According to the stories I heard, I was barely one year old when my parents split up. They all wanted their independence so my grandma was the one who took care of me. I only knew my mum was my mother because she visited every once in a while. And every time she did, my grandma would say; “That’s your mother. Very soon you will go and live with her.” As for my father, no one told me I would go and live with him. I only knew that he was a fetish priest who lived in another village.

When I turned five, my grandma got into a fight with a certain woman. While they were quarrelling, the woman looked at me and told my grandma, “You don’t know who you are playing with. I will show you. You’ll see.” I was just a child. I didn’t understand what they were fighting about or what the woman’s last statement meant. All I know was that she came to our house when my grandma was at the farm. “You must be hungry,” she smiled sweetly at me as she gave me food to eat.

What did I know at that age? I ate everything she gave me and rubbed my stomach in satisfaction. A few days later, my grandma took me to go and live with my mum. Although I missed Grandma, I was happy to go and live under the same roof as my mother.

One day I was taking my bath when I collapsed. When I regained consciousness I couldn’t move my limbs. I couldn’t even feel them. I also could neither stand nor sit. It came to light that my paralysis was a result of a poison I consumed. It was meant to kill me on the spot but that didn’t happen so it paralyzed me after a few weeks.

My mother didn’t know what to do in such a situation, so she took me to my father for healing. My father who was a very powerful fetish priest, did everything he could to heal me but nothing he tried worked. For three years, I was completely paralyzed in his shrine.

When he saw that all his efforts to heal me proved futile, he gave up. He took me back to my grandma’s village and left me there. My grandma wasn’t there so I was at the mercy of the people in the house. Caring for me was no easy feat. I had to be carried around, fed, and bathed. It got to a point where my caregivers got tired of me. So they insulted me whenever they got the chance.

I woke up one day and realized I could move my hands. My legs couldn’t move at all but my hands regained their full function. So I found a stick and used it to support my disabled legs to move around. It was not easy but it was better than being completely immobile.

Due to the way my family members neglected me, I didn’t want to further burden them with my presence so I moved to the bush. I lived there and ate fruits. During the farming season, I would join the farmers and give them a hand so they would give me cassava, maize, and anything I can roast to eat. No one came to look for me in the bush. Not my mother, and definitely not my father. I lived like that till I turned eighteen.

In my eighteenth year, I was in the bush when I heard someone calling my name. It was the first time something like that had happened. I tried to ignore whomever it was but they were determined to see me. So I followed the voice until I met a man and his wife. They were holding a sheet of paper with my name boldly written on it. I had no idea what was going on.

The man smiled when he saw me. He said, “Thank you for meeting us. I am a pastor. God sent us here to find you. He said his son has been left to face life alone in this bush so we should help him. That’s why we are here.” As a son of a fetish priest, I have seen my fair share of pastors. They come to my father for juju to grow their churches. Some of them are catechists. Because of this, I didn’t believe in the God Christians worshipped. So I didn’t take the pastor and his wife seriously.

They were also determined not to leave the bush without me, so I decided to follow them home. That night, I watched TV for the first time. I was so captivated by the presenter who read the evening news, that I couldn’t look away. The pastor saw my interest and asked, “Do you like what she is doing?”

I smiled and nodded. He then said, “I will pray for you and you will walk. After that, I will send you to school so you can become a journalist.” That was when I believed the man could help me.

Just as he promised, he prayed for me and I received healing. I am able to walk but there’s still a bit of disability in my legs. I can’t run or walk really fast. But I am still grateful that I can walk again. At eighteen, I was in class one. The good thing is that I picked up my lessons really fast so I didn’t finish the class. I was moved to class three. From there, I was sent to class five. Then I skipped a few more classes till I wrote my BECE and passed. When I got to secondary school, I didn’t skip any more classes.

I went through all the classes and completed school with good grades. I then won a scholarship to further my education in the UK. I attended ICM and majored in sports journalism. Now, I am back in Ghana working as a journalist and running a business on the side. While I was in JHS, I made a vow to God that if He makes me somebody, I will serve Him till the day I die. Today, I honour my vow to God by doing ministry work. God has opened my eyes to see the spiritual realm, and I use that gift to shepherd his flock.

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I am not doing so badly in life. I have a stable income that provides for all my needs. I have enough to take care of a wife and kids. However, I don’t have a wife. The closest I came to marriage was when I dated a woman while I was in SHS. She is the one I wanted to marry but she left me because of my disability. She said people laughed at her for falling in love with me. After she broke up with me, she found out she was pregnant with my child. Thankfully, she kept the baby so today I have an eleven-year-old daughter. I take care of her but her mother and I are no longer together.

Everyone who has come into my life after her has left me. At first, they think they can cope with the fact that I am partially disabled in my legs. However, reality sets in and they realize that they can’t deal with it, and they live. I fall in love easily so you can imagine the number of times I have had my heart broken.

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Right now, I am thankful to God that he sent me helpers when I didn’t even know that I needed one. He has literally taken me from the bush and made me his servant. My life is a testimony because of his grace. My parents who abandoned me have seen who I have become but they are too ashamed to come near me. It is all because of the mercies of God.

My prayer right now is that I will find a wife. I want a woman who is ready to help me do God’s work. Someone who will love me for who I am and not because they are desperate for marriage. It doesn’t matter to me if she is divorced or a single mother. I just need someone who has a good character and will support me. That is the only thing I am missing right now, a godly wife. Everything else, I don’t lack. And once again, I thank God for that.

—Godson

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