Close Shaves Series – part 7. The Internet Plan story

So I was going to church on Saturday morning to teach my students as usual, with one of them beside me in the car when we got talking about mobile internet. I can’t remember how we got to that point but I told her there’s this plan airtel is doing where all the chats are for free, and she gets free calls, texts, etc. I told her the details are on my phone but I didn’t want to show her cos I don’t like bringing my phone out while driving.

By this time, we were on Ozumba, and had slowed down because of the traffic light. I looked around, and said “what the hell? Let me just bring the phone out of my middle compartment, that nothing would happen. So when the car in front of me moved forward a bit, I didn’t move, but instead bent my head to get the phone.

I immediately looked back up and saw a car come from nowhere on the second or third lane, and drove headlong into the space I had left in front of me, to the point of climbing the kerb the streetlight was planted in.

It was just a split second, and that car would have crashed into my car with that much force, and crushed my student first, and then me. I had just avoided a major accident just because I bent my head down to look at my middle compartment.

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My student and I were visibly shaken, and knew it was just God. I had left just enough gap for the car to crash in front of me, such that though it was right in front of my windscreen, it didn’t even touch my car one bit, though it grazed the car previously in front of me just a little bit.

Till now, I still don’t know where the old Mercedes benz came from, or if it happened because its breaks failed, or it lost control, but I know God saved me. Imagine my RIP pictures all over social media, God forbid.

I immediately drove away from the scene, and it wasn’t until two days later it occurred to me that I should have taken pictures. It was so traumatising that I didn’t even want to stay there for just one more second.

The funny thing is that up till today, I still haven’t shown my student the message about the internet on the phone. I never brought out that phone from the middle compartment. It definitely was just a diversion by the Holy Spirit.

God saved me once again. The devil has tried, but he has failed – once again.

You can read my other close shave with death experiences here.

How Constant Power Supply will drive us to tears

I am not one to joke about the state of Nigeria’s problems, but I just couldn’t resist. A lot of thought were going through my mind recently when people said they’ve been having better power supply. All through that period, I was fuming because we didn’t have light for two weeks due to our transformer blowing.

After it was fixed, they resumed their normal ‘two days on, one day off’ power rotation. And they still take light periodically during the two days o.

Anyway, from people’s comments after few days of good power supply, this is what I project Nigerian’s reactions if we had constant power supply for the following numbers of days.

1 day : “this phcn, their head is correct.”

2 days:  “wow, so phcn can be nice like this.”

3 days:  “hmm, phcn what is happening o?”

5 days:  “phcn, it is okay. We have enjoyed the light enough. All our gadgets are now fully charged. You can take your light again.”

1 week: *Nigerians are rolling their eyes in suspicion*

2 weeks: “This is definitely a set up for a big conspiracy phcn is planning against us.”

1 month: "Seriously phcn, e don do. We now agree you exist and are effective. Point noted. We will never doubt your abilities again."

2 months: *people are losing their minds. “PHCN please, take the light. We are not used to this. We can’t handle this torment anymore. Pleeeaaaassseee.”

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5 months: *Nigerians are freezing cold, and walking around in winter jacket. Every single thing is working*

1 year: *Nigerians constantly being discharged from hospital after being treated for recurring shock.

So what do you guys think? Am I right in my reaction projections? I am not sure about us making it to one year without uninterrupted power supply in the next 10 years.

As at now, I can’t even remember us having 3 days uninterrupted power supply in Lagos for the past 25 years. So 1 week is being too optimistic for now.

Modern Day Religious Manipulations

So sometime recently my mum came to meet me, and said one pastor said everyone in my family should come together and pray for three hours every night for one month or so. She said something like the theme is ‘moving forward.’

So we looked at each other, and burst into laughter. I said three hours?

How are supposed to gather EVERYONE for THREE HOURS, EVERY NIGHT?

She said she told the person it won’t be possible, that she will pray what she can pray, and tell me, so I can do the remaining, since I pray for long hours every evening, anyway.

I asked my mum. “So, if we don’t do up to three hours, God will not answer our prayers?”

Needless to say, this was where the conversation died.

I have come to the level where all these ‘spiritual manipulations’ disguised with good intentions on the road to breakthrough don’t move me one bit anymore. I have too much experience for all that crap to work on me. If you find yourself been bounced around by all these hullabaloo, even as a Christian, it is not because you are bad or weak. It is just a sign of a troubled and restless spirit.

Trust me, I have been there.

Gone are the days when religious manipulators came in celestial white garments, and ask you to drink and bathe in holy water. That is just old school. No one would ask you to go to bar beach again. Fashola and Tinubu have reduced their market with the whole Eko Atlantic Beach thing. The 7 Broomsticks-beating times are over, as it doesn’t appeal to the elite. It is a whole new game now.
The spiritual manipulators of these times are very cunning. They are in every church, and they prey on the weak and troubled. And they can catch anybody, no matter how strong.

Here goes my own personal experience.

There was a time in my life when everything around me was crumbling. I lost things most important to me, and I basically thought I could not move on without recovering them. I was weak, tired, and just wanted my life to be over. This is that period in your life when your friends and family just keep looking at you and praying for you to recover because they know there’s basically nothing within their power they can do to help you get back up again. Even my pastor kept praying for me and encouraging me. Still, it wasn’t enough. I wanted a quick-fix solution.

That’s how I went to look for trouble when I agreed to see one of my aunt’s pastor in a redeemed church. She said he’s a prayer warrior, and very effective. I went to see him. In fact, the drama in the church that day made me laugh so much that I immediately wrote this post, The God of Visas, and blogged about it. Read it here. Anyway, I finally got to meet this pastor. I should have suspected him because it looked he was just a worker in the church. He immediately scolded me for questioning God, and asked me to start fasting again for 21 days (I had just concluded a personal fast). He said he will be sending daily prayer points, bla bla.

After about 10 days, I sent him credit because my aunt said I should send him credit since he is sending me prayer points. I sent him 1500 twice in the period of 21 day. Even though a text message costs N4.00, it was nothing to me. I mean he was specially interested in me, right? Never mind that I already had hundreds of prayer points and declarations I had prepared for myself. After all, I was the one looking for fast solution.

Anyway, after the 21 days was over, this pastor will call and pray for me well, and ask me to send him credit. The first time, I did it, but with raised eyebrows.

One morning of a week day, he called me and asked him to send him credit. Unfortunately, I was in Nnewi, in a remote area. The company my firm had sent our team to go and clean up their accounts temporarily lodged us in one of the CEO’s guest houses, and we were surrounded by bushes. So I told the pastor I couldn’t get credit, explaining the situation of things to him.

He kept insisting I go out and buy the credit, or find someone to send to get the credit, because he doesn’t understand how someone like me won’t have access to credit. I was irritated, and immediately decided to cut him out of my life.

leaving
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I stopped picking his calls, apart from one time I picked by mistake because he called my second line.

I told my aunt what happened, and she apologised saying she didn’t know he was like that, and would report him in the church.

So these are the signs of such people

They are very manipulative, starting and ending calls with prayers God did not send them to pray for you. They never run out of prophesies.

They will usually send you prayer points, and tell you they are praying for you too.

They will make you dependent on them totally. This is a strategy, because if things begin to turn around for you, you will always attribute it to the fact that “That pastor can pray o. Ha, he is a powerful man of God.” And then you will eventually turn the pastor to your God, and start giving him whatever he asks for.

If you meet any pastor who doesn’t encourage you to study the word yourself, and find God yourself, RUN!

They usually don't have any full time job or full time ministry, and prey on mostly the working class society.

Most times, they are formulaic/numerical in their approach. Fast for 21 days. Pray by 6pm and 11pm everyday. Pray for 2 hours. Shout Hallellujah 7 times for 7 days at the 7th hour. They lack creativity, and their approach doesn't give room for the Holy Spirit to do His thing, seeing He cannot be confined to formulas and numbers.

They are in every church, EVERY CHURCH - Catholic, Pentecostal, Celestial, Redeemed, Winners, Baptist, CAC, Methodist – you name it, you will find them there.

Beware of them. I believe I was able to see him for who he was because I was already strong spiritually before I got into trouble, but only got caught in my weak moment. Some people are not so lucky, and end up being lifetime victims of the greedy posers in the kingdom of God.

On the flipside, don’t stop going to church because of these wolves in sheep's clothing. See my reason below


Children, listen to your Teachers

Haaaa, I can't even laugh. Last post's designer word play challenge made me learn many things.

1. Smartness - Some people are so smart that they pick out answers to problems that the teacher never even thought about. Many people picked designers I never thought of, while some manufactured their own so they could make up 24.

2. Copy Copy - What did they teach us about not dubbing other people's work in school again? Some people just copied and other people's works and added one or two more, such that they copied the wrong answers.

So these are some of the non-existent answers that you really smart people gave me. Fortune, Ted Baker, Bakers, Amy Butler, Desire, Delicious, Victoria Beckham, Helm boot, Dorothy Schoelen. Thanks for really trying.

So here are the answers.

Next Christmas
H and M
Michael Kors
Victoria’s secret
Polo
House of Fraser
Peacock
United colours of Benetton
Debenhams
Wish
Asos
Forever 21
Zara
Baby phat
Office
Calvin klein
Gap
River island
Dorthy perkins
Ralph lauren
Selfridges
Oasis
Guess

I am really sorry about this, when I saw the different answers, I determined to give whoever got a minimum of 21, especially seeing I actually had 23, not 24. Unfortunately, the two highest got 20 out of 23, so I am keeping the mixit jewelry for the next giveaway. The reason I can't give it out is because there was more than one person who improvised and came up with new designers, and I have just one pack.

Shop through my punchline story, and win a jewelry set

Hello dearies. How are you all doing? I am sorry I am putting you through this. I was just playing around, and I thought it would be nice to have you all join me in this erepa of words. Below is a short story. I have used major clothing brands/stores/ideologies many of us wear to form the story. There are 24 brands hidden and not-so-hidden in the story. You are to find as many as possible, and list them in the comment section. I will ship a box of Mixit jewelry I got from JC Penny to whoever gets all the 24 wherever you are in the world. You have just one week, i.e. this opportunity ends next Monday, 10th August by 10.59am GMT+1. Please, let's make it fun. Even if you don't know all 24, just put all the ones you got in the comment box. Whatever happens, just make sure you read, lol.
Your time starts now. You guys are darlings.


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Baker Helmz and Butler Mauritz knew Victoria’s secret was to remain forever 21. I don’t know how possible it is because even her older cousin, Zara had earlier realised that clothes revealing her persistent baby fat were no longer appropriate for the office. When Calvin cleanly revealed this gap to her, she threw tantrums and isolated herself to the River Island where she met Dorothy, perkin’ away in order to attract the attention of Ralph so they could elope together to the oasis. Victoria’s guess was that Dorothy’s effort was futile, seeing Ralph was already engaged to Lauren, the daughter of Mr Selfridge, and his eyes were set on her fortune.

Her countenance was uplifted, knowing her plight was not as hopeless as that of Dorothy, so she decided to cheer herself up by going to Dr Fraser’s house to hang out with her lover, Michael, cause she knew he would understand the reason for her strong desire to remain as youthful and bright as a peacock. He had always read her poems of how her love united the colors of his dull heart, making it more beautiful than Mayor Bennetton’s flower garden.

After sometime, they binged on the great Mr Ben’s hams, which proved to be a source of delicacy. At the end of the day, after playing several games of polo, Victoria was hopeful again. She then decided that she was going to save her almost impossible wish as her next Christmas request.