Whenever the school administration sensed that we were on the verge of following adolescence to the path of insanity, they would bring preachers. While they talked about God’s love and the evilness of boys, the preachers’ main agenda was to put us back in line by planting the fear of hell in our hearts. And they always did their job extraordinarily well. They would even go as far as letting us listen to people who claimed to have come face to face with the devil. By the end of ‘ministry’, half of the school would be in tears, seeking penance from the Lord, from teachers and from each other, and promising to change. And there was nothing wrong with that. Well, of course nightmares always ensured dueto the scary stories and outrageous prophesies. But when those nightmares did come, instead of treating them from a psychological point of view, intercessors were called in to pray. They would faithfully come running, armed with their King James Version Bibles. In case you’re wondering why the type of Bibles was so specific, I guess it’s possible that the devil couldn’t take intercessors seriously unless they used words like thou, art, cometh…you catch the drift. However, there was something worse than the scary stories and the nightmares, something that all the unrepentant sinners dreaded; confession. After being rid of their sins, students would then be asked to confess their sins before ‘God’s people.’ Said students would then dive into details of their past mistakes, naming particular incidents and mentioning names of accomplices. There was no consideration whatsoever for those of us who still wished to be honest with ourselves and with God about our lack of readiness to change. The problem was that those who were repentant were forgiven by God and by the school administration. But those whose names were mentioned would become victims of a witch-hunt that could eventually result in an expulsion. Therefore, when Linda Bereta, the most notorious girl in our class stood up to give her life to Christ, we gave each other a knowing look. There was about to be trouble. She was going to confess to the most heinous crimes and she was going to name names. And she did. After that, we had two choices; to let a few people take the fall or to come forward and present ourselves on a united front as one big group of delinquents. We chose the latter. It would make witch-hunting difficult. It took a lot of acting but we did it. We got saved. One by one, we claimed that Linda had inspired us all to get on the right path.There were tears and all. Some of the more advanced actors in our group even chocked up during their confessions. There was cheering and ululation. Intercessors were relieved to know that their supplications (which included starvation and sleep deprivation) to the Lord concerning our class were not in vain. The façade lasted barely a fortnight. Most of us just weren’t cut out for it. For instance; that one would willingly wake up at 4am, in the biting cold, to pray to a God that was omnipresent (and therefore could be found any time of the day) was beyond our comprehension.
