MY SUNDAY BEST

It was one of those Saturdays where I was feeling ginger having completed all my chores, my back towards my bed, crouching over the table with novel in hand and laughing to myself in the quiet of the room, it suddenly occurred to me that I had not ironed my clothes for Sunday service, I quickly got up just before PHCN strikes the power out. While on the ironing board, Ovie called asking about our class schedule for Sunday to which I paused to take the call and forgot to turn off the iron. On returning to the board the first stroke of the iron left a burn the shape of the pressing iron on one arm of my dress. The emotional pain of losing a dress during the recession wasn’t funny; I felt like cancelling church just to mourn or call Ovie back to lash out what damage his call had caused, instead I searched and found another outfit and ironed it quickly, lest my pain get the best of me.

Nikolay Dimitrov-ecobo/Shutter-stock

After my morning routine, I barely made it out of the house in time to attend the morning bible study. I caught up with Ovie and Murna afterwards, and we headed to the children’ church where we were volunteering, we started setting up chairs, multimedia, activity corner and as the class took shape some of the children walked in some greeting, others not even acknowledging our presence in no time the class was ready to start and other teachers were on ground to coordinate, while standing behind a lady motioned to me I went over to her, she pointed at another class and said one of their teachers is down with a flu that they needed a helping hand if I wouldn’t mind  helping out  in that class, thus I obliged and grabbed my handbag with me. The teacher of the class told me what he needed me to do. While he was teaching this class of 7-year-olds I was watching them to keep the distraction to a minimum and giving seats to those coming in late. 

After 20 minutes of walking up and down listening to complaints, OMG😣😓 what have I got myself into I wondered...

Could hardly finish the thought when I caught the sight of some arguing boys to which I hurriedly stop the arguing and changed their seats.I turned around and saw a little girl with a low cut, in a worn olive-green dress, some faux leather sandal and white socks walking into the class a new comer she was, she sat at the back. I smiled at her and told her she wouldn’t hear much if she sat there, so I gave her a hand and we moved forward. She took the only seat available and close enough to the front of the class.

 I had barely taken a few steps back when I heard screeching sounds of moving chairs, I turned around wondering what the noise was about only to see the two children sitting on either side of her pulled away their seat and left her sitting alone in an empty circle, in that moment I felt my heart drop to my feet with a loud thud and thoughts racing through my mind, I braced myself and reprimanded them sharply, but I wandered if the damage wasn’t done already. All the while she sat quietly with the innocence of a child only with the look that didn’t understand what was going on, even when they apologized to her.

The experience had me lost in thought, how many times do we make people feel like they don’t belong around us, either by our obvious action, silent withdrawal or personal assessment and disqualification of them? Where did children under 10 years of age learn that from?? Need I say more? I never saw her again. I’m glad God doesn’t treat us that way even when our Sunday best doesn’t suit the occasion.