You can always come back

Gaza had never been inside a church. But now, he hesitantly stepped into one shepherded by his second wife, Mdatha. The church was already full. They took a seat at the back.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he whispered to his wife.

Mdatha smiled at him. A smile that always melted his heart. “I’m sure it is. You’ll see, darling.”

Gaza still looked doubtful. He had grown up respecting local customs. His father was the village headman. He himself held a position at the dambwe, a place where boys were not only initiated into local customs but also served as a base for masked dancers called nyau.

He knew the church preached against most of the traditional customs. People who practiced nyau were not allowed to join the Christian religion. And the local pastor was a small minded bigot. He called all local customs evil. What could he benefit from such an intolerant man and church?

Yet against his better judgment he had allowed his young wife to drag him into the church. She had attended a revival meeting about six months ago and when she came back, she enthuastiscally told him she had found God.

From that day, she started going to church every Sunday and had tried her best to make him go with her. He had resisted vehemently; there was no way he was going to go into a church that looked down on their local traditions. But she had persisted and finally he had reluctantly given in.

He hid his nervousness by playing with his two year daughter, Titha. The service was conducted by the bigot preacher. The man of the cloth preached as if he had prepared the sermon specifically for Gaza. He thundered against heathen customs and spoke of the everlasting fire that awaited the unbeliever who chose not to confess.

“Confess now and be saved or confess later and perish,” warned the pastor.

Gaza was deeply moved, both by fear of hell and God’s mercy to the sinner who repented his sins. At the end of the service, the pastor asked those who wanted to receive Jesus as their saviour to come forward. Gaza was the first to rise and go forward. The man of God prayed for him and he felt as if a heavy load had been lifted off him.

The whole church knew he had been a hard line traditionalist. The church was profuse in welcoming him. It was a milestone victory of good over evil. Gaza left a much happier man.

The following morning, the elders summoned him to the dambwe to explain his actions. He told them point-blank that he had found God and he was not going to have anything more to do with the dambwe. They tried to make him change his mind but he was obdurate.

“Well, we wish you happiness in your new religion,” they told him. “But should you want to come back, there is always a place for you here.”

When he visited his first wife and told her of his conversion, she was horrified. “I told you that young woman you married was evil…”

Gaza cut her. “It’s not that, Nagama…”

But she was beside herself with rage. “She’s a witch; she has you by the heart. See what she has done to you!”

“Nagama, this is a good thing…”

She laughed harshly. “A good thing! This is your destruction, our destruction.”

“This is a good thing. The new religion I’ve joined is about love. The Christian God is a merciful and loving God,” Gaza countered.

“Their God is a merciful God but He stays in heaven. It’s the church leaders I’m worried about.” she shot back. “Look at the way they look down at us who’re not their members.”

“You know I also held the same view,” he reasoned with her. “It was only after I went to the church that I understood better.”

She looked at him the way a mother would look at a dying child. “If a chicken goes into the python’s lair and is swallowed, it doesn’t have to blame the python.”

Gaza quickly became an active and dedicated church member. When he said he wanted to be baptized, he was called to remain after service and see the pastor in his office.

He had thought he would find the pastor alone. But flanking the pastor on either side was chairman of the church council and chairlady of the women guild. They all wore angelic faces.

“Our church does not allow polygamy. You’ve to divorce one of your wives if you want to get baptized,” the pastor said bluntly.

Gaza was taken aback. He loved both wives. He had taken the second wife because traditionally it was acceptable to take several wives as long as you could properly look after them. He had the resources to look after them well-he owned a lot of cattle and cultivated a lot of crops.

“But pastor, that is difficult,” he said earnestly. “You see, I not only love both women but I also have children with both women.”

He saw a shadow of anger cross the pastor’s face. “There’s no other way. You either leave one of the women or you’ll not be welcome in heaven.”

“And the devil is right now stoking the fire…” said the council chairman.

“…in which your soul will burn forever,” completed the chairlady chuckling wetly.

Gaza cowered in fear. It seemed the three people were enjoying tormenting him. Now he saw something. He had been wrong. What he had thought had been the angelic face of the pastor now looked like that of a cobra about to strike. On his right, the gaunt face of the church elder looked no different from that of a malicious fox. The female church elder sitting on his left looked the way he imagined a witch looked like.

“You must divorce one of the women,” repeated the pastor.

“Yes, one of them,” echoed the thin church elder.

“If I was to offer advice, I’d say divorce the young one,” said the female church elder. “I never liked her, the way she struts about the village like a queen.”

Gaza took a deep breath. Why could these people not understand? It was easy to demand that he divorce one of his wives. But how practical was that?

If he divorced Nagama, he thought of his sons Bandula, Zibwana and Tsitsi growing without a father. If he divorced Mdatha, it was his daughters Zione and Titha growing without a father. Even if he was going to support them materially, but they would loose the fatherly love and protection that went with him being wedded to their mothers.

“I married these women before I was converted, can there be no exceptions?” he pleaded. “Even in the old times, we read in the bible that God allowed polygamy because the people were hard hearted. Where is my sin if I am only trying to make sure my children and their mothers do not suffer?”

He saw the cobra’s hood expand and the snake strike. “How dare you preach to us? You’re excommunicated from this church immediately.”

The malicious fox laughed. “Yes, you are out. We have no use for your kind in this church.”

The witch, who now Gaza knew had been itching to cast a spell on him, unleashed her evil concoction. “Yes, it would paint a bad picture for our church for this heathen to take good care of his two wives when our most reliable members cannot even take care of one. Kick him out!”

His first wife’s words came back to him, “Their God is a merciful God but He stays in heaven. It’s the church leaders I’m worried about.” She had been very right. Their God was merciful but unfortunately he lived in heaven. These representatives of His had nothing in common with Him.

Then he remembered the words of the elders at the Dambwe, “But should you want to come back, there is always a place for you here.”

A smile spread on his face and without another word, left the church.

End