I am a pastor but I am no saint.
I started by telling you this because I don’t want readers to read me with rose tainted glasses. I am first a man; warts and all, before I became a pastor, and then of course, I became a husband and father at once.
That ‘at once’ is what my story is about.
Over there is my wife, you can see she is a beautiful woman, intelligent and smart! But our first three children belong to another man!
My wife, Alice was involved with a man who had several girlfriends; she knew he had other girlfriends, the other girlfriends were also beautiful women, educated ladies, smart and all of them got pregnant for this man, who had no plans to marry anyone of them!
Amazing isn’t it? How can a guy get so lucky? Four women on him alone when some of us can’t even get one! And as should be expected, there was a lot of drama going on with all of that. Many baby mamas, babies being born to this guy almost every year, young women fighting themselves because of this guy…
I tire o!
Let me explain; Andy is the name of the guy and he is quite successful, I must say.
He started his own business and is doing well so naturally, girls would flock around him, I get that.
But when one got pregnant and another and another, if I were a woman, I would have run because it means I am no longer important to him.
But he must have ‘sweetness’ in him that the rest of us don’t have, because Alice my wife, also joined the pregnant gang!
She had the first, second and third child for a man who serially got girls pregnant and never married hem and the funny th68ng is he is not even a Yoruba demon… sorry, wasn’t trying to mess with you but this guy, well…
After all the controversy surrounding him, Andy married one of his baby mamas, and that was when all the other baby mamas eye com clear!
At the time all these was going on, I hadn’t met my wife, Alice.
I was busy with my own life on the other side of town. I had married my longtime friend, who after just two years of marriage was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. We didn’t even have time to get to know about treatment or the options we had available to us, my wife decided she didn’t want all that treatment, she wanted to enjoy the remaining days with me and she passed on, painfully 8 months after the diagnosis. Why did she refuse?
No, it’s got nothing to do with faith, she had seen what it did to her mother, so she just wanted to spare me the pain.
Two years after my wife’s passing, Alice joined our church and the choir as well.
I didn’t notice her. I was still sort of mourning because two years after my wife passed, I wasn’t over her. You see, we had been secondary school sweethearts, we went to the same university, too and attended the same fellowship. We became committed to one another and when we had managed to scrap money to get married, we had just two years!
Back to Alice, so of course, I am relating to you what she said to me at the beginning. Alice was devastated, when she was not the one Andy chose to marry. In my mind, I was like, huh? In this day and age, a pretty girl like you dying for a man who has four of you fine girls, what does he have between his legs that you girls are dying for?
I tire, o!
At that time, I just told Alice to focus on her faith and raise her three children that God would settle her. When I said these to her, believe me, I had nothing in mind for her. As far as I was concerned, her matter was between she and God. I on the other hand had begun to get lonely. I was praying to God to help me find a suitable woman, my eyes were elsewhere.
I did not know that my single sisters in the choir were also praying for me to look their way. I wasn’t o.
You are laughing, it’s not funny. I didn’t see myself as that eligible. Yes, I was single again. I had a good job at an IT company, I was also an assistant pastor but, I didn’t see myself as the best gift to any woman. I was just asking God to give me another woman who would be my friend and wife and in this Lagos, it was a tall order!
Now, after about 6months after Alice joined our church, that was when we spoke about her travails; and this only happened because she came for counselling and I was the officiating pastor that day, it was a midweek service.
I didn’t have anything to do with her even after that, as far as I was concerned, she was a church member and nothing more. So, imagine my worry when I go to pray for a wife and her face shows up…I went like, me? Eat somebody’s vomit? No way!
Yes, vomit because if a man you know won’t marry you impregnates you three times and still didn’t marry you, haba, have you not become like vomit?
What will happen if the father of the boys starts to create trouble for me? I didn’t want any drama, so I kept telling God, please give me a fresh university girl…somebody I can start life together.
This Baba up there is a joker. Alice came up more and more and certain things began to happen. One day, she came to choir practice with her kids. I had no idea they were hers; so while the choir were practicing, the kids came over to the children section, where I was; lt was a Saturday and I was coordinating the cleaners. We had such a lovely time, I couldn’t believe it, I was running around, tumbling around with them in the children’s section. I have always loved kids but I bonded well with these ones, they were all boys ages 10, 7 and 4.
After the practice, Alice came to pick them, and that’s how come I knew they were hers.
Another incident happened, where the kids would seek me out after Sunday service and tell me things about their school and mum…and I know Alice did not send them to do this.
That’s how come, I finally accepted that, truly, maybe this is the woman I should marry…but with three boys!
We began a relationship and that was when wahala started. I began to hear that some single sisters in the choir were calling her a witch, that she bewitched me! In their minds, they couldn’t understand how a single man would want a woman with three kids, when they were without any, you know that sort of thing?
Alice wanted to back out of the relationship and even leave the church but I wouldn’t hear of it, at this time I had fallen deeply in love with her. We weathered the storm together and today, we are man and wife…with five kids…yes o!
And let me say this, it couldn’t have been any better than this, yes o!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)