MY ‘Touching Lives At Christmas” STORY.
No! Some friends are exceptional.
Two men and one lady….. It all began once upon a yuletide season.
“Gring!! Gring!!” my phone blared behind me. I turned, picked the phone up and drew a line across the screen with my finger. That was the exact phone many mouths had begged me to throw in the Atlantic Ocean?
“Hey old woman! How is your old age treating you?”
“Uncle leeeee” I heard myself screaming as though I had been bitten by a black ant. “Baba 90, wetin dey happen for your end?”
“Na happiness o my sister” I couldn’t help but noticed the sound of excitement ringing in his voice
I swallowed severally grinning from ear to ear. This was yuletide and the season was tense with jollification. Women cooked in their homes and the men maximized the holiday visiting friends,
Guess where my friend went!
“Mama, I went for TLC- Touching Lives At Christmas, I had a good time.
It was an outreach programme organized by “The kingdom Project” and guess what, Grace was asked to join my group.”
“Uncle leeee I am suspecting you”
“No! It wasn’t pre-planned, It was as though they knew we were engaged”
The excitement of a man that loves God passionately and a godly woman is next to none.
Not so long, another old man, Rugged Baba called (his sweetheart must not catch me saying that). He called retelling stories of how he served God in a village during TLC.
They both had sweet stories to tell. No doubt.
Those calls left me feeling good and bad. Good because my friends had a swell time welcoming new entrants into God’s kingdom, then bad because, I just discovered I would have made a better use of my Christmas day.
Less I forget, the three of us were friends from NCCF, we had been to several rural rugged outreaches. We had stood with villagers in their farms, helped them pick palm kernel while we spoke to them about Jesus, Medical Outreach, Relief Materials Outreach and The Word Outreach.
When we left NYSC, we were not sure how God would want to use our learnings but our hearts still yearned for the ways we had come to know God in our rural rugged days. So we left NYSC trying hard to bury that passion pretending we never had it.
We sought for a vent and we couldn’t find until…. TLC.
Bukky was a student who was like a lecturer. I have watched her give presentations in my MSc class and had admired her severely. I knew there was more to her than a sound brain, everybody’s gist-partner and a confident lady. The life of Christ was it.
“Hi, would you love to come for TLC?” she wore a smile like a bride would wear a wedding gown.
“TLC, that same TLC?”The clanging sound made by that acronym was deafening.
Like a spring, I began telling her all I had heard about TLC and how I was already interested. She invited me and its 4 years of doing “Touching lives at Christmas”.
Words are not adequate to explain all I have learnt. The truth is this, there is no better place to be than where God is changing the lives of men and you are privileged to be a part of it. This experience will always deepen your convictions about God.
It is one thing to watch God as He continually change your life…. It is another to see Him deliberately change the lives of others…. This is what TLC has come to mean for me.
You also can have an experience in TLC……………… I am inviting you.