God calls those who will love, obey and serve Him. No matter what our circumstances may be, when we hear his voice, that magnetic voice, like Elisha, we will leave whatever we are doing and follow where that voice is calling. Such is the experience of a young man named Tamba Joseph Iffono. This is his story.

My father died when I was six, and my uncle brought me here to Fria just after my dad’s burial ceremony with the intention of giving me a better life and a good education. I started school here and was a member of the Catholic church. My uncle works as a government employee in the surrounding villages teaching people how to make a living by gardening.

Our family had a very big garden in a village called Yagbeli, which is about six miles from Fria. Since the age of ten, every day after school, my cousins and I would either work in our family garden or go with my uncle out to the villages and help make seedbeds, mix manure, water plants, set snares for animals that might destroy our harvest, or anything else my uncle asked. Sometimes during the harvest season we had to skip classes to help the family with the harvest. It was not easy for us children, especially on weekends and holidays when we had to wake up around 5 a.m. and work until 8 or 9 in the evening. Though the work was hard, we enjoyed the time we spent together as a family.

I used to love making snares, and I was proud to bring the game I caught home for our meals or sell the meat to provide income for the family. I became very talented at identifying animal trails in the bush and crafting just the right snares to catch my prey. I also became a skilled hunter with various weapons. Often I went out at night to hunt or to watch over our gardens.

I used to eat any animal I killed, clean or unclean.

My obsession with trapping and hunting and the many late nights impacted my studies. Twice I attempted to pass the tenth-grade exam to get into high school, and twice I failed. Concluding that school wasn’t for me, I decided to drop out so I could hunt and garden full time. Still, I wanted to be able to improve my life and take care of my family, so I joined a local soccer team with the hope of becoming a star and playing in the premier leagues in Europe. But soon I found that adding soccer practice to full days of gardening and nights of hunting was too much. I was a talented player, but I didn’t have the focus to become a star. Finally, an injury forced me to give up my dream of soccer stardom. I lost hope and began to think of myself as a failure.

My uncle became weaker as he got older, and he relied heavily on me to do the gardening work. I also got more involved with teaching the agronomy students who came from the university for internships with my uncle. I was very busy, and I resigned myself to being a gardener and a hunter for the rest of my life.

At this time, my moral and spiritual life was a mess. Whenever I earned some money, I would spend it on drinking, smoking and women. I was a baptized Catholic, but I only went to church on Easter Sunday, Christmas and New Years. Like most of the other Catholics at my church, I would arrive half drunk and then get completely drunk after the service. I cheated, lied and stole whenever I could. I was completely lost. There was nothing good in me. Satan was in complete control of my life.

I had three best friends, all of them teachers, and we would drink and chase girls together. I would often get gardening contracts that would take me to surrounding villages for two or three months at a time. During one of the times I was away, my friend Victor, the philosopher and free thinker of our group, received Christ as his personal savior and was born again into the Adventist Church. He became an elder and is now an evangelist in Tanènè. Before that, as long as I had known Victor, he had never set foot in a church—not even on Easter Sunday. When I came back from my trip and heard about his conversion, I couldn’t believe my ears, so I decided to pay him a visit on Friday.

Victor was very happy to see me, and he didn’t waste any time. “I know why you are here,” he said. “Our friends have told you about my conversion. You have come to see if it is true, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “What happened?”

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

“Well, yes!” I exclaimed.

“Then come with me tomorrow to church!” he said enthusiastically.

“What? Tomorrow is Saturday!”

“Yes!” he responded without hesitation.

“Why Saturday?” I asked. “I have never heard of a Saturday church in my life. Victor, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you. This is an evil church. I am warning you. Think about what you are doing. Of all the churches in the world, you chose a satanic church? I was happy when I heard you had become a Christian. But don’t go to church on Saturday! Think about it. Everything about Saturday is evil. We go to nightclubs on Saturday night. In our culture, we don’t even go to our farms or gardens on Saturday or do anything else important because it is the day demons are let loose to do evil. Haven’t you heard about people being transformed into animals because they disobeyed and went to the bush on Saturday? Victor, let me tell you this as your friend: you have been converted to Satanism.”

Calmly, Victor replied, “I had the same thoughts until I met a young pastor from the Adventist church. My brother, you are speaking myths. Why don’t you come to church with me and find out for yourself?”

Curious, I accepted his invitation. Early Saturday morning, I got up, ate my unclean meat, took a shower and got ready. Thoughts spun in my head. I wanted to back out of the invitation, but I breathed a short prayer asking God to save me and my friend from this satanic trap. Then I gathered my courage and headed for the Adventist church.

To be continued.

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