(I am taking a break from blogging for the next one week or so, so on Tuesday and Friday we will not have any posts. The next post will be up on Tuesday, January 5th. But you can purchase books anytime. I will spare moments each day to check my mail and the Sanctuary Side WhatsApp line to ensure those of you who purchase manually get your copies within reasonable time.
For those who are strangers in Jerusalem, you can now receive your copy of any novella via WhatsApp because Sanctuary Side is now on WhatsApp. You can make inquiries or request for a book you have purchased via WhatsApp number 0105571156. You can also send a message to that number and request that I add you to the Sanctuary Side Stories WhatsApp group, so that you do not miss out on any update.
Merry Christmas to you all and have a blessed new year. See you in 2021 -Edward)
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(Continued from Ordinary Man III)
Angelica’s plan has been hastily put in place, but it is very elaborate. For it to work, she has had to rope in her friend Joy, who also happens to be a neighbor. Joy is always game. She is also a member of Messiah’s Tabernacle, but like Angelica, she is a passive, backbench member. Joy was actually very excited when Angelica explained the plan to her.
The plan is simple. Angelica will invite David to her apartment for dinner. David will find Angelica skimpily dressed so he will want to make love to her before even taking dinner. Angelica’s house is a bedsitter, so her sitting room is also her bedroom. Angelica will alert Joy when to show up by discreetly kicking a glass of water that will be strategically placed at the foot of the bed.
Joy will get in through the open door and start taking photos. It is only after snapping enough photos that she will call “Jerusha” loudly. Angelica and David will look up in surprise. Joy will take a few photos of their surprised faces and run back to her house and lock herself in. Angelica will swear she doesn’t know who that is.
Joy will post the photos online. Because Kenyans love pornography, the photos will trend. To win David’s sympathy, Angelica will act broken. Judy and Sarah will both dump David after they see the photos, so he will be stuck with Angelica. If that doesn’t convince David to marry her, Angelica will announce her pregnancy to box in David. Pregnancy is a key part of this plan, and Angelica is prepared to do whatever it takes to conceive; including sleeping with other men.
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The plan works smoothly up until Joy posts the photos online. From there the plan goes to the dogs. To stop Judy from contacting him as he enjoys time with Angelica, David put his phone on flight mode. He planned to later claim that he travelled to his village, ten kilometers outside Shava town, to see his mother. He would add that his mother asked him not to drive back at night so he spent the night home and did not notice when his phone went off.
When Judy sees the photos, she is already in a murderous mood because she has been trying to contact David for over an hour without success. The photos send her into a fit of insane anger. She hops into her car and speeds to Angelica’s house. She finds the door still unlocked. After Joy slammed it shut, Angelica did not bother to lock it.
David and Angelica are taking dinner when Judy enters.
“So this is where you are, you traitors!” she shouts at them. They are both too stunned to speak. David is unaware that his nude photos are circulating online, while Angelica did not anticipate this eventuality when she came up with the plan.
“Judy, what are you doing here?” David asks calmly, after overcoming his initial surprise.
“How long have you two been seeing each other behind my back?” Judy shoots back, ignoring his question.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Who is seeing who? Sister Angelica just lost her brother and I came to condole with her.”
David is a smooth liar. He is now fully dressed; even his tie is knotted in place. He had wanted to leave immediately Joy left, but Angelica begged him to eat first then leave.
“Then what are nude photos of you and Angelica doing online?” Judy demands. Her eyes are smoldering.
“Must be Photoshop. You know how people are these days, Sister Judy.”
The lie, coupled with the fact that he has just called her “Sister Judy” enrages Judy even more. She reaches out from the sink and grabs one of Angelica’s knives. Before David and Angelica can register what is happening, she stabs both of them repeatedly.
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When Judy comes to her senses, she is holding a knife that is dripping with blood. Angelica and David are both lying in pools of blood. She doesn’t know whether they are alive, and she doesn’t care. Then she remembers that there is one more traitor that needs to be taken care of.
She walks out of Angelica’s bedsitter, the bloody knife still in her hand and drives across town to Sarah’s house in the suburbs. Ironically, it is David who showed her where the ‘new girl in the church’ lives. She finds Sarah in her car waiting for the gate to be opened by her watchman. Judy parks her car a safe distance away and approaches Sarah’s car on foot.
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The photos suck life out of Sarah. Is she cursed? If there is anything Sarah does not want, it is a scandal. She will do anything to avoid one. She left her former church, CJKM, in shame because of a scandal that really had nothing to do with her. It was brought upon her in the most unlikely way.
Her former church was, and still is, full of men she considered spiritual giants. Men who would make demons tremble with their vibrational prayers. These men always filled her with awe; but she had no romantic feelings for any them. One of them is the reason she left the church.
Brother Joseph proposed to her last year in the cliché Christian way: he told her that the Lord had told him in a dream that she would be his wife. Just like that. He blurted it out one Wednesday evening as they left the midweek service:
“Sister Sarah, while I was praying, the Lord showed me in a dream that you are my wife. Let us fulfill the Lord’s command and get married.”
That had scared her. Okay, first it had shocked her; then scared her. She looked up to him spiritually, and marveled at his closeness to God. Surely, he could not be mistaken about the voice of the Lord. He was the kind of man she wanted, but not the kind of man she daydreamed about. In her daydreams, she wanted a romantic man: a man who would make her feel feminine; a man with a way with words; a man who would pamper her with thoughtful presents and romantic gestures.
In the days after Joseph proposed to her, she had spent a lot of time crying to the Lord, casting out the demon of lust that was surely possessing her. But the wicked spirit proved to be stubborn. Sarah knew that for as long as she felt the way she felt, she would never be truly happy with Joseph. She told him so one evening, about a week after he “proposed”.
“I am sorry Brother Joseph, but I cannot marry you because I do not have any feelings for you.”
“It is not about what you feel, Sarah. It is about fulfilling God’s command,” he had said.
“The Lord has not spoken to me about that matter, Brother Joseph. I am sorry.”
Joseph had rebuked her strongly for her “disobedience”. He had even insulted her and called her unprintable names in the most unchristian way possible. That night she had cried herself to sleep. Yet the worst was yet to come. Within no time, everyone in their church knew that she had tempted Brother Joseph. That she had asked him to sleep with her, but that he had refused.
That had hurt her deeply. Why would a Man of God peddle such cheap lies? Soon, people were looking at her in a strange way: the desperate woman who had seduced a man. And the way she pretends to be holy!
So she had left Conqueror Jesus the King International Ministries (CJKIM) in shame. She could not bear the stares and the sarcastic greetings anymore. It was too much. Even Mom, as the Pastor’s wife was called, called her aside one day and gave her a pointed lecture on the propriety of a woman. Nobody asked for her version of the story.
She did not attend church for three weeks after leaving CJKIM. On the fourth Sunday, she decided to try another church, and that is how she found herself staring at David at Messiah’s Tabernacle.
After her experience at CJKIM, she had wanted to keep a low profile. She would be sneaking into church just before the service began and quietly leave immediately it ended. It would have been possible to remain in the shadows at a mega church like CJKIM, which had about eight thousand members, but Messiah’s Tabernacle has only five hundred or so members. Even though she did not rise when visitors were being introduced, a hawk eyed usher spotted her as he passed the offering basket and invited her to join the other visitors as they shared a cup of tea with the pastor and the ministry leaders. That is where she met David one-on-one.
In David she had found her dream man. But that has now turned out to be an illusion. She has seen nude photos of David and a girl she does not recognize online. All this while she has been thinking that Judy is the threat to her relationship; but all along that fool David has been having fun with another woman.
Sarah has cried all the way from the office to her house. Maybe she should really remain single for the rest of her life and serve the Lord. She is convinced that she is not cut out for the drama that comes with relationships. Tears are still flowing down her cheeks as she waits for the gate to be opened by her watchman. As she cries, she does not notice Judy approach. She is only brought to the present when Judy yanks open her car door, and brandishes a bloody knife at her.
(End of the free part of the story. To find out what happens to Sarah, follow the instructions below to purchase your copy of Ordinary Man.)
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/couple-love-romance-romantic-690637/
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To purchase any of the books in our e-bookstore (including the latest one, Ordinary Man), you can follow either one of four ways:
DIGITAL METHODS
- MPESA Automated Digital Payment Method. Log in to the bookstore- register if you are new-(https://www.maroncha.com/book-store). Select the book. Add to cart, check out then pay by inserting your number on the space provided then clicking ‘confirm’. You will be able to download instantly from the bookstore. A copy will also be automatically sent to your email.
- Pay Via Till Number. Log in to the bookstore- register if you are new-(https://www.maroncha.com/book-store ). Select the book. Add to cart, check out then pay via the Buy Goods Till Number provided. Once you get the message from MPESA, insert the MPESA code on the space provided then click ‘Validate Code’. You will be able to download instantly from the bookstore. A copy will also be automatically sent to your email.
MANUAL METHODS
If you are completely unable to use the above two methods, you can still purchase your copy manually. The only disadvantage of this method is that you will have to wait for a few hours before you get your copy. But eventually it will come.
- Pay Kshs. 100 to Buy Goods Till Number 297264 and send an email to edward@maroncha.com (or DM Sanctuary Side on Facebook) stating your MPESA name. Use the name of the book as the subject of your email. If you send a DM to Sanctuary Side on Facebook, kindly also include your email address. I will send your copy once I verify your payment.
- Pay Kshs. 100 to Buy Goods Till Number 297264 and send an SMS/WhatsApp message to 0105571156 stating your MPESA name and the name of the book you wish to purchase. I will send your copy once I verify your payment.
Remember you can always DM Sanctuary Side on Facebook, email me at edward@maroncha.com or send a WhatsApp message to 0105571156 if you have a query or feedback.
The next story begins on Tuesday the 5th of January. See you all then.
–Edward.
