Kenny's Story - Episode 1

 

Kenny was astonished at the sight before her. It was a worship/deliverance service organized by Pastor Ken, and she led the worship session, and currently the atmosphere was on fire.  God was here. She knew it. The atmosphere had changed since was handed over the mic and had started to sing, it was like God was delivering His people through worship. She was more surprised at the testimonies she got after the ministration, people were coming to her for personal prayers and calling her ‘’pastor’’, if only they knew. 
Kenny had been a singing with the choir for a while now, about three years running, she got saved after listening to a live television broadcast on a hospital bed, by ‘’He saves ministry’’, headed by Pastor Ken . She immediately called the hotlines for prayers and started attending the church from then. At that point, she didn’t understand why God would save a sinner like her when there were more ‘’righteous people” on the plane she boarded whose crash caused her present predicament. She had heard that Bishop of St. Paul Dominion church( a very popular church in Abuja where she lived) was also in the plane but he didn’t make it. 
That accident had completely changed her life and she was determined to discover why God chose her to be saved. A lot of people kept calling her miracle girl

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/kenny-s-story

. She was just 26, but she had already been to different nations around the world. Many angry relatives of the deceased people came to her crying saying asking the charm she used that she survived the crash. You see, it was practically impossible to survive a crash like that, according to the rescue team, she had been under water for approximately twelve hours, before she was brought to the bank. Yet she had no major injuries. She knew no charm in fact, she didn’t even understand how she survived or why…..well, until now. 
‘’Can I have your autograph please?’’, Kenny turned to her right where the voice sounded from, it was a teenage girl, with a pink notepad and a pen with glasses and a clearly uncombed hair, she kept sniffing her nose, she probably had a cold. It was harmattan season and the early morning dust did more harm than good in this part of the city. ‘’You are really talented, and I want to be able to sing like you when I grow up’’, Kenny didn’t expect all the responses she was getting, up until three years ago she hadn’t given much thought to singing, it was more of a hobby for her and now here was someone who wanted to get her autograph, she wasn’t even qualified, she thought. She wasn’t worthy to hold the mic and climb the altar. 
Now, many may think she was just being humble, but that wasn’t the reason. You see, Kenny had been struggling with sex addiction. This was the business she was into before the plane crash. In fact, she was just returning from dubai where she had gone to satisfy a client of hers when the plane crashed. If there was a term like a branded prostitute, maybe you could refer to her as that. She saw her rough child hood as the cause of her predicament. She was an orphan who grew up with her step dad and her twin brother Taiye, in the most undeveloped part of Akure, Ondo state in Nigeria and her step father started to maltreat her right from the time her mother was alive.

Read " In the space of time " by the same author ( Ijeoma Okorie )

. But she lost her mother to the ill fatted hands of cancer and she and her twin were left under the care of their step father. One night when she was thirteen, the man came into the room where they both slept and quietly carried Kenny out, making no sound and leaving Taiye asleep. He forced himself to have sex with her and left her there crying there on the old rafia mat, by this time Taiye had woken up barged into the room and struggled with Mr Babablakin, their step dad up to no avail, he brought a knife and tried to stab him but the older man was faster using a flower pot to hit Taiye’s head, who fell and started to bleed. And that was how Kenny lost her twin brother just a few weeks after loosing her mum. And she was just thirteen. 
‘’How old are you?’’ Kenny asked the teenage girl, who was still standing beside her with her pink notepad and a pen waiting to get her autograph. ‘’I’m thirteen’’, she responded almost immediately, smiling as though she had won a lottery. ‘’then you should read your books and pass well in school, so you don’t regret it later’’, she replied the young girl, touching her left cheek and excusing herself leaving the girl confused. Kenny had barely managed to get a high school certificate. She wished she had the opportunity of furthering her education but that wasn’t even possible as at the time she tried, she was poor, very very poor. She had run away from home to another village entirely and was basically living from hand to mouth until Iya Gbemi, a roadside akara seller decided to take her in after seeing that she carried blocks and bags of cement during the day only to sleep in uncompleted buildings at night. In Iya Gbemi’s words, ‘that lifestyle did not suit a young lady’.