I knew he had an interest in me when he started calling me at odd hours. He could call at 10pm talking about nothing meaningful except, “I was checking on you. I wanted to be sure you didn’t go and sleep next to your boyfriend.” When I was in the mood, I would engage him, “Pastor, you know I don’t have a boyfriend. How can I sleep by someone I don’t have?” He would tell me to be careful about men and also wait patiently before I choose. It wasn’t always just talk. He knew my problems and helped me often. I’d completed school but no work. I’d been home for two years, applying for jobs and attending interviews that yield no result. He was praying for me, so he said but sometimes too, he’ll send me money, the highest being GHC2,000.

I remember that day very clearly and how happy it made me. It was right after church when he told me to wait for him. I was seated in church while people went to his office and came back. Later he called me in. Immediately after I got there, he handed this white envelope to me. He said, “Someone just gave it to me. I don’t know how much is inside. Take it but help me pray for the person. That’s all he needs, prayers.” I got home and opened the envelope and it had GHC2,000 and a prayer request. It was from a man who was having issues with his travelling document so he needed prayers. I took a photo of the paper and sent it to him. He said, “Every Cedi you spend on it should come with a prayer for him.”

And then his wife travelled for a two-month course in Accra. He fell on me for so many things and he kept calling me at odd hours wanting to talk all night. One late night like that he said, “Mom is not around. Why don’t you come home this Friday and cook for me?” I was a girl who had nothing going on in her life so one Friday morning, I went to his house. He gave me money and I went to the market. When I came back and was in the kitchen cooking, he was with me throughout, wanting to engage me in a conversation. I finished cooking and I served him. He told me, “Sit next to me let me tell you something.” 

He started, “I’m a man of God and I know you don’t doubt my position in the Lord but that aside I’m human too. Being human means you’ll have human needs—things of the flesh would excite you just as it excites every man. I don’t want to go into details but you know what I mean. I love you and want you to be my girlfriend. No one has to know. I’ll do things for you, get you connected to the right people so you get a job. Just say yes and your life would change.” I saw that coming so I wasn’t surprised at all. I told him to give me some time to think about it but he wouldn’t allow me. “You’re a grown-up woman. How can you think about such a small request?”

So that day, right in his living room I said yes to him. He didn’t let me go home. Even when I said I wanted to go and change into something fresh, he said no. I spent the night with him and he didn’t let me sleep all night. If he wasn’t on me, he was trying to keep me awake so he can do it again. I wasn’t a child and I wasn’t a woman who hadn’t been with a man before so everything that happened that day didn’t surprise me except for the fact that he was my pastor.

His wife was away for two months so I was with him all that while. I would go to his house on certain days and won’t go back home. Sometimes I would go there in the morning and leave in the evening. When his wife returned from training and I couldn’t go to his house, he would come for me deep in the evening, and we would go somewhere very far from home, where people can’t identify him. Or we would just be in his car in the neighbourhood until very late doing everything in his car. Soon he started going on a trip with me. For that to be possible, he gave me to one of his staff as the girlfriend of that staff member, David. He wasn’t a pastor so he had the free will to move around with a girlfriend. 

Whenever we travelled, I was found in the company of that guy until the pastor will have a need for me. I would be with him during the day and spend the night with Pastor. The guy came to resent me at first. He tried his best to advise me out of the relationship but I wasn’t listening to him. One afternoon, I was with him when he started getting touchy. I warned him to stop but he wouldn’t. He started talking about his feelings for me and how he wants to marry me so we can run from the pastor. I told him, “If you don’t stop, I will have no choice but report you to Pastor. He trusts you so much so don’t let him down.”

We returned from one trip and immediately after I got home, the pastor’s wife called me. I had her number but she wasn’t someone I talked to often. Her first question was, “What is going on between you and my husband?” My heart skipped. I started stuttering but I was smart about my answer, or so I thought. I said, “Mom I’m surprised you’re asking me this question. What can drive you to ask me such a question? What have you seen or heard?” Her voice was firm and slow. She said, “Answer my question. What is going on between you two?” I said, “There’s nothing going on between us. My boyfriend is David. David is a staff and he’s the reason I get close to Pastor. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She laughed and said, “I’m watching you. If my husband gets to know about this conversation, I will know and if I get to know, then it means what I’ve been told is true.” Because of that, I hesitated for days before telling Pastor about it. He was stunned. He was like, “How? What has she seen? Who is feeding him information?” So I told him about David and his proposal to me that day. “David wanted me and I said no to him. I suspect he might be the one feeding her with that information.” He got pissed off and decided to fire David. I told him to calm down since that would escalate things. 

From there, every move we made became very calculative. He wouldn’t call me on the phone or text me. He would rather send me an email and I will respond. If we have to travel to a place, I will travel first to that place and get a hotel room far from where he would lodge. He would then come to me immediately after he lands at the place. That was safe so we held on to that arrangement for months without any complaint or leakage from his camp. One Sunday, his wife got the chance to preach in church and that day I couldn’t sit still. Every word that came from her mouth was targeted at me. She would look through the congregation and find me so she could deliver tailor-made messages to me. The quotation of the day had nothing to do with women chasing married men but madam found a way to make the preaching all about women chasing married men. She rained curses and the women in the church shouted in praises of her.

After church that day, I sent him a mail, “I think your wife still suspects something. Today, everything she said in church was about us. She looked at my face while delivering her message.” He brushed me off and said, “That’s just your mind lying to you. She preached exactly the message we rehearsed at home.” I knew he was lying but I let it slide.

We travelled to Koforidua on a weekend program. He calls it visitation. As usual, I travelled to Koforidua a day before he came. After the service that evening, he came to spend the night with me at the hotel I booked. Early morning around 7am, we heard a knock on the hotel door. “Who is it,” I asked. The person won’t talk but kept knocking. Just when I was about to get up and go and see who is at the door, Pastor held me by the hand and said, “Don’t move. You have to hear a voice before you move or you’re expecting someone?” I kept asking who is it but the person didn’t answer. I called the front desk to verify who was knocking on the door but no one answered the phone. I told him, “It could be the front desk lady or someone who is missing their way.”

I opened the door small just to look at who was on the door, then the person pushed the door wide open. It was Pastor’s wife at the door. She said, “Your mails also come to your laptop, maybe you forgot. So it’s true?” I was in a morning coat but Pastor was half-naked. Before he could open his mouth, a slap landed. I was in front of the drawer trying to get something to wear. She didn’t get to me until I finished dressing and was about to leave. She said, “I knew it from day one that you’re the one destroying the anointing on my husband but let me tell you this, you’ll never marry. You’ll go through every disappointment a girl like you deserve because the bible said touch not my anointed. You didn’t just touch it, you went ahead to eat his anointing. You’ll suffer in life, believe me. No man will find you wife-worthy.”

I rushed out of the room and left them there. From all indications, she didn’t come there to create a scene. She loved her husband so much she’ll protect his name from the mud. The program was supposed to end on Sunday but I left that very morning to my house and from there, it became very difficult to reach Pastor. I wanted to know if he was ok. I wanted to know everything that transpired afterwards. His phones were off. I couldn’t send him a mail because it was a bad idea. For two months I couldn’t reach his number and I couldn’t go to church too.

When I wasn’t hearing from him, I started talking to friends in the church and they all said he was good. “He was in church today, he’s doing very well but why have you stopped coming to church?” I couldn’t answer their questions honestly, but I was happy to know that he was fine. He never called again. I got a job months later, a job that took me out of town. Obviously, he changed his numbers because his number never went through after that incident. I’m fine. My job is keeping me busy. I have a boyfriend who is very serious about me but my problem is the curses his wife rained on me that day. I can forget everything but I can’t forget that one. Even though I’m happy and everything is going well, I’m scared things would fall off and I will begin to suffer at some point.

I think about it and because of that, the future doesn’t excite me. Is there anything I have to do to ensure the curses don’t work on me? I haven’t been able to tell anyone this story so I’m not getting any advice from anyone. It’s the reason I’m sharing it here, hoping someone will tell me one thing I can do to escape her curses and live a happy life.  

–Fidelia

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