As
a budding worship leader, I was thrilled when I received an invitation to croon
at Your Last Stop Is Jesus International Ministry in Accra. I
was well-pressed and looked debonair in a shiny grey faux branded Hugo Boss
three- piece suit from China as I left the house on crisp Sunday morning to
take trotro to the church. I reached
there early, so I took advantage of opportunity to admire the edifice that has
been ornamented with yellow and purple drapes while an equally mammoth portrait
of the pastor and his adorable wife suspended tightly on the wall.” You are
welcome to the house of the Lord. Enjoy the service”. I was startled by the
silky voice so I turned. It was the bewitching smile of Sister Cheryl with her architecturally
cut plunging kaba and slit that has been fused
with sheer lace that displays her heaped up cleavage in bright pink soutien gorge. A
gold-link necklace jangled against her chest. Quickly, I said thank you and I
went straight to take a seat while trying to efface the “display” I have been
just greeted with.
Hours
of waiting for the pews to be filled by the “brethren” and “sisteren” of the
ministry, I gingered up the church with some Holy Ghost filled songs.
Progressively, they started showing up. Sister Priscilla walked in wearing
fishnet leggings under her short leg-baring number along with her artistically
braided coiffure
which had been highlighted red, green, and blue everywhere. She winked impishly
at me before taking her seat directly in front of me.
I raised the hymn “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim
through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy
powerful hand” immediately my eyes strayed and spotted Sister Becky in the
congregation. She had crossed her legs which seductively exposed her black and
red peony tattoos on her lightened and finely chiseled calves and thighs. She
sat grandly on the left corner of the third row of the center pews industriously
taking pictures of herself in a deep–cut chevron blouse that had an equally
barely-there short skater skirt with her Samsung Galaxy Notebook. I am positive
she was gladly uploading them on her Whatsapp with the caption “church tins”.
With my blood pressure soaring fifty points, I forgot the remaining stanzas of
the hymn. Poor soul!
When Sister Caro strutted her stuff
on the aisle, the flicker of unease in
my eyes made me questioned if the church is a runway competition whereby
sisters showcase their sour-sore getups. Sister Caro’s face was a
cocktail of glittering colours. She had heaped on pancake (loose powder and foundation) that did not match her striking
honey-coloured skin tone. Her scintillating
parrot-feathers-like eye shadow has been plastered all over. I sloped down from
the spiritual realm just to have a second glimpse of her again. Her salon-fresh
thirty inches blonde Cambodia-Brazilian-Mongolian human hair can be easily
noticed in the auditorium. Pardon me. I
forgot to tell you that, super sassy single Sister Caro has been trusting
unwaveringly in God to find her missing rib. But how can brothers approach her
when her scarecrow make up is frightening them? I almost forgot to mention her
heavily splattered orange lipolipo which
did not do justice to her big mouth and her five centimeters long purple false
eyelashes.
Dreams and fantasies began to dance in my mind when Sister Maria’s figure-hugging see
through chiffon gown featuring two precariously placed thigh- high opening welcomed me. Beads
of sweat littered all over my forehead and immediately,
I asked the congregation
to be on their feet and pray. A cascade of tears drenched my face because all I
could utter repetitively as I struggled to have a meaningful conversation with Odomakoma were” Lead me not into temptations”.
After the worship time was over I headed out
of the auditorium to breathe an uncorrupted air and to applaud for myself for prudently
handling all temptations fired at me in front of the congregation without
waking up the little man in my trouser. All the seats were taken when I
returned, so Sister Sandra signaled me to join her. I was sandwiched between
her and Sister Comfort and while I was trying hard to breathe, I heard Sister Comfort
asking Sister Sandra if the new minted wife of the pastor had cut down her long
French- tipped nails that look like the talons of an eagle. “How can the first
lady of the ministry cut down her talons and tone down on her over accessorized
dressing when she is bent on competing with the single ladies in church. She
doesn’t want any single lady or a chorister to entice her man with her
dressing. Hmmm, as for our pastor, he doesn’t speak against the way the ladies
dress to church because he is afraid of losing his members to another church.” Sister Sandra retorted.” I perfectly agree
with you but don’t forget that; one finger cannot remove lice from the hair.
Just when I thought I have at least
some people who are disgusted with the way some ladies dress, then and there, a plus- sized Sister Adorkor stood up and shouted ecstatically a resounding “amen!”
to the pastor’s sermon. Her one-shoulder kaba was short in a way that all her
multicolored Somanya beads and her wide stretch marks on her derriere were on exhibition
as she stood up. Sister Afiba had to quickly prompt her to sit down.
As I was stepping out after the
service was over I was hit hard. Sister
Comfort who had discussed the dressing of the pastor’s wife earlier was rocking
a well-designed kaba and slit with an even thigh –high meandering ma trick Jesus shaaba.
For women,
clothes can be a shield, a statement or a seduction. So which one of them are
the sisters of Your Last Stop is Jesus International Ministry exhibiting? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty, nevertheless, how can I have the spirit and the liberty to worship the Lord when sisters and daughters of Eve have
decided to torture the lives of sons of Adam by issuing fast visas to hell with
their outlandish sense of dressing which doesn’t show reverence to Odomakoma in
his vineyard?
Deli.Ciouz.ly Yours
Akosua
First published in The Ghanaian Times on 15/2/2014
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