Blowing Her Trumpet

I remember the first day I saw this brother. He came to church with an application letter to help train the church choir. He was a saxophonist and a trained music director.

The pastor welcomed him with open arms. He was just what the choir needed at the time. The pastor loves music, and the church has capable singers without any form of training. So, the pastor hired him, and he delivered.

Within a month, the choir was singing very well, and the Spirit was moving mightily. The brother’s job was done, but he didn’t leave. He asked the pastor if he could stay on. The pastor told him he could, but the church could not afford to pay him anymore. His initial payment had come straight out of the pastor’s pocket.

He agreed, but he had his own conditions. His wife and three children were living with her parents due to some financial issues he had. He asked the pastor if he could stay on in exchange for accommodation within the church premises.

The church had a pastoral quarter with several unused rooms. It was meant to be the pastor’s accommodation, but he had his own house and chose not to move to the parsonage. The pastor agreed.

The next request of the saxophonist was unique. He asked if the pastor and some elders of the church would please accompany him to his in-laws’ house to beg them for the release of his wife and children to him. The pastor asked him why he needed him and the elders to do this. The brother said he used to be rich. He was a computer engineer in charge of all the computer acquisition and training of personnel for a big church, but things took a downturn for him due to some investment issues. His wife and children were forced to move back to her parents’ house for this reason.

He said he had tried hard to regain some form of stability so that he could bring his family back under one roof, but his wife’s parents had prevented the move because they did not trust him to be stable enough to cater to his family’s needs.

The pastor felt he had a case. The pastor summoned the elders and church leadership for a meeting and tendered the case of the saxophonist.

A date was set to meet with the saxophonist’s in-laws. The day after the church leadership meeting, I got to church and found blood everywhere. The brother was lying on the stairs of the parsonage with scissors plunged deep into his shoulders.

A lady was standing over him with fire in her eyes. The lady was not unknown, nor was she known

She was one of those members who started coming to the church soon after the saxophonist began to train the choir. Nobody knew she was known to the saxophonist personally within the church.

Two other ladies were struggling to restrain the lady from killing the saxophonist. I called the police. They arrived and took the lady away.

What happened?

While the saxophonist was broke and looking for a way out of his predicament, he decided to set up a computer literacy school in the area. He also came up with letters of introduction to churches with requests to train their choir. All in a bid to get something to do that would fetch him some money.

He met the lady at another church where she was a member of the choir. The lady was a tailor who had a shop where she worked and lived. The brother asked her if he could use part of her shop to set up his computer repair business. She agreed. They both worked in the shop by day, and they both slept in the shop by night. One thing led to another, and they began to have sex

The brother didn’t really like the setup, but his beggar had no choice at the time. Soon after this arrangement was made, he reached out to our church and got the choir training gig.

Things began to turn around for him. He told the lady he was moving to the parsonage, and he had also been given the space to work on his computer business within the church premises.

The lady expected that he would extend a hand of invitation to her as his woman who would move with him into the parsonage. She, however, learned that his real plan was to bring his estranged wife and children back into his life and walk away from her. This was what led to the confrontation that made her stab him out of anger.

The pastor was livid. How could a good Christian brother do this? The pastor said he must be punished, banished, and ostracized.

I had a totally different opinion. When people are desperate, they do desperate things. The brother had nowhere to work or sleep, and the lady offered a tiny window of hope. He took it, but he knew he didn’t belong at that level and kept striving to do better. As soon as he got a better offer from the church, he didn’t go back to the lady.

He asked to be reconciled with his wife and children. His motive was clear even before we got involved in the mess regarding the tailor. There should be no more punishment of any kind. Sleeping with that violent lady was more than enough punishment in my mind.

The pastor agreed, and the church worked hard on getting the saxophonist and his wife together under one roof. The violent lady was in jail for some time before the church bailed her out and offered her some financial compensation with a caveat that she must keep far away from the brother, just as the police also instructed.

Months after the whole issue had died down and the saxophonist had been reconciled with his family. I was having a conversation with him, and I teased him about enjoying free sex with the tailor.

I said, “Brother, you must have blown that lady’s trumpet so well for her to attack you the way she did.”

He said, “Brother Gbenga, do you think I would naturally be caught dead with that kind of woman?

The first night I slept with her in the shop, I slept fully clothed on the mat facing the wall while praying and crying silently for God to rescue me from the pool of misery I had flung myself into. She came and pressed her naked body to my back while her hands roved all over my front. I could rebuff her like Joseph did if I were a better man, but I couldn’t.

I mean, I could have, but I didn’t do so because I had nowhere else to go. I slept at bus stops and under the bridge for months. I didn’t want to go back to that. I was not paying for the shop space or the food she was offering me. If all she wanted in return was sex, I felt I had to do it in order not to get chased out of that shop the next morning.

You know how many ladies react to rejection, and she was especially very aggressive in nature. So, I gave in, and from that day, as I slept with her, I cringed within and begged God to help me come out of it. Coming to your church was my saving grace.”

PS: Men and women do desperate things when they find themselves drowning in the pit of misery. We can judge them and insist that they could have made better choices, like the three Hebrews. Who knows if he had resisted and thrown out, what angel the Lord would have sent to rescue him. It is always easier said than done.

So many drivers, security men, and jobless young men who end up as gigolos will tell you similar stories. So many men who married the wrong woman for survival will tell you the same story. This is why it is important for men to have a solid source of livelihood before making decisions on love and marriage.

Sometimes, what they are trading for that marriage or relationship is not their heart. Like Esau, many have traded their destinies away for a morsel of bread out of desperation

-GSW-