How can that be an imagination? I opened the wardrobe, I saw the staff and picked it up, I felt it with my hands and saw it disappear to my face. Obviously that can’t be an imagination. I heard the children coming into the house, they were back from school so I rushed to the living room to attend them as usual. I had to warm their lunch and serve them.

After they ate I had to ensure that they did their home works. And I had to wash their uniforms. My step mother came home late that night. She was hanging out with some men and her group of old ladies. She came home around 11pm in a good mood but her mood turned into wrath when she entered her room and found the wardrobe opened.

“Taofeek! You are a dead man” she roared.

I remembered what had happened in the afternoon.

“Oh my God! What can I do?” I was confused and scared. She made her way towards me and she grabbed me as I was trying to escape. She tore my cloth and dragged me every place, I fell down and she sat on me, she bit me so hard that her teeth were red with my blood just like a vampire.

“Where is ‘Arogunyan’, Taofeek, Where is my stuff?” She was panting and breathing heavily as she was talking with tears, running nose and my blood in her mouth. I was on the floor shouting “Allah! Allah! Allah!” I was rolling on the floor crying. Suddenly! She stood up, went to her room and came out with a charm that looks like a red cloth decorated with many cowries and some other things I could not describe.

When I saw what she was holding I wanted to run out but she was faster in hitting me with that thing and that was the end of my sanity in that house.

Since that day, that hour, that moment I was struck with that thing it looks to me like I slept and woke up after twenty years in a church in Ghana. I woke up putting on a rag, I woke with a dirty and stinking dread locks on me and I had no shoes on. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!! Hallelujah!” the people surrounding me shouted in joy when I woke up.

I asked them series of questions like: Who are you people? What happened to me? Why am I this dirty? Where am I? How long have I been like this? How did I get in here? but rather than answering my questions they asked two of their brothers to take me into the bathroom.

I cleaned up and they gave me a cloth to change, thereafter I was led to a room where I was served a very nice food but I rejected it because it didn’t look like what I had eaten before. They asked if I could eat rice and I answered yes. They gave me a fried rice and chicken. After eating I repeated my questions to the brother attending to me. He told me I was a mad man and I entered the church and walked straight into their midst while they were in the middle of a hot prayer. The senior pastor led them to pray for me and as they were praying I fell down and fainted, five minutes later I woke up and I was sane.

However, he couldn’t answer the remaining part of my questions: How I got there and how long I had been in that situation? I searched my memory and the last thing I could remember was that red thing coming towards me.

“So this woman made me run mad” I said in a soft voice then the pastor walked into my room, sat beside me and prayed with me. As he was praying, I heard the other brother saying “Amen” so I was saying the same thing too.

After the prayer he asked me if I could remember anything about myself. I narrated my story to him. We calculated the years together from 1993-2013 and we realised I was in that situation for twenty years. He asked me if I would accept Jesus Christ whom released me from 20 years of insanity as my personal Lord and saviour. Without hesitation I said yes.

He asked me to kneel down and he led me to Christ. However, no one could explain how I got to Ghana from Nigeria but findings made us believe that I came to Ghana on foot. I began to live in the church premises. That night the voice I heard twenty years ago came calling me again. I was scared that it would put me in another trouble so I rushed out of my room to meet the pastor in his house which was in the same premises. After he prayed with me he told me that I was called by God to be a pastor.

“How could that be?” I questioned, “I know nothing about Christianity, I had never read the bible in my life”.

He asked me to go back into my room and if the voice called again I should be courageous and ask all my questions. In my room God called me again and I discussed with Him like I was chatting with my father.

He gave me my assignment clearly and He informed me of the gifts and powers He had deposited in me which including healing, diverse tongues and interpretation of tongues. That night I couldn’t sleep, I read the bible from night till the morning and by the following day I was fully ready to work for God. I enrolled in a pastoral school and to God be the glory I became a full time pastor. After my graduation in 2017 I was posted to one of our church’s new branch.

Taoreed was crying like a little child when I told him my story. I consoled him and gave him reasons why we should be celebrating.

“I met my life partner here and we are to get married in the next two months. I went to Nigeria two different times to look for you and Mum but all my efforts failed. I found another family to be living in our old house. They did not know where you and Mom had relocated,” I said, “now see how God has brought you to me so easily. We have every reason to thank Him and celebrate.”

I asked him again if my Mum was still alive and he told me my mom was very much alive though old in her late 60s. She was staying with him, his wife and his two kids in his own house. On Monday Taoreed and I went to Nigeria. When my Mum saw me she was filled with joy.

I give thanks to God Almighty for bringing me on His side and restoring my joy. My mother and my real family members will be present on my wedding day which is coming up in the next two months. As for the witch that deformed my life, I heard she died five years ago, equivalent to when I gained my sanity back. To God be the glory.

Tell us: How do you feel about the way Taofeek’s step mother treated him? Do you think that Taofeek is happy that his step mother has passed on?