he is leading you to salvation. Which salvation?” one of the drunken men said. The pastor just smiled. He believed that it was all the devil’s work and he told himself that no one in the church would believe those sons of the devil. As he tried to tell the congregation what he had gone to the beer-drinking place for, the DVD began to play and everyone’s focus was at the screen. The congregants were shocked to see their pastor staggering to and fro while holding bottles of beer in one hand with the Bible in another. That was the only part which was shown and one after another, people began to walk out of the church building. Pastor Joel tried to make an explanation but all in vain. The people kept asking themselves: “But in the first place, was it wise for the man of God to visit the place?” Untold confusion was finally loosed upon all the 28 branches of the Salvation Day Church. News about what had happened at the headquarters of the church was disseminating like wildfire and people could have trust in Pastor Joel no more. And all the 28 flocks scattered to the four winds.