UNBELIEVING BELIEVERS

-Dedicated to the People of Southern  Kaduna, Nigeria.

EPISODE 8.

"So, erm..." Kanbul stuttered a bit as he fought hard to hold down his wooing thoughts. "Is this how you travel to different places?"


"Places in distress, what would I do? It's W.H.O 's work, i have to survive." 

"My mother does something like that too, going from place to place."

"Seriously? She works with W.H.O too, or who?"

"Missionaries."

"So kind of her, how I wish I could but we do ours for money. I guess she's somewhere out there now, would really love to meet her." Helerina enthused and popped a pill.

He wanted to ask what the pill was for, but courtesy held him back. That she liked his mother's work was soothing enough. "So, are you going to another place anytime soon?" He inquired with a glare of interest and distress.

"Ah! Not soon," her response was relieving. "The devastation in Southern Kaduna is too much, so are the rehabilitation programs; psychological, occupational, medical, we will be stationed here for a while."

"So, you would be here for a month or two?"

"Six months to Eight max," she said, seeing how gratifying her answer was in his eyes. "Going from villages to villages though, I don't really move about unless I have to."

"Mind you, there are towns here too,  not just villages,  Kaduna is home to the most powerful harmony in Nigeria. We have the German castle, Kagaro Hills, bet you'll like to check them out sometime."

"I see," she giggled, "but we are for attacked locales."

"That means you'll need a church around, I recommend Rophi Evangelical, it's along that..."

"I pass by the Church everyday," she interrupted him. "Isn't it the Tractor Preacher's church?"

"Wow! That's it!" Kabul remarked. " See, I told God if I ever set my eyes on you again, I'm going to ask you out!"

"What!" Helerina cringed.

Immediately, he became crestfallen and speechless. He sure didn't know when he voiced his mind. "Not that way, I -I -I'm sorry it's too... but I'm very serious I love you, and want you."

"You mean, just like that?" she stated bluntly as she returned a steely smile that condemned Kanbul to his embarrassed sincerity.

Within spilt seconds, Kanbul got an emergency call and lost no time to take it for an escape. The background of the call was ringing with noise of horrors as the caller told him Yersinar had been having several flashes of attacks and convulsions.

Flustered as he broke the news to Helerina, Kanbul could only reveled in her persuasion to bring his adoptee over to the W.H.O Rehab center. "I'm actually on my way to resume for evening duty now." She added as they parted ways.

By first light of the next day, it was another episode of Yersinar's convulsion that jolted Kanbul from the bench where he had laid all night. Then came the wrecking news that she would need referral to Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hopital in Zaria for Intensive care unit and that she has AIDS.

"AIDS!" Kanbul rehashed for the umpteen time as he paced up and about between Yersinar and the waiting ambulance, trying to place a call to his mother but the network was erratic.

"It's so sad Kanbul but... she might just improve a bit on drugs for as long as she stays alive." Helerina sought to nurse the horror written all over his face as she kept popping her own pills.

"No!" Kanbul yelled. "Why? This is just too big a challenge for such a little girl as this!"

"It has always been there. Can't you see all her bones outside? The hijab or burqa was covering a lot."

"The devil is a bastard!"

"Sir, it's the HIV in her body which was untreated for a long time that has evolved into AIDS," Dr Mangu explained to Kanbul. "It has already affected her brain, her health defense or what we call immunity is too low. So, some infections have spread into her brain, that's why she's having recurrent seizures."

"Why this at a time just when she gave her life to Christ?"

"Didn't I tell you, It has always been there?" Helerina took over from the busy doctor. "For instance, if I don't tell you I'm a sickler, would you know?"

Without a response, Kanbul slowed down to allow the wind blow back her last words to him till it started making sense. Then, he stood rooted to a spot, locked deep in thoughts for a moment as he wondered; if he hadn't been too forward to ask Helerina out, if he was already too in to be out, if he hadn't been too judgmental about Ewaloju. Though Helerina  hadn't replied his proposal, her body languages are reading yes.

"She's convulsing again!" a matron came calling to expedite her referral as they wheeled her out on the gurney. "Start moving now, this is bad enough!"

"Don't worry, Kanbul," Helerina consoled him seeing his eyes turned red and presuming it was all about Yersinar. "They would managed her better there and I'ld personally see to it that her drug assay result is delivered today along with even 3rd line drugs if needed."

The driver honked for Kanbul to come over but he wouldn't move an inch.

"What are you thinking, Kanbul?" She tapped him as he locked gaze with her scowling eyes. "Is it money for the drugs? Its free and available in this Rehab." But he still looked stunned. "Oh! You're afraid if we lose her, you would have a gripping story to tell?" Then, he nodded differentially as tears bursted out of his eyes at seeing Yersinar gasped with an oxygen mask strapped to her face, as he finally moved closer.

"Now, I don't know what you are thinking anymore," she uttered out of frustration as she followed him, "receiving news like a woman."

"Can't she be healed? He asked the skies but distractedly with Helerinas sickle cell in mind.

"Healed?" Helerina answered him with another question, still mistaking his concern for Yersinar illness. "But this is AIDS, I've seen quite a number, even worse cases. She can only be managed but there's no cure for now. Not in science, so?"

"You mean-"  then, Kanbul exhaled heavily and summoned his faith as his compassion to see Yesinar healed immediately returned to his front burner. "You mean, she can't be healed?" He reiterated.

"Okay, she can be healed!" Helerina answered with a snarl, "with God all things are possible."

"I mean healed right now."

"Hmmm," Helerina would rather say no more words as she opened the passenger door for him to join the waiting driver while she went back into the patient-care compartment.

As the driver engaged the gear,  Kanbul turned abruptly, alighted and stormed into the patient-care compartment, adding work to his faith. Words of healing started tumbling out of his lips. And in a breath holding moment, Yersinar sat up, removed her oxygen mask, her skin freshened out in their eyes -she was healed instantly.

Every breath afterwards at the Rehab Center, Kafanchan, Dogon Fili, Jema'a, Kaura, Nissi, Zilan all the way to Goska , Kaninkon kingdom, and Northern Kaduna were taken away by that moment, without sparing Mamza's whose line finally went through.

A week after, Helerina accepted his lingering proposal when sisters in and out of church wouldn't stop eyeing him since Yersinar's healing.

TWO P.M ON PALM SUNDAY 2017, Helerina was at Kaduna International Airport to receive Kanbul who had just disembarked from a Lagos flight; he had gone to minister healing at National stadium Surulere in a crusade that streamed live.

The lovers were too engrossed with testimonies of miracles that he didn't remember she has sickle cell until he was about to alight at the archway to his guest quarter in Apostle's farm castle.

"Lets pray, I want you to receive your healing right now!" He persuaded and offered to touch her forehead but she weaved it. 

"Right here? Ah ah-an! " she reacted, laughing dispassionately as she looked around to see if anyone was looking their way.

"Oh! You think I'm kidding?" He straightened out his shoulder and took a pastoral poise.

"Anyway pastor Kanbul, see you. You know I'ld ring you before I sleep." She hugged him and set out for her car.

"Wait, wait! Besides, I'm not a pastor but why delay your healing? The same God that healed Yersinar is more than ready to heal you!"

"See, my dear," She mused and turned back. "I know God answer the babies in Christ quicker, miracles are breastmilk for them, not old bones like us," she explained away resentfully.

"No! Healing is for all," Kanbul asserted. "Otherwise, you mean God bribes new believers?"

"Not like that. For instance, I remember getting fast answers to prayers as a baby Christian. I mean things, trials are tougher now, can't recall when I was last healed of even ordinary headache."

"My love, the tougher the trials, the bigger your testimonies, that should be the only difference between a baby Christian and oldies like us."

"Okay," she said crassly, turned away and wouldn't wait for more words from the now jaw dropped Kanbul as her eyes became fixed on her wristwatch. "It's exactly half an hour to my shift, see you around dear."

"Welcome my daughter!" Mamza came out of her apartment rapturously to greet them and chased after Helerina who immediately retracted from leaving and was already beaming from side to side.

"Hope he hasn't annoyed you?"

"At least, not today Ma," she enthused.

"That's good! I can't believe this is my son," Kanbul could hear his mother within earshot, "he has completely changed since Yersinar's healing, you needed to know what he was like."

"What does he used to be like?" Helerina's whisper was the last Kanbul could hear from the gaping distance as he busied himself with opening a DHL letter sent to him to come and preach in South Africa.

Then, he recalled having several dreams of himself driving to Chibok, and that would mean leaving Helerina behind. He hadn't told her but just before he rebuked this Chibok spirit, he decided he would employ Apostle's mountain-moving voice so that it would be at least two people binding a thing on earth.

As he turned to the terrace of Apostle barn, he met him counting ceiling piles of crop seeds just offloaded to him when everyone seemed to be packing out of Southern kaduna.

"Good evening Apostle, the Tractor Preacher himself,"

"It's well with this nickname people just gifted me. Shalom brother Kanbul. No doubt the crusade was great, my wife watched it live and told me."

"Glory to God! But I was about asking, why buy seeds? I guess to feed your sheep?"

"No! If you see the yield of harvest I'm seeing? People see crop seeds but I see seed crops! I'm sowing like never before in this kaduna land."

"Apostle, this land is obviously accursed by those killer herdsmen we won't let take it," Kanbul said contemptuously. "Coming from airport today, you needed to see scenes of carnage that told southern kaduna's story of woes without being asked."

"It hurts-" Apostle remarked but hadn't finished his next word when Kanbul led him by hand to the rooftop of his Castle.

"See patches of deserted farmlands. Who would stay back when the locale  from Godogodo to Pansankori, Kaura, name it are stalked by famine and fear, especially in a jittered economy?"

"What a faithless generation we are! And what a faithful God we -"

"Apostle, the first rain of the year just drizzled yesterday. It barely reached the ground before vaporizing. The rivers are all dried up. This land needs deliverance first from curses, not planting seed when sowing time is over! In fact, I'm considering moving to -"

"When we give thanks to God," Apostle interrupted him, "this very land will yield its increase, in hundred folds. God has healed it." Then, he added persuasively: "people are returning."

"Or you meant people are leaving."
Kanbul  rejoined with a laughing  unbelief of Sarai.

"Everyday, I see it in my spirit, and I see it even in the physical," Apostle resolved to Kanbul's amazement. "This is Nissi, God has provided seeds to the sowers and the name of our Church is Rophi Evangelical: God heals. These seeds heal the ground on contact." Then Apostle pointed to his ranch. "My sheep are growing fatter, can't you see that at least?"

"Okay," Kanbul crooned. "I can see that one."

"So? I'm not moved by the brown leaves, they are turning green, the land of kaduna south is healed. I will reap hundred folds."

Kanbul felt brought down to the earth as Apostle led him down to the seed  stockpile. "That's why I have been giving out seeds, take three tons of different seeds, tubers. Go and sow in your land, Kanbul. That's my burial gift for you."

"My father's land!" He exclaimed, thought of it as being all he had left behind for him, aside a lorry and a wealth of debt.

"Your father's land, yes, it's now yours." Apostle pat him on the shoulder. "I have a conviction that your father had a dying wish for you to fulfill, I'm not sure exactly but... there's something." He looked at him straight in the face. "Sure it's not to till his farm?"

"Hmm" Kanbul remarked vaguely. Then he remembered his father had wanted him to go to Chibok right from the beginning but that was to give his grannies Christmas gifts. But with Helerina in the picture now, he became disturbed by the coincidence of the subject he actually came to discuss with Apostle in the first place.  He quickly passed it up for thought accident and would rather hold fast to staying back home and plant anyhow, with or without faith. So, before Apostle stole his next line of thought, he veered the discussion like he would smartly do in law court:

"I'm sure going to plant something, fulfill Pa'a Doya's wish, I would borrow your crawler."

"It's all fine, plant aplenty and see if my Jehovah Nissi won't give you hundred folds in harvest!" Apostle challenged him innocently and left. But Kanbul took just one of the three free tons of seeds, dumped it in his lorry and headed to his quarters balloting between his chick and Chibok.

THE DAY AFTER NEXT, Helerina was alone in her room, floored in a painful crisis that would only allow her doubtful gaze fixed on the fifth negative HIV result of Yersinar which she had secretly requested through a friend in United Nations lab for confirmation.
   
"But God, this little girl just became born again and is healed and made whole right in my presence. I thank you for her, but how about me?" She whimpered while wailing in pains.

"I have been working for you for as long as her age!" she complained aggrievedly as she kept away Yersinar's viral result in anger. "If this truly isn't a milk-bone thing, then why haven't you healed me too?" She let out a shrill noise with the next pang, "just take me away!"

Then, her door knob turned after several unanswered knocks that her cries must have masked. It was Kanbul. He rushed in and met her in tears with her face swollen. There was no time for greetings, the hot snacks in his hands hit the floor as he swooped in to pack her from the tiles where she lay scattered.

"I can't move my legs, I need drips and blood, take me to the ward in village Rehab or any other hospital around."

"I will, but not immediately."

"That's why I called you, Kanbul."

"Have faith my Helerina, God is interested not only in saving your soul but healing your flesh, your flesh is His temple you know?"

"Or my heart, which is my mind? See, this flesh is dust," she pinched herself hard as he sat by her on the bed, "so tired of mine, the slightest thought that someone else's blood flow in my veins from time to time is crazy!"

"I wish above all things that you be in good health, not just some part of your body. It doesn't spare the mind. God's word spares nothing, it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

"How I wish rapture happened today, I can't wait for my glorified body," she said berating herself. "This  sinful body is just -"

"Why do you think God said, 'I'm the God of all flesh?" Kanbul cut in. "Is there anything impossible for me to do?' "

"Why then would God heal a new convert and leave the old?" She protested in a wince. "I'm not just talking of Yersinar, it's a pattern I've seen over time."

"I told you it's nothing like giving attention to a new wife over the old," He rubbed her knee gently and it was soothing. "Sorry Love, this only reminds me of the story of the prodigal son; whereas the ram was always theirs for parties but the elder son wouldn't see it for asking from the father until his prodigal brother became the envied celebrant, you see?"

"I have asked for healing, Kanbul."

"Have you knocked? When I came, I asked you to open the door but you didn't, then I knocked and had to seek by opening your door. These works in direction of faith is believing."

"We have even fasted and prayed, everyone except one of my sister and parent bear this stigma in the family, forget it!" She blurted out wincing. "Maybe one day God will heal us," she added reluctantly.

"He said, 'I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.' He said all things are possible," Kanbul bragged as he stood up. "See, our house before it was burnt down used to be a hound house. I had being deceived that heartbrokenness runs in my family until I met you."

"I had also wished you would break the sickling cycle in my family until I found out you are AS."

Her response finally stuck him as an outright rejection to his wavering proposal.
                           ***

To be continued this week Friday 5pm.

This is a work of fiction, all Characters, names and incidences similar to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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