The bible says that food of life should not be given to dogs. My take on that is: not everyone should read the bible, only those with the needed maturity should adventure themselves to reading it.
My kid sister did her first paying job the other day. She was excited to be paid 500,000 for the first time in her life, and as soon as she cashed in her pay check, she made the first stop at her church, deposited 450,000 of the money and kept 50,000. When she told me I was stunned: ‘you need to stop reading the bible upside-down’, I told her. ‘The idea is to offer 10% of the money and remain with 90%!’ Even God must have been shocked!’
But of course she can give 90% of her salary off to a church; she can give all of it. For her, salary doesn’t have a subsistence value; it is just an opportunity to boost her self-esteem. She has parents and big brothers to take care of her needs. For us, we hang on to the little dime we earn because we are trying to survive with it, not to look or feel good…
By doing that she had made a big mistake though; one of pledging loyalty to the church. A few weeks later, she was supposed to go to London for her university.
Just before she went, she consulted her pastor for the usual guidance and blessing. Him, keen to keep all the milking cows in his church, ‘advised’ her that it was best to study in Rwanda. Going to London, he prophesied, would corrupt her faith…
We tried all we could to change her mind, she wouldn’t listen. Even I, the cool big bro who takes her on dates in nice coffee shops, failed to convince her not to study in one of these new private universities, where only those who couldn’t have the grades to qualify for University of Rwanda go.
In hindsight, we have ourselves to blame. When she started going to this church, I was happy to know that she will not be drinking or smoking or jumping the fence to go out dancing all night. I even frequently went out to clubs for monitoring purposes – of course; and I was reassured never to bump into her…
Now, I am not so sure that is worse. Come to think of it, I realise she could have been open-minded and less naïve, had she done all of the above. The education she has received at home would have been enough to keep her responsible.
I am 32 and even I still have dark areas when it comes to religion. I imagine what the thing can do to my 18 year old little sister, whom at the same time is going through that age phase where we are convinced that we detain the truth, and adults are all idiots.
I would like to tell her that I love her so much; that I have made so many mistakes in life; that I have lost so much time; so many opportunities that I can’t get back. But the stuff that they tell her at her church, her age phase, all make her designed not to listen to me, sadly. This reminds me of my father’s remarks: ‘ you will only respect me when you get children of your own…’
Now her mother is heartbroken. She is living under the fear that any moment now, my little sister will be bringing some choir boy to our home, and tell us that God visited him in a dream and revealed her as the one, and go off to a premature marriage…
To comfort her, I told her that it is still better than hearing on the news that her daughter went to Syria to join the Islamic state or that she was involved in suicide bombing in the middle of Kigali town…
Posted 27th November 2014