He Who Began A Good Work In You

“AY, I heard a test will be conducted in a company tomorrow,” Uche, a friend, informed me. I asked for the name of the company, but he couldn’t get to pronounce the name properly. He tried describing where it is located, but it was no use, for though Trans Amadi was my regular route as a corper, yet I really never noticed any of the companies strung along its layout. I was always focused on getting to wherever I was going anytime I was in buses or taxis.

I had my compulsory national service in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. (In Nigeria, it is compulsory to serve the nation under the paramilitary body called National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) after graduating from the university or polytechnic. Fresh graduates are cross-posted all over the country to work wherever they will be assigned to for a year during which they get paid by the government and sometimes by the institution they are serving under.)

After passing out as a member of the corps in February 2010, I stayed back in Port Harcourt. I lived at the NCCF (Nigeria Christian Corpers Fellowship) Family House during service and since there is a provision for senior friends to put up at the family house after NYSC, I continued to live there after service. I had a hunch ever before I knew I would be serving in Rivers State that I would most likely stay back wherever I would serve. For this reason, I endeavoured to do all I could do to serve in my home church in Abeokuta between the time I graduated and the time I left home for youth service. I did not want to have any reason to look back and wish I had done more. The hunch was confirmed during my service year….

So, my friend, Uche, told me about the test and added that another friend who is a geofellow (we geologists call ourselves geofellows) had more information about the test. With time, my geofellow friend got back home and he gave me the full details. We were going to gatecrash the next day. That night, I picked a textbook I borrowed from another geofellow in the house, but couldn’t concentrate; you know that kind of preparation for a test that you will write the next day. I had no idea what sort of questions would be asked and could not even grasp anything, so I gave up. By the way, I never seriously looked into GMAT for once, because my plan was to start some stuff for myself and work for no one. Another funny thing was that my CV was not very ready. I was taking my time with the CV because I had thought I wouldn’t have to work for anybody, thus early in the morning before going for the test, I quickly went to Mother Cat to have the CV printed and then headed for the company’s base.

We were four that went from the family house. One of us had earlier dropped his CV with the security guys at the gate, so he was somehow eligible for the test, but the rest of us were gatecrashers. They already had the names of the test candidates in a sheet of paper and soon started calling them in. My people and I stayed on, hoping for the best. I went to stay at the very front, with the hope that God could use someone to open the gate for me. There were a lot of people and being a brief person with a giant of a guy behind me, I was constantly pressed against the gate. The noise was too much, the pressing continued, but I stayed put at the front. Then one of the security guards noticed the way I was being pressed and exclaimed in pidgin, “Make una no kill this girl for me na!” “Oga, abeg, tell them o” was my reply. But it wasn’t a problem for me; after all it was supposed to be the survival of the fittest. Everyone there wanted the job.

 Later, I saw the guard pointing in my direction as he spoke to another guard. A few minutes after that, he came to ask me where I was standing if I had my CV already submitted, I replied in the negative stating that would be my first time there. He went and returned, asking if I had my name already with them, I gave the same answer. Not too long after this, he called for me at the main gate, holding out a scrap, not a sheet, of paper for me to fill in my name. All this while, we had been at the front of the security cubicle. They let in the applicants from there. When he called me through the main gate, it wasn’t that he opened the main gate for me, he only handed the paper to me through that space between the gate’s hinge and the pillar supporting it. I wrote my name, wrote for my fellows from the house and for some others who begged me to. But I knew the man was particular about me. He collected the paper and left. By this time I had lost my position at the forefront, so I had to stand at the back trying at the same time to monitor what was going on. In little or no time, my new friend, the security guy, came calling for me again through the main gate. He told me to add my course. I did so and did for others too. But still, I knew this man was particular about me as he was hurrying me up when I was writing for others. He came back the third time and asked me to include my phone number. I did that, did for others and returned the paper to him.

“Where is that girl?” It was the guard calling from the security cubicle. I quickly found my way close to the front and when he saw me, he opened the gate wide for me, in full view of everyone, and let me enter. No one else was allowed in except one other guy. It was like a dream. When I entered the compound, I thought, “Lord, the way I entered this place today, it’s like You have given me the job already.” The test came in two batches with ten candidates in each batch. I was in the second batch and we were twelve. The other guy that the guard let in and I made the group twelve. We had to wait under close supervision in a room for the first batch to finish their test before we would take over and write ours. I learnt later they had had the test conducted two previous Thursdays in the same manner—two batches and ten applicants in each batch.

While waiting for our test, it was like the other guy that the security man allowed in kept going out and coming in. At a point, he did not close the door properly when he left the room. The security man, not my friend, in charge of us got mad and asked him to leave the premises. Na so bros start dey beg, oga security no gree o. He asked him who let him in, they went to meet his colleague together, that was the last we saw of our bros. My heart was in my mouth all along, because I was an extra too. But the Lord favoured me, the guard did not bother me at all.

Fast forward, it was our turn to write the test. Contrary to my expectation, the test was set on five subjects—Geology, Physics, Electricity, Chemistry and Mathematics. I did what I could and left the rest. I had the opportunity to cheat, because the lady that was supposed to invigilate us did not care at all, but I was able to resist the temptation. Basically, I wouldn’t ask anything from anybody, but the urge to help my fellow candidates was great as they kept calling my name. I would just look at them, smile and shake my head to pass my message across that I could not help them. Afterwards, I had to apologise to one of them that it was against my principle, he was not offended, he understood.

On my way home, I was pondering on all that had transpired and about two blocks away from the family house, this song, “He Who Began A Good Work In You” coursed through my mind and I nodded to the Lord.

“AY, I heard you guys went for a test today and you were singled out and favoured.” That was Musa, another friend, he was serving with Batch B. The news had gone ahead of me to the family house.

“Congratulations!” He added. I smiled and recounted the story to him, adding that everything still depended on if God would let me have the job or not. But he insisted that God had given me the job already.

Barely two weeks after the test, I was called for interview. The interview was like a chat. It wasn’t like that from the beginning, though. In fact, I would have been excused if not for a lady that peeped in to deliver a message. That changed the tune of the interview as one of my interviewers asked me what was my view on paying taxes. I replied paying taxes is the right thing to do.

“Even when NEPA is not giving you power and the roads are bad?” My answer was still the same.

“Are you giving me these answers because you are in an interview and this is what you’re expected to say?”

“No sir, it’s one of the principles I live by.”

Other questions followed. Could I stay on the sea for six months and not be homesick? My naïve answer to that was yes. In reality, it is a no-no, but I had no idea what having to stay on a rig was like then and was enthusiastic. They told me there would be caterers on the rig, different kinds of food and a lot of cakes.

At the mention of cakes, I burst out, “Oh, I love cakes!”

“Oh, you do?” they replied laughing.

“Do you bake cakes also?” One of them (who was going to be my boss, but I didn’t know then) asked.

I replied yes. He asked if I would not leave the company after three years to start a catering company. I laughed and said no, that I could always manage that with my job. The interview ended and I went home.

While I was recounting how it all went to my “baby”, the person I handed over to in NCCF as Chief Usher, who is also my friend, there was a musical break on a TBN programme we were viewing on TV and the same song that crossed my mind the day I wrote the test was the song played during the break. I still put everything in the Lord’s hands. In the evening I went to visit a beloved family in another part of Port Harcourt, I spent the night there. That night in my dream, a very tall veiled man came to attack me in my dream with a razor blade which he held in his hand. I was very small beside him but I overpowered him in the name of Jesus and commanded him to go to sleep. He couldn’t hurt me with his weapon.

Sometimes in the morning, I received a call from the company to come for my medicals. That was when the dream I had made sense to me. When I didn’t know that I would be called the next day, the enemy had known and had tried to come before time to contaminate my system, but the Lord my God fought for me. This reminded me again of another dream I had before I was ever called for the interview. I was in our former house at home. We used to have a long bench in the passage under which we kept different things ranging from yams to slippers. I was squatting beside the bench when a hag approached me demanding that I sold her plantains. I told her I had no plantains to sell, and actually I didn’t know I had any plantain. She bent down and dragged out from under the bench a bunch of big plantains, most of which were already ripe. She gave me a very dirty and worn 100 naira note and went away. When I awoke, I didn’t remember the dream immediately, but when I did, the Lord gave me the understanding and I knew that she came to shortchange me of some ripe harvests. I started praying immediately collecting back my plantains. I did not stop praying until I was sure in my spirit I had recovered what she took and gave her stupid money back to her. Definitely, the plantains she took was the job and I probably would never have been called at all if I had taken the dream for granted.

I discovered after I resumed work that out of the ten people called for the interview, only three of us were chosen and I was the only lady. I resumed work on April 2^nd because April 1^st was Easter Monday that year. This was barely two months after my passing out parade from NYSC.

It was all like a dream to me. I kept asking myself, “Is this how levels change, just like that?” I need to add that my first airport and airplane experience was on my job and all my journeys outside the shores of Nigeria have been via work assignments and trainings.

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When I entered into the year 2012, I had no idea I would be leaving the country before the year’s end. But I remember I asked after some female colleagues from another company on the rig and was told they were on short term assignments outside the country. One was sent to Morocco, another to the US and the third to another country. I missed them and at the same time I wished for such an opportunity to be on assignment outside the country for a few months. I’d been travelling out of the country for trainings before then, though, but our trainings last for a maximum of one month. I only wished, I didn’t pray, because it sounded like something too big to pray about and forgot it all. In April, my boss called me and asked if I would like to join a programme in my company at the head office in France, the implication was that I would be living in France while the programme lasted and by the nature of the programme, I would only be allowed to come home after being away for a stretch of six months. He added that I should think about it as he did not want me to cry on his neck later about missing home. I prayed-thought about it and I gave him my affirmative response. That was how the processing started. I travelled to France in November, 2012.

Today I am in the US, with the same company and I didn’t lobby for being here either, God did it Himself, that’s a story for another day. Incidentally, I came to the US at about the same time my former boss in Nigeria got transferred to the US as the ops manager. I must say this that it is not that everything has been perfect and smooth, of course there have been a lot of tough times, but the Lord has been my succour through it all.

I know that where I am is a place to pass through, so I am enjoying it while it lasts, I have a bigger picture which will definitely come to pass by God's grace.