Death Row to Christ E-Book

Pastor David Gmercie

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: G'Mercie Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 403

Beschreibung

You may be having an insurmountable situation on hand, and you see no way out of your situation, for which reason you are contemplating SUICIDE, or that may have already decided, and on the verge of carrying out this unforgivable act. Please, PAUSE on whatever you have intended and just READ this Book. You never know, but time spent on this book may be your solution to your dire need.

Or, that you are a worried Parent desperately seeking Wisdom to guide you about how to get your wayward child back into a place of obedience from Delinquency, Drugs, Bad company and the Vices that are plaguing the youth of this generation? Please READ THIS BOOK.

Maybe you are grappling with an Addiction of some sort, like Drugs, Masturbation or any kind of addiction that you know very well is destroying your body, but cannot help it, and are seeking a way out of this destructive problem? Please READ THIS BOOK.

As a Youth, it is interesting to know that you need sound Wisdom to guide you through life, and to help you avoid the pitfalls and traps of life that are concealed in the things we crave for in our youthful ages? Please READ THIS BOOK.

Are you in any precarious situation, like in a prison of some sort, and desperately seeking Divine intervention? Maybe you are in incarceration behind bars and serving a Life sentence, or a kind of sentence that is beyond your life span, or even on the Death row where humanly speaking there is no timeline to your predicament but to endure the pain, and you are hoping against hope for a MIRACLE which is not forth coming? THIS BOOK COULD BE YOUR LIFE LINE TO THAT MIRACLE.

Yes, men may have written you off, and all hope may be lost, yet God can step into your situation and reverse the shame, the pain, the mockery, and the perceived doom, even to the extent of reversing cases that appear non-appealable…

He always has a solution to every need no matter how impossible the situation might be, because He always has the FIRST and LAST words - no matter what you go through, HE is able to change the predicament into a TESTIMONY.

The Author of this Book was a young man with a lot of promise and hope, yet his life took a tragic turn as series of life choices took him through the depths of hell. However, one day, he had an encounter with a Man that has changed his story into a Testimony.

From the Death row through a journey of no Return, today he is an ordained Reverend Evangelist and an inspiration of Wisdom to the Youth and to Parents everywhere the Lord sends him around the world. He also has a Ministry with Orphanages, Prisons, School children and the rural Folks in the villages.

Death Row to Christ is fast-paced with lots of events well-captured and the suspense very high until you reach the crescendo. You cannot afford to miss out on this inspired piece of wisdom soon to be transformed into a Christian movie God willing…

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1 How it all Begun

CHAPTER 2 God Terrified Me

CHAPTER 3 Bewitched

CHAPTER 4 Dangerous Living

CHAPTER 5 The Bait

CHAPTER 6 My Deepest Regrets

CHAPTER 7 The 'DYE' is Cast

CHAPTER 8 Where is Tracy?

CHAPTER 9 Only the TRUTH

CHAPTER 10 Divine Directions

CHAPTER 11 Mystery Unraveled

CHAPTER 12 P.N.D.C. Military Tribunal

CHAPTER 13 1st February 1990

CHAPTER 14 Execution Night

Pastor David GMercie

Death Row to Christ

A True Life Story

© 2013 by PASTOR DAVID GMERCIE.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission or consent of the author.

Scripture references taken from the KJV, NKJV and NIV

This work is a narrative nonfiction. Nonetheless, some names identifying some individuals involved in my life have been changed.

ISBN 978-9988-1-8731-6

DEDICATION

I dedicate this story to my Lord God who is Faithful, who is not a man to lie; neither a son of man to repent. Whatever He promises, He does at His own time and makes good according to His Mercies for every undeserving person through Faith…

Therefore all proceeds from this publication will go into Gospel Evangelism Missions in Schools, Prisons, and Needy Orphanages, and also provide portable drinking water for deprived villages wherever the Lord directs.

FOREWORD

I first read this story on my flight to vacation in the United States of America. Initially I thought it was only an addition to the fiction books and action movies I had read or watched since I was a kid, but this book about the author is so fast-paced with lots of events so well-captured and the suspense very high until you reach the crescendo. I must confess, it was like watching a movie live.

At a point, I had to pause reading to reflect on the life of the author, and the question I asked myself was, “How can a man’s life be filled with so much events building up to such an end?” Thank God, He always has good plans for each of us irrespective of our past.

The ending of the book is more gratifying, showing that God indeed is gracious, and not only does He listens to the desperate cry, but also gives each one of us another opportunity to make amends of the past.

To this end, I highly recommend this book to every Parent, Youth irrespective of race, Colour or Religion and every home.

It cuts across every sphere of life and you will never regret reading...

Rev. Dr. Stephen Y. Wengam (General Superintendent)

Assemblies of God, Ghana

Accra, Ghana

INTRODUCTION

This is a true account of one of God’s miraculous interventions in the life of a man at his wit’s end, when humanly speaking everything was bleak and gloomy and there was no way out of a precarious situation but to look up to God only by faith for an escape here there was no way out …

Yes, miracles do occur today in dark moments as was in Bible times of old, when desperate men and women called upon God in their impossible situations, and were compelled to hope against hope through faith in trust on a thin strand of hope in the probability of a Word of promise that an unseen Divine Being by His Spirit or through Angels communicated to desperate people through visions, dreams, or by a genuine Prophet of God on which they hoped blindly against all hope to see the Mighty Hand of God move...

Reading these accounts in the Bible, one is compelled to realize that however impossible a situation might be, one thing is without dispute; that once a declared Word is from God, either by a Rhema or by the Logos, God is not a man to lie, nor a son of man to repent. As long as He has speaks His Word into a situation, even if it is as impossible and bleak, no matter how long it takes, God is bound by His Faithfulness to break though all existing human protocols and status quos, just to prove that He cannot lie whatsoever.

However, in the case of this story you are about reading, it was a hopeless one not deserving mercy, but had to bear the blunt of a wrong choice. It was a journey of pain, deep emotions, full of human weaknesses, inexplicable circumstance that resolved in the realization of the Self. The knowledge that incited the spiritual essence of one’s being leading to fulfillment and inner peace.

DEATH ROW TO CHRIST is a Master piece of God’s Mercy and Favour you cannot miss out on.

Read on and your life will never be the same again…

PASTOR DAVID GMERCIE,

(Founder-G’Mercie Youth Rescue Ministry)

PROLOGUE

Three days to my intended adventurous trip… I always had a Gideon’s New Testament Bible in my back pocket and only read Psalm 23 from time to time for protection and good success, but from childhood I was an entirely worldly person engrossed in the pursuits of life and having nothing to do with God.

I retired to bed on this fateful night after a heavy dose of Marijuana, who to me was my best and only friend to inspire me on in life, and did not realize when I drifted into deep sleep. For how long I was gone I do not know, but then suddenly, I began to see myself like in a vivid motion picture with some people I could not make out, and playing at the base of a hill.

Then I saw somebody particular, very close to me, and she was a female. She was a light skinned person like a white woman, and I could not tell what agreement there was between us, but then we both began to walk up the hill together.

At a point, we suddenly came across a wide deep trench stretching endlessly to the left and to the right, and we stopped. For a while we stood at the brink of this trench wondering how we would cross, suddenly, we were across the trench and continued walking uphill together.

Then once again, we came across another similar trench that also stretched endlessly to the left and to the right. However, this trench was filled with froth, and as we stood wondering how we would cross it, we were suddenly across this trench too, and we continued uphill together… Suddenly, the white woman vanished from my side and I could see her no more. Why this I could not tell, but I saw myself continue walking uphill alone when suddenly… My right foot stepped on a spread out weed on the ground, and then within a split of a second something like a big cruel leg-hold snare shot out of the weed and grabbed my right foot forcefully and tripped me over, and I fell into a very pitch dark and deep pit. I went down deep into the dark pit and I had lost total control of myself.

It was a very terrifying fall as I descended with terrifying speed down into this pit on my back with my legs and hands loosely dangling in the air with nothing to grab onto, and then a horrifying fear of dying gripped my heart…

“I am about to die”, I thought in me and was about to scream out for help when suddenly, something jolted out of sleep… Coming to myself, I was lying on my bed in the semi darkness of my room. My heart was pounding in my chest. I looked around myself and then to the ceiling, I was not in a dark pit , but in my room and I could not believe myself. I examined my body to be very sure that I was intact, and I still could not believe that I was not in a pit. The night was cold, but I was shivering and sweating.

Quickly, I shifted to the edge of my bed and brought my legs down on the floor, and then looked around in the room and up the ceiling again, I was still not in the dark pit, and I could not believe myself.

“HEY!” I exclaimed, almost in tears, “So, am not in a dark pit??” , then I realized it was a Nightmare.

It was so vivid and impressive to take off my mind that I could not sleep the rest of the night. The more I pondered about it, the deeply worried I became until very early in the morning as the tropical Sun was rising, I saw my sister awake and about her chores in the compound of the house.

Quickly, I went her and told her about the dream. Unfortunately, she said she had no insight into dreams but asked that I narrate it to Steve her husband and brother In-law, who by then was out to get feed for his Guinea pigs. I could hardly sit down, because I perceived something was wrong somewhere, and could not figure it out what it was.

About an hour later Steve arrived home, and when he heard from my sister that I had a problem, he invited me to sit on a bench with him, and patiently listened to me as I narrated the dream to him. By the time I ended narrating, I realized his countenance had turned grave, but said nothing as he gazed on the floor for some minutes. When he looked up at me, this is what he said:

“David, the dark pit in which you saw yourself fall into, means big and serious trouble ahead of you”. Looking into his eyes, I nodded, but in doubt.

“Now this is what I perceive your whole dream means: You will travel and arrive safely to where you are going. There, you will meet a white woman of substance”. Then looking straight into my eyes, he warned earnestly, “If you do not take care, because of this white woman you saw in the dream, you will fall into a very serious trouble, and coming out of it will be very impossible.” I was taken aback with shock.

“A White woman?” I asked surprised. “How can this be?”

This was absurd to me. Then I told him that throughout my life I had never had any contact with a white person let alone a woman, so where on earth was I going to meet one and come that close as to fall into trouble?

Looking me straight my eyes again, he asked, “Are you not intending to reach Europe?”

“Oh yes, yes” I remembered. I agreed with him on this, but the part of falling into trouble was what did not seem right to me… Little realizing, this vivid and horrifying dream was to decide the events of my life as I tell it as am about to narrate to you…

Chapter 1

HOW IT ALL BEGUN

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

One fateful Thursday, a new born baby boy was introduced into this unfriendly world, and I was that gift from God to my Parents. My father, a very strict Army officer, and my mother a teacher, though were very good lovers, but did not marry. The reason for this I was never told, but I have always known how my mother harbored very bitter resentment against my father for this disappointment, which was to affect me adversely.

I remember growing up as an abandoned child in the care of my grandparents (my mother’s parents) who were traditional chief royals in a typical fishing village in the Central Region. During those formative times I remember dogs being sacrificed from time to time at a shrine in front of our home.

Whenever these sacrifices were made, I remember an uncle, an idol worshiper, made me eat meals prepared with the meat of these sacrifices with him. I enjoyed the meals, so whenever I saw dogs bound with cords and lined up on the ground in front of the shrine, I knew that after the blood sacrifices at the shrine, the usual delicious meals would be cooked, and I expectantly waited to be called to eat from the same bowl with my Uncle.

On these occasions, anytime we were at meal, the meat was grouped in two portions on top of the meal of rice and stew. I had mine to enjoy in front of me, and that of my uncle’s on the opposite side in front of him. One day out of mischief, while he was not looking on, I ventured beyond my limit and took one particular piece of meat that always interested me from my Uncle’s portion. By the time he realized what I had done I was biting into this big piece of meat. He angrily snatched it from between my teeth, and said, “Bad boy, you cannot handle the weight of this meat, because you are not ready for it at your age.”

It was the tongue of a dog, but I had already taken a bite at it and quickly munched it into my stomach. I did not understand why I could not eat of that meat like him, but from that day, he made sure he ate that portion first before eating the food. I believe he did this to prevent me from trying at it again.

I also remember how on several times as a little naughty village boy, my grandparents, especially my grandfather would spank me for dodging out to play when I had being instructed to stay home while my friends played with a kind of a football a little distance from my grandfather’s Palace.

Every morning I was out on the beach mingling with the fisher folks who returned from sea, and to be gifted fish for my grandmother-the wife of the Chief of the village, and ended up playing with my friends on the beach with uncovered sores on my legs, and indeed, I was a very happy village boy.

In sum, life in the village at my age of six was all I remember until one day I was told by my grandmother that I was going to live with my father in the city. At that age, meeting my father at the State bus terminal was the most joyful day of my life. That day I realized my surroundings had changed, and I found myself in a very well organized residential area that was entirely different from what I grew up to know in the village. This new place happened to be a Commissioned officers’ residential area in an Army barracks, and my life suddenly changed.

I was the only child of my father then, and he lavished me with the best of toys and pleasure as a boy. At that early age, I had a well-furnished room to myself, was made to attend one of the best international schools any child in the world would love to attend, and when it came to books and incentives for the development of the only child of my father, I got them all. So, my formative years from then on was very promising, and he loved me very much.

(The shrine where sacrifices were made)

In this new environment, I made new and decent friends who were brilliant children of my father’s officer colleagues in the Armed Forces, and instead of roaming the village beaches, I now learnt to devote my time to studying and developing boyhood skills with my friends. But, I had no Mommy at home.

One day, my father told me that I was soon going to have a Mom like the other children I played with. Not long after that, we received into our home a beautiful woman who for years to come, would be my mother and bring me up.

“Mama,” as we all called her at home was a Nurse and gave me her love, and we soon became friends. One day, I innocently asked my father why all my friends I played with had siblings to play with at home except me? Fortunately, God granted me joy by giving our family a new baby boy, my brother and playmate. Not long after this, my father was transferred from the Southern Command to the Northern Command of the Armed Forces, and I found myself in another Army barracks in a city called Tamale.

Our new environment brought great excitement to me as a boy, because our bungalow was spacious to run around in, and was a seven acre plot full of trees and many species of birds to hunt and amuse myself and explore my boyhood curiosity. In our home, Daddy went to every extreme to give me a solid academic advancement. In fact, he had high hopes for me as he gave me his fullest attention, however, a few years down the line, my life began to take a sudden downward turn, and I only discovered many years later through God’s revelation why spiritually the stakes turned against me. If you have ever had a similar experience as mine, your guess as to why will be good as mine?

It all began in the physical when I noticed that the love that I enjoyed at home especially that of my father’s significantly begun to disappear due to negative reports he always received about me from Mama each time he returned from the office. For this reason, whenever the family was together in the living room watching TV, I did not feel part of them and would either seclude myself and be in my bedroom, or be somewhere to myself and nobody cared. That was when I began to yearn for motherly love, but my blood mother was nowhere near, because she had also married another man and was raising her own family, but I was a lonely and miserable boy.

In this state of seemingly rejection and solitude, churned and fanned into being by Mama, I secretly sought company in a neighbor officer’s son I called Johnny. He was the kind of boy who was brought up with a common way of life within the non-commissioned officer’s section of the army barracks until his father rose through the ranks to become a commissioned officer. Having this common way of life, this boy appeased me much, and we became very good Boy’s Scout friends.

Unfortunately, getting to know Johnny was very bad company that deepened my bad nature I had acquired in the village before meeting my father, and I gradually grew into a very naughty child. Johnny taught me new tricks like progressing from stealing coins to paper notes from my parents’ purses, and how to outwit my parents whenever I was suspected to have stolen something. Indeed, though we were about the same age, he became my master since I was quite naive. Interestingly, I saw these bad traits as being smart and having real fun, but my parents in no time noticed my downward character and were not pleased with me.

Through Johnny, I began to acquire certain dangerous toys my father wouldn’t approve of should he see them in my possession, and to get these toys, I stole my parent’s money. To curb this bad trait as the Bible rightly enjoins parents,

‘Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death’-(Proverbs 19:13- 14), my father employed very stern forms of punishment to correct me, but without love, and the more he did this, the more I got worse.

Aside being naughty, I had a great curiosity and ambition in trying to understanding what I could not understand at my age. I could dismantle a standing electric fan or any electrical gadget of my father with a screw driver, wanting to understand why it works the way it does. In the end, reassembling it becomes a problem, and I run into trouble with Mama, who always checked me as a bad boy.

One day, I over sharpened a new pencil trying to understand the mechanism of how the sharpener works. In the end the pencil became short, and when Mama saw it, she snatched it from my hand and stabbed the top of my head with the sharp point of the pencil as punishment. I was so curious to understand everything to the extent that I was barred by my father from touching any of his electronic and electrical gadgets, but the more my interest grew to fidget with them just to feed my curiosity. One day, my kid brother reported me to our father for only playing his cherished LP sound system. I still remember with tears as a grown up how my father whipped me with six hellish canes until all scattered into pieces one by one, and my body was on fire with stripes all over, but that did not change me.

At age 12, I begun to take shots at my father’s whiskey, and to disguise this, I would top it up with water to the level he left it. Several times, he thought his whiskey was getting bad, little knowing that this naughty boy was adulterating his favorite liquor to also have his share from it. I know some children do this at home, and if you are a child doing this, the earlier you desist from this habit the better for you now, but mine progressed to the point where my friend Johnny and I, would manage to steal money and secretly go to the officer’s mess, and buy the medium size bottle of whiskey in the name of our fathers, and booze our heads off under Johnny’s bed. Unknown to me, I was gradually developing a bad appetite for alcohol.

At 13, before entering into High school, I would steal a roll of my father’s cigar into hiding with Johnny, and though we did not know how to smoke as adults, we would amuse ourselves by lighting it and taking puffs at it, sometimes ending up coughing badly, and it was fun to us.

My father happened to be a logistics commander in the army, and food stuffs at home were in abundance. Every now and then we received fresh supplies at home from the Army supply depot. He was also a part time rice farmer in those days, so milled rice were in bags in our kitchen’s store room to the extent that sometimes they bred worms, and we had to throw the grains to our chicken and goats at home, but there was no time food was served at home and I was satisfied after eating, and I dared not ask for more.

Instead, I would later sneak back into the kitchen unawares and pilfer, and then redress the top of whatever food as if nothing had happened. I craved for food at my young age, but I dared not ask for more, else hell would break loose on me from Mama.

We also had our freezers full of meat of all sorts and fish, yet everyday my fingers were in the left over soup or broth on the stove, stealing, because I craved for meat, but will not get to eat to my satisfaction. Food from the refrigerator was also not left out of my exploits. I was caught several times, but nobody cared to know that I stole to fill my stomach, and when I was not caught red handed, I lied between my teeth for fear of being beaten up, and was always branded a thief at home.

Unknown to me, other older relatives at home living with my parents were also famishing. One day they hatched a plan and by the time I realized, they had roped me in. Every night, while my parents were fast asleep, we would sneak through the back window of the kitchen and steal foodstuffs to the boy’s quarters and cook to our fill. By AM the next morning, everyone would be satisfied for the day and whatever came from Mama’s kitchen was only a top up.

One day, as my usual assignment, I was to get edible oil to Base before the kitchen was locked for the night. Usually the jam bottle for this oil is always hidden under my bed until I was able to steal some from the kitchen to the Base. I do not know how my little brother discovered the bottle under my bed and reported it to his Mom, our mother. I was in the room when she suddenly bumped in and extracted the bottle from the hiding place, and then out of anger hit my forehead with the hard bottom of the jam bottle and blood began to gush out from the spot. Without showing any regret, she took me to the hospital and the deep cut was stitched, but that was the end of the story. Not even Daddy asked me why to hear my side of the story, because they had all concluded that David is a bad boy.

This problem of not getting enough to eat at home negatively affected my self-confidence and made me a timid child, because I feared my parent’s stern attitude towards me and always lacked the courage to ask for food when I was hungry. I lacked the courage to decide on anything meaningful because of this terrible fear in me that I will never be accepted for anything I did, even if it was good and right. However, I was always a happy boy in the home of one of my neighborhood friends I go to play with.

It amazed me how confident he and his siblings were. His Mum always cooked meals to their fill, and there was always enough left over in their kitchen. My friend and his siblings could get up anytime they were hungry, walk into the kitchen and confidently dish out any quantity of food they desired, and ate to their fill, and their mother had no problem with that. Dare me walk into Mama’s kitchen and dish out food for myself; that day, one can imagine the hell that will break loose on me. Mine was always to cry in my room when I was hungry until it was time for the whole family to eat, and even that, I was most of the times not satisfied.

One fateful evening, the whole family was seated around the dining table for supper, and each person’s meal that had served from the kitchen was in front us all. No prayer of thanksgiving was said as usual, and as Daddy begun to eat everybody followed suit. I do not know what my father had observed about me or the root cause of this action, but the meal that evening was one of my delicacies. I was famishing, and being a fast eater, I consumed mine in no time and did not realize that I was staring into the other people’s meals around the table as they gently ate theirs.

Suddenly, Daddy called out to me, “David, do you wish for some more to eat?”

Honestly, I was not expecting such a surprising offer and did not hesitating at all… “Yes Daddy.” I responded.

To my utter shock, he passed almost three quarters (¾) of his meal with lumps of meat in the soup to me to eat.

Wow! Poor David, this was Christmas day for me. I adjusted myself in my seat like a Pilot poised to take flight, and then with relish, took my time and consumed the entire meal on top of mine. That evening, I ate to my fill at the dining table and was a very happy boy. However, unknown to me as I was eating with relish, hell was about to break loose; Mama was fuming within, and the moment I thank my father, she shot out from her seat and angrily yelled at me…“You are a very bad child, I never knew you are such an ungrateful boy.”

Why this anger? I was shocked to my bones. I did not know what I had done wrong to deserve such scolding, and only remained mouth wide as she rained insults on me. If I had known that eating Daddy’s food would anger her this deeply, I would not have dared to touch it. Then shoving her chair backwards with her calves, she pointed her right forefinger at me and warned, “You, I will never cook food in this house for you to eat again,” then angrily, she walked off into the master-bedroom banging the doors behind her. I was traumatized, but my father did not utter a word.

True to her word, she made sure I was not given cooked food at home to eat after that evening. Every morning I had to bath, dress up, prepare a fast beverage and eat before leaving to school, and I began to miss the school bus. When I returned in the evening, a boy of 12, I did not know how to cook, but I had to get into the kitchen and cook some horrible meal, and I ate it anyway. She had instructed the maids in the house not to dare cook or leave food for me. I became very miserable and yearned for my own mother, but she was nowhere near.

On weekends at home, I would smell delicious aroma from the kitchen crave, thinking I may be considered with a dish, but the family would consume everything without minding me. Later on, I would also go into the kitchen and try to cook, but it was always some kind of a meal, and nobody dared empathize with me for fear reprisal from Mama.

This went on for over a month, and when my father realized I was sometimes not eating breakfast before school, he called me one morning and began to give me coins to buy food at school every morning before school, but the money was not enough for a decent meal to suffice me. I was by then preparing for my entrance examination into High school, and I needed a lot of time to be in school and at studies, so I began to steal more money at home.

Finally, almost into two months of my sanction, the matter was resolved by our tribal elders in that city, and my food from the kitchen restored, but I had already discovered a way to bigger money that did not end there.

On one of the days of sanction; a Saturday morning when I was at home, I sneaked into my parent’s bedroom unnoticed in search of some coins, or at least one small paper denomination for school. As I passed by my father’s new briefcase which he had brought back from Peace keeping operations in the Middle East, my eye suddenly glued to a UN sticker on top of it. To me, this was a no go area in my exploits, and though I had been into this room several times, I did not know why on that particular day I was attracted very much to this briefcase.

As I stood admiring the UN logo, something prompted me to unlock the briefcase. Surprisingly the combination was not activated, so I slid the cover open and looked inside; my heart missed a beat. To my utter surprise, I saw a stash of cash in many bundles inside. I had never seen a thing like that at my age and fear gripped me. Quickly, I shut it back and took two steps backward.

“Hey,” I whispered to myself… My heart was pounding inside my chest. I had seen what I was not supposed to see at my age, and the fear of it almost sent me running from the room, and I did not know what to do. I remained in a dilemma for seconds, then coming to myself, I tiptoed to the windows, and peeped through the blinds to be sure nobody was in sight. Then mustering courage, I walked back to the briefcase and feverishly opened it and slipped my hand into it and slipped out one note from a bundle, and shut it in place.

Then, and as quickly as my legs could carry me, I walked out of the room unnoticed. When I got into my room, it was a note of the biggest currency denomination of my country then. I wished I could send it back for a smaller one, but for fear of being caught, I kept it.

The next Monday at school, I was the champion boy and leader of my gang of boys. This was a gang of petty thieves getting ready for our entrance examination into High school, and were known by our peers as the, ‘NO CONTRIBUTION, NO CHOP BOYS’, meaning, no contribution to buy, no partaking in any meal we buy at recreation period. For this reason, we all pilfered money aside what we got from our parents to be counted in the gang. I was the richest that week, and I invited other friends and girls to join us at mealtime. In no time I was elected the class prefect after my friends and I staged a petty coup d’état against our sitting prefect to get me into that position.

My father had instructed his batman (one who does the laundry and chores at home for a military officer) to stop washing and ironing my school uniforms, because I was of age and soon about entering High school, and needed to know how to do these chores myself. Instead of asking the batman to assist me learn to do my own laundry, I pleaded with him to ignore my father’s instruction and do it for me. After much persuasion, he agreed on condition I pay him a fee, and I agreed.

Knowing where money was, I slipped into my father’s bedroom again, activated the combination to the briefcase which I had committed to memory, and brought him some notes of money. I did not even bother to check the amount, but I gave it all to him and he was very happy. Realizing I had access to money, this man from time to time made demands on me which I always fulfilled. But as time went on I went in for the money when he had not asked for it. I always saw it as an obligation to give him money just so he would keep up with my laundry. To appease me, he was aware of the prevailing circumstances against me at home concerning food from the kitchen, and so always bought me delicious food and candies from town to eat and I was happy.

Ignorantly this theft went on for some time, little knowing that I had created a serious problem at home and was never suspected to be the culprit, until one morning my first cousin caught me red-handed. Yes, once again, the thief at home had been caught, and the house was on fire. Fearfully, I confessed it all to my father, but the root cause, nobody cared to find out why?

My father detailed the Military Police under his command to investigate the batman who confessed to all he knew about the stolen money. He actually confessed to have cast a spell on me to be giving him more money. My father was very angry with me and threatened to send me to a Juvenile Correctional facility popularly known in my Country as ‘Bad Child’s School’.

However, upon the plea of his best friend on my behalf, I was rather admitted into a decent High School, where I was expected to receive good training. This decision was due to the fact that I had passed my entrance examination into High school with good grades, and this noble man saw great potential in me to improve positively. His hope was that discipline in the boarding house would change me.

II entered into High school knowing the best was expected of me. As is wisely said, “curiosity kills the cat”… In my second year in High school, I noticed something unusual about a dormitory mate. At a certain time during siesta, he always took a certain path and I suspected he had something secret and interesting to do. One day I tailed him only to bump into a marijuana smoking gang of senior and junior students of our High school.

Their leader, a ruthless lower sixth form student and a Prefect, very feared on campus and a terrible bully, threatened me with severe punishment if I dared reported what I had seen. In the end, he forced me to also experiment the weed and I coughed terribly that moment almost to choking from the smoke, but ended up intoxicated. The exciting feeling of getting high got me interested, and I was initiated into this gang of bad boys the next day and begun doing marijuana and drugs at the age of fifteen.

To be honest, I got the deeper into drug addiction to the extent of having serious hallucinations sometimes almost driving me insane. I remember being told by my elder Cousin how one day at home I behaved abnormally. She bumped into me sitting in front of a big dressing mirror in my room, and laughing hilariously at my own image in the mirror like a chronic bipolar.

Initially she got infected by my laughing and joined me laughing, because I seemed very funny to her. However, at a point, she realized the deep laughing was abnormal, and when she noticed how reddish my eye balls had turned, she suspected what that might mean, because her boyfriend was also an addict to weed. It took her swift intervention of a big bowl of Weetabix, plus a full tin of evaporated milk, and very deep sleep to bring me back to sanity. I never realized what had happened until she told later on.

This happened to me a second time after my peers in High school incited me into adding another drug to the marijuana. I was told it would boost my ecstasy and help me study well for an exam paper during Exam week. My head almost reeled off that night. At this experience, wished to come out of this drug addiction, but I was hooked, and lacked the will power to save myself.

Surprisingly, my father never detected his son was into drugs. He was a busy man, and my step Mum only busied herself finding faults of me to give her usual bad reports about me to Daddy, but never got that close to me to detect my drug addiction.

As a student of 16, my father never knew I had also become his shareholder to his packs of cigarettes at home. Once a fresh pack was opened, I would time him to the seventh stick from the pack, and would start pulling out my share one by one as he smoked along, and he never realized it until he stopped smoking himself. Then one day he smelt cigarette smoke in my mouth, because he had none in his nostrils. I vehemently denied it, and was careful from that day on.

One of my friends on campus also had interest in girls, and all the time discussed sex and the joy of it with me. Soon I got carried away and begun to desire that experience too. First, it begun with masturbation, and then to sex proper with Teenage girls in school. Instead of spending much time on why I was in school, I soon turned out a boy with a bad appetite for beautiful girls. Thus, my interest for academic work begun a down turn. I was always occupied in my mind with senseless love and how to please my girlfriends instead of loving my text books.

One day a student girl introduced me to a pornographic pamphlet she stole from home to teach me how to do it better with her, and that worsened my appetite for sex. From then on, any time I was on vacation, I acquired a collection of them in my room, and became so engrossed in reading these materials all at the blind side of my father. But one day, he bumped into my room only to see me masturbating before a large sexy picture of a beautiful naked lady I had pasted on the wall. He was devastated and angrily ripped off the picture from the wall, searched my room for all pornographic materials, and burned them behind our house before me, but the desire was deep in my heart that it persisted.

From then on, I was smart not to be caught again until I impregnated a sixteen year old girl in my third year in High school. I denied it when she accused me as the one responsible… A story to tell one day God willing on an appropriate platform.

My dear young ones reading, I beg you on my knees, please desist from watching or engaging pornographic images in books, TV and especially on the internet screens. Today I have come to understand that there is always an addictive spirit behind these images we see, and if care is not take and you get hooked to these sites and images, you are in for deep trouble that can adversely affect your life and marriage in the future.

It is a game that once you get into, it will be very difficult to break out from. It hooks a person like a deceptive bait in a fish’s throat, and can lead you into addictive and illicit sexual encounters that are leading countless youths into serious problems, negative sexual relationships, eventual failed marriages, sexually transmitted diseases like HIV which is still real today, and premature death. If caution is not exercised now, I can bet you, you are treading on a very slippery path that has very serious consequences.

At night on campus, instead of being at evening ‘preps’ and studying for the next day lectures, I would sneak out of school with my friends to go after girls. Unless I did not hear or see a beautiful student girl in my school or in another in the same city, the “he goat” in me would come alive. I became so engrossed in fun and mischievousness that I was always in trouble with my school Housemaster. Thus, my terminal reports were nothing good to write home about and Daddy was always mad at me.

All this while, I knew that I had a character problem, but something beyond me kept spurring me on without restrain. I had become hooked to Delinquency, Drugs and Sex. I wished for a way out, but my peers of the same feathers kept on drawing me along, and I had no mother to confide in. It was as if a spell was on me, sometimes to the wonder of my father.

It’s my hope that every parent will take particular delight in befriending their children, so as to build mutual trust between parent and child. Your child should be confident enough to mention whatsoever goes wrong with him/her to you as their parent. It is also the responsibility of every parent to pray to God for godly friends for their children, especially when they are in the boarding school.

This is where most bad character traits are acquired through bad peers, and we need to be on the look out to check the negatives in order to secure their destinies. Our children’s future depends very much on us as parents, so let us rise up to this task before our children bring us big troubles and shame at home.

To mothers especially, please do not be too busy with your job as an excuse to neglect your children’s company. You are the Membrane the family Cell, and it is your duty to be on the lookout for unwanted intrusions and block them. But please do this in love, void of discrimination among the children as your support for the father of the home. This is very important charge to parents who wish to nurture their children into better adults.

I strongly believe with all my heart, that there would be special rewards for step parents especially who love and nurture their step children as their very own. Believe this or not, on that D-day when we all stand before our Creator, we are surely going to render every bit of account to Him of how we nurtured every child He placed in our care in this life, even to your girl maidservant living under your roof.

One day in primary six, our teacher asked each pupil in the class to name his/her best friend to the class. One by one, each one mentioned his or her best friend’s name. Some from within us in the class were their best friends, others from other classes, and others also from home, but surprisingly, when it got to one particular girl, the daughter of a Chaplain, she mentioned her father’s name and said, “My Dad is my best friend.” The whole class was dumbfounded.

“How can your Dad be your best friend?” We all quizzed in our minds, and did not understand her at that time, but she was right. Her father was our barracks Chaplain, and it was obvious to everybody in the barracks how his children were very close to him and were all good children, because he had befriended and nurtured them in the ways of God.

On vacations from school, Daddy sat me down on countless times over my Terminal reports, and pleaded with me to change my way of life. This invariably ended up in tears of sorrow for myself, but my bad nature persisted. I wished I had the courage to open up to my father about my addictions, but he was not my friend, and I had a negative fear of him for the way he barked at me, and lashed me up as discipline.

Before him, I was so timid and scared, and dared not expose myself to my own detriment. I also did not have a mother at home to confide in as a friend. Talking to my step Mum about my secrets would only amount to betraying myself into more trouble, so I kept everything to my chest and was pinning away within.

It is right and divine, to discipline a child when he/she goes wrong as God’s Word enjoins parents to do, because ‘Foolishness’, as the Bible says, ‘is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him’ (Proverbs 22:15). However, it is very wrong to speak negative words over your child. Yes, a child’s bad attitude may drive a parent ‘nuts’ at times, but to explode without considering the effects of your negative words over the child can be very detrimental to his/her destiny in life.

Note this: There are two forces that operate in this life. The force of Good (God), and the force of evil (Satan), and these forces operate by the words that come out of us as humans. Words are spirit, and when declared, whether positive or negative, gets impregnated in the spirit realm, and as a woman gets pregnant and eventually gives birth in due course, words spoken, though not seen with physical eyes, because they are spirit, will also give birth in the physical in due course. This is a spiritual principle that God has set into motion for us. You declare it, and it shall come to pass…

Also, in the Lord’s own Words, He taught that words are spirit, and are life; ‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life’ (John 6:63), and again, in the proverbs of King Solomon, he also declared, ‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat of its fruit.’ (Proverbs 18:21).

Furthermore, the Lord explains the effects of spoken words as follows, ‘For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.’(Mark 11:23).

Again, He teaches about careless words and why we must be careful; ‘But I say unto you, that every idle (careless) word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned’ (Matthew 12:36-37 Paraphrased).

Kindly note here; the key words in the above quoted scriptural texts are, SAY, IDLE WORD and SPEAK. These underlined verbs have to do with expressing oneself by words. So, we must watch what we express over our children in anger and disappointments, because by our verbal expressions shalt we be justified, and also be made to account for.