Faithful Widows
(Spoken by the Believers)

Oh dear!
How you have made our priest suffer,
Yet you still have the bravado to write to us.

However, your letter did not pass through our priest,
You wrote for us to see the need to repair you.

The level of lifelessness in you
Cannot be borne by our helpless hearts.

We are poor,
Extremely poor, but feel rich.
Our priest knows all our weaknesses,
And we needed no angel
Nor you to tell us.

We are like him
All his manners are as perfect
As trusting in the Lord.

Though we are not helping matters,
A great reward awaits him;
His future is as bright as
A crystal morning star.

Blessings are all written over him,
Surely, he will continue to look after
The poor and be an imitator of Christ.

Though for nine years
He has been with us,
We haven’t shown our candid
Gratitude and love by practice
To him but our inward being
Can testify of our true service to him.

We are believers peopled by widows,
Who look to God for help.

Our late husbands were poor, so they left us
Poor as well.
We scratch the ground looking for a way
To survive.

Poor farmers we are,
Though some churches are made of civil servants,
We are made up of spiritual servants
Extremely poor in spirit,
Forsaking the things of this world
For they are worldly.

Materialism has endangered some men of God,
And this is one thing our priest is
Trying to avoid.

It’s good, as you said, to buy a new vehicle for
Our pastor,
But such an item is a thing of the world.

Our pastor is of heaven and not of the earth;
Is a vehicle not a material thing?
How would our priest preach about
The danger in materialism, and then
Expect material things from us?

Please, O ye KYMCO,
Don’t beg for your Lord;
That’s not ideal.

If our priest hears about your epistle,
He wouldn’t be happy with you.

What is certain is God will provide
The lamb for the sacrifice.

With regards to the school fees you mentioned,
We are unworthy to do anything about it.

We are not lettered,
And our children are at home
No one can help send them to school.

If we can train our children
Can’t we help our priest pay his school fees?

Because we have nothing, that is why
Our children are languishing in the streets
Searching for white Kola job.

But there are some among us here
Who are extremely stingy,
They didn’t want to help our priest.

Those he prayed for;
Those he delivered from the captivity of
Satan and his vices,
They never remember him.

Instead, he shares his blessings with us
Widows and orphans
And to those who never worshipped under
His ministerial roof.

His good deeds in us and in town
Bear great witness to him.

He’s a man of principles;
A great man of integrity,
Determined to please only his God.

We understand that we left our pastor
Marooned in the ocean of suffering
Without extending our helping hand to him.

If we cannot help,
One thing is sure that
God will help him out.