Before my dad was called into full time ministry, we were resident in Tamale. Life there was simple! No traffic (except on Friday afternoons), only one TV station, and lots of yam. Life doesn’t get much better than that. It was really cool living there (the weather wasn’t). I got to see a lot of donkeys and horses too! You don’t get to see those down south.  

Then my dad came into ministry. Right after bible school, he was sent to Kete Krachi in the now Oti Region. I had not even heard the name of the place before. We went there and realized there were no schools! Well there were some schools but from the structures, you could only imagine the quality of education the facilities offered. There was one “International” school, the classrooms looked like sheds for drying cocoa beans! The day they decide to arrest people who wrongfully call their schools international, there wouldn’t be enough handcuffs! 

So I had to join family down south and attend a good school. And yes, I did get into a good school by God’s grace. But right from day 1, I knew there was a big problem. The only TV station I knew was GTV, and here were people talking of DSTV and the likes. They were talking about Playstation and other computer games and I was so lost! No one watched Kwabena Yeboah’s Sports Highlights on Monday evenings. They watched the games live over the weekend! Was that even possible?! I genuinely couldn’t sustain a conversation with anyone for more than 2 minutes. I was odd and lost! 

I had to change and fit in, and I had to do so fast! I had to pick on this new culture so I could flow with people. I took a few decisions, and one of them was to listen to some more foreign secular music. Just around that time, Metro TV started showing some programs from MTV Base. That was godsent! I learnt Akon’s Lonely A-Z! I thought by singing these kind of songs I’d look cool too! Boy was I wrong! A Tamale boy is always a Tamale boy. 

Growing through different phases of life, I have realized that there is always the tendency to adapt into the environment we find ourselves in. I believe that’s a little inevitable, but it can be dangerous. You see, when I was up north with my parents, we only played and sang gospel songs at home. We barely watched movies. I only watched Cartoon Network on GTV at 4pm. All the VHS tapes at home were sermons by great men and women of God. I grew up listening to and even cramming some of these sermons. This training has contributed greatly to who I am and what I do today. But there was a point in my life where I was going to throw all this away and pick another culture just to fit in. I was going to move from being lil Ayo Oritsejafor to being lil Chamillionaire. Had my plans succeeded, the little attempt to fit in would have been destiny-altering. 

In chapter 1 of Restless, I share how Jacob nearly missed out on all of God’s blessings by trying to be Esau the whole time. He must have taken lightly the fact that the promise was to Jacob and not Esau. As long he tried to be Esau, he was always going to be out of step. And that is why his life was full of strife (the rapper in me is trying to…). Jesus himself calls us to be as wise as serpents. There is the need for wise adaptation so we can survive and advance the cause of Christ. But much wisdom and tact is needed, lest we lose our identities altogether and miss out on God’s purposes and blessings for us.