I MISSED MY FIRST AWARD

I MISSED MY FIRST AWARD

Man gives the award but God gives the reward.

‎Sometime ago, my sister came to the family house for the holidays, and she came with her children. You know what to expect, right? A house full of noise and little athletes running and jumping on the sofa. During one of those noisy and chaotic moments, I looked at my sister and said to her, “I never did all these things when I was small.” ‎“Stephen! You!!” she replied. I guess the interpretation of that was, “You were as gentle as a dove.”

‎Fast forward to when I was a kid, I loved going to my uncle’s church. So, on one particular Sunday, my uncle and I went to his church. The church was just a short walk from our residence. As soon as we got into the church auditorium, I felt the atmosphere was saturated with love. It was like we were in another world. I was surprised because I had never experienced that kind of feeling before, not even in my dad’s local church. I never told my uncle about this experience, and till date, I have never felt that same “atmosphere of love” anywhere else. (So sad.)

‎I was taken to the children’s department, and it looked like a classroom. Maybe the church had a primary school or something. Seeing kids in a class with a blackboard made me feel like I was no longer in church anymore. I can’t really remember what we were taught, but I clearly remember we were given an assignment, which is the core of this piece.

‎The assignment was to create a scroll and write John 3:16 in Hebrew inside the scroll. I don’t remember telling my uncle about the assignment, but somehow he got to know about it, and he took it personally, like it was a final-year project. I still remember the tools he used for creating the scroll: a pipe, a calendar sheet, and liquid gum. I don’t know how long it took my uncle to finish creating the scroll, but you needed to see the finished product. He used a black marker pen and wrote John 3:16 in Hebrew on my scroll, exactly like the one below.

Kuku Na'Nagode

‎The next Sunday, I went to church with my uncle, and when we arrived, I went straight to the children’s department, holding my scroll with pride. I got into my class and sat down. It was time to submit our assignments, and we were all laughing and comparing our work. Some kids used a single sheet of paper to create their scrolls, using the rigid central veins of coconut palm leaves. Without any doubt, mine was the best when compared to the other kids’ assignments.

‎The upper Sunday was the day the award was going to be given to the best work. (I wonder why we were not given our awards that same day.) ‎For some weird reasons, that particular Sunday, I didn’t go to church with my uncle. “I MISSED MY FIRST AWARD.” Some kids in my neighborhood were the ones who came to ask me why I didn’t come to church to receive my award. ‎“They called your name,” one of them said. ‎I had no reason to give. Maybe I told them I went to my dad’s church.

Stay woke.....

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