Satan came calling before I knew the difference between good and evil. I was about three years old. My mother, my two elder sisters, my elder brother and I lived in a two-room house in New Barracks, Abak town in the then South Eastern State, Nigeria. New Barracks was the name given to a facility which hosted a Health Centre, tax collection office and a host of other government offices. It was situated on a hill. If you took a stroll down the hill, you would come to a fast flowing stream, which meandered its way down to a river a short distance away. The river poured out its water into the Atlantic Ocean in a leisurely flow.

As the last child in the family, I had a nanny, Alice, whom I was very fond of. One cold harmattan morning, my mother was about departing for her work in the health center, and the nanny was about departing (with me) to the stream to wash clothes. My eldest sister, Kini, was down with fever and had just been given a dose of anti-malaria medication. As my mother finished dishing out instructions to the nanny on what to do when she returned from the stream, my sister, Kini, came from her sick bed and said she wanted to follow us to the stream.

My mother’s response to her request to follow us to the stream was a flat “NO!” She explained to her that she was ill and needed to stay in bed. For the first time since we were born someone stood up to my mother, a loving, no-nonsense disciplinarian. Kini insisted that she did not want to stay in the house and rest. She promised my mother that she would not swim in the stream or get inside the water. She stubbornly insisted that she must follow us to the stream. A heated argument ensued but eventually my mother, uncharacteristically, acceded to her request and we left for the stream. Alice wrapped me in a piece of cloth that she tied to her back, and I fell asleep during the trek to the stream.

I woke up in the stream and started playing in the water. We were alone in the stream. Alice was busy washing clothes. My sister sat on a piece of wood, shivering in the morning cold, and chatting with Alice. It obviously was a bad idea for her to come to the stream, she should have listened to mum. I was still loitering around in the water and chasing tiny fishes. Then it happened, I stepped into the deep end. Suddenly I lost my footing and was sucked in by the current. I thrashed about in the water as I began what would have been a long, fatal journey to the ocean. But because His eyes are on the sparrows, He watched and still watches over me.

Alice did not know how to swim. But she rushed blindly in love for me and fear for my life into the deep end of the water, screaming hysterically. My sister, who was an expert swimmer, dove into the water, without the chance to remove her clothes. With a few quick strokes she reached me at the nick of time and snatched me from the jaws of death. She swarm with me to land and kept me there. I had lost consciousness. I had swallowed more water than a child my age had a right or capacity to swallow. Alice had grabbed some shrubs and desperately held on to them. She was stuck up stream – desperately battling for her life. My sister went back for her and helped her out of the water. Then she ran down to the health center with me and I got medical attention.

When I woke up, I saw some eggs by the bedside. I ate them and went outside to play, oblivious of what God had done. Mum and a handful of relatives, visitors and friends were in the parlor discussing the great deliverance and praising God who sent my sister, as an angel, to save the day. Satan lost and he would keep losing again and again and again and again…. All the glory must be to the Lord for He alone is worthy of our praise….