Thread by @GbengaWemimo

It was her mother that suggested a change of fortune through marriage
Her mother had a friend, they were members of the same fraternity
He was a very rich man and he was already married to three wives
He built a house for each of his wives and each wife raised their own children

independent of the others
The entire family meet in his mansion only three times a year
On his birthday, on New Year's day and on their annual family reunion with other members of the extended family which he hosts
His business ran into some trouble
He ran to her mother for help

Her mother did everything in her power to help him survive that lean season
After he had successfully navigated that dry season, he returned to her mother to say Thank you
Her mother told him what she wanted
"I want you to marry my daughter and set her up as you did your other

wives"
He couldn't say no
Even though he really didn't want to marry a woman who was already married
It was a code of their fraternity
"If you save me during my lean season, I will rescue you during your dry season"
Their father was a pastor
Their mother was a witch of sorts,

a power broker within their community that many attributed her power and influence to witchcraft and other forms of spiritual manipulation
Her father and mother parted ways after fifteen years of marriage
In that fifteen years, their mother was an ideal pastor's wife for fourteen

years.
When their mother's mother was about to die
She sent a message to their mother
Their mother hurried home to be with her mother for the last three days of her life
After the death and burial of their mother's mother
Their mother refused to return to Lagos
She didn't really

give a reason
It was generally believed that she had inherited her late mother's powers and had been initiated into her late mother's cult
She abandoned their father and her five children in Lagos
Two years after she abandoned them, she remarried a very influential chief in their

town and was immediately made a chief in the town
She rose to prominence just like that and started hobnobbing with royalty and influence
Their father was not exactly poor but none of the children could ignore the rise of their mother from obscurity into the limelight
It was

after her rise that she reached out to the children and tried to form a sort of bond with them again
Their father warned all of them at the time in a subtle way that their mother was not the same Sunday School teacher they grew up with but he didn't come out to tell them plainly

that their mother had become a Yeye Orisha
The priestess of a deity and someone held in high regard by the traditional and mundane leaders of the society
She was already a born again Christian at the time
She sensed the change
Their other siblings sensed it too and they all kept

their mother at a distance but her older sister didn't really understand why they shouldn't relate with their mother
Their mother was beautiful and rich and full of good gifts
They all grew and got married
Her sister had a boy, followed by a set of twins
Her marriage was seven

years gone when their mother sent a message to her to leave Lagos and see her at their town
Her sister traveled to their town immediately and never returned
She met their mother
Their mother introduced her to her new rich husband who had a house and cars waiting for her and she

just moved in with him
Her husband was left with three children
He began to make frantic calls and efforts to get his wife back
Everybody told him it was not ordinary
He went to meet with spiritualists and consultants
He was advised to leave things be
He was told his wife had

been initiated into a cult as the successor of her mother and if he probed too much he might die
That was the end of the marriage
Her sister's husband accepted his fate and decided to raise the children alone
When their father sent for him, he told him it was a repeat of what

happened to him and advised her sister's ex-husband to do everything in his power to take the children out of the country so that their mother would not end up initiating them as she had been initiated
It seemed the initiation process had a pattern they had figured out and it was

best to be proactive than to expect the children to know better by themselves
Her sister's ex-husband was an accountant
He was working with a textile company at the time
He was not exactly poor but he was not rich either
He began to save heavily towards relocating himself and his

children abroad
He had a son and two daughters
His primary concern was for his daughters
He seriously didn't want them to be pulled into any cult
While he saved, he prayed and ensured that the children attend church services religiously
He was also constantly on the lookout for

powerful and anointed men of God who could intervene for him and his children against the forces of witchcraft
He planned to remarry but every attempt failed
His wife's father told him he had tried very hard to remarry too but somehow all the ladies he met took to their heels

after a few weeks with him
His wife's father said he had assumed it was because he was a poor pastor saddled with five children
What woman would want to marry such a huge liability but this was not the case with her sister's ex
He was thirty-seven years old (His wife was thirty

five when she left)
He was still young and gainfully employed enough to attract a good partner and he did but none of them stayed with him for more than two weeks
After the second week, they just sort of disappeared without giving him any form of explanation whatsoever
He knew

it was not ordinary, but he was powerless to do anything about it

...To be continued...

Just like their father, their sister's husband remained single despite all his efforts at getting a new mother for the children
He also went to court to file for divorce but he got three visitors the day after he approached a lawyer to proceed with the divorce who warned him to

desist from dissolving the union if he hoped to live long enough to see his children become adults
The visitors didn't come together
They didn't even know each other
One was a senior colleague at his office, the other was the pastor of the church he was attending at that time and

the third was his mother
They all suddenly saw something or felt something would go seriously wrong if he continued with the process
His ex's father also went through the same process
It felt as if he was caged
The last straw was the traveling thing
When he got enough money, they

started the process
He didnt tell anybody, not even his father in law and other relatives because he had learned that whatever information he ventured forth always turned things against him
They got a visa to travel to the UK
By that time he was sure they had broken through
He

told his children the good news
His first daughter sent a mail to their mother on a Tuesday morning to say goodbye
They left the house very early on Thursday for the airport
When they got to the check-in counter, they were pulled aside
Checks and calls of all sorts started

it was eventually concluded that their visa was fake because it was not scanning on their system
He showed them the ticket, the embassy appointment proof and so on
They denied them the right to board
That was the moment he realised there was no escaping the reach of his wife and

her fetish influence
Three days after they were sent home from the airport, he drove to his ex's younger sister's house and asked her if she could help him mind the children for the day
The children were aged nine, seven and five at the time
He said he had sold off many of his

belongings because they were traveling
They had stayed in a hotel for two days trying to resolve the visa issue but when he realized it won't be resolved he needed to rent another house and make new arrangements
That was why he brought them to her
She took them in and wished him

good luck
Later in the evening, when he returned to her flat to pick up the children, she offered him dinner
Right in the middle of his meal he started to cry
He had suffered from a series of setbacks that couldn't be explained
He was hoping to travel abroad and escape the wicked

clutch of his ex-wife
He had not resigned from his job (Thank God!) but he had logged off mentally and had his heart set on a new beginning
He simply couldn't believe the level of misfortune that had visited him since her sister left
She asked him if he would like to become a

born again believer who is filled with the Holy Ghost
He was raised as a nominal Christian and had been told many unflattering things about the Holy Spirit
She told him she was born again from secondary school and that was why she was the only one her mother's powers do not work

on in anyway
She explained to him how she was the only one to have been happily married and seemed to have her life worked out unlike her siblings who were all struggling
Her mother's sibling were the same way since her mother joined the cult
Only the member of the cult prospered

in both generations apart from her
She was the one everyone runs to and that was basically why she was the one he thought of too when he needed help
It made sense to him
It was as if there were two dominant forces in that family
His ex/her mother and her
He fell on his knees and

asked her to lead him to Christ
The three children did the same
She led them to Christ and got them filled with the Holy Ghost
They prayed in the spirit until well past midnight
Almost five hours of unrestrained and undirected worship in the spirit
The next morning, he left her

house rejoicing
The following Monday, he got promoted at work to the position of financial controller for the group of companies
Six months later he met Monisola, a young widow
She was a banker who worked directly with him when he was an accountant
They never saw each other that

way
He married her in January 2020
His ex-wife had refused to have anything to do with him and the children since they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit
Monisola delivered a baby boy on the 1st of April, 2021
The season of celebration was ushered back in by the power of the

Holy Spirit

PS: Dont be a powerless Christian
You have a legal Union with God through Jesus when you gave your life to him
You also have a vital union with God through the Holy Spirit
The vital union is a must for you to walk in victory
The Holy Spirit is your helper

@threadreaderapp compile