The Church with Twelve Names

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Quarry Drive is a charismatic, come-as-you-are fellowship. Most dress to the nines, the elders adorned in white hats that fit each of their heads like a glove. They’re strategically scattered throughout the congregation, poised and ready to hear a word from heaven. 

The Church With Twelve Names has pastored this congregation for years. She is perfectly positioned to see trouble and treasure coming from afar, a Pentecostal prophetess; She speaks with wisdom, faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She doesn’t look like what she’s been through – by grace she still stands.

Steadfast. Immovable. Ever abounding in the good work.

Shouts of victory and joy resound in her tent. Her prayers have kept the community in perfect peace – even amid the storm.

Her sermons are powerful to those who have an ear to hear; cars and bikes run up and down the aisle when she strikes a nerve, drunk in the Spirit. 

She doesn’t sugarcoat. For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction. 

Walk in the narrow way. 

She used to do anything to please her flesh, but now she walks in the Spirit. Her mission crystal clear.

Chief Apostle Amis Memorial stands stoically at her right side – her overseer and armor bearer. He has been called to usher any and everybody into the heavenly realms. His sermons emphasize evanescence, his prophecies always fulfilled. 

His disciples maintain the gardens that yield no fruit, their work never ends.

The members of Quarry Drive adorn themselves in permanent pastels – an everlasting homage to the Resurrection. The hedges stand tall under the unction of the Holy Ghost. 

They wear brightly coloured accessories during Spring Revival, and some bear good fruit in and out of season. 

A few paw-paw trees lay prostrate in the front row. They’ve been slain in the Spirit since the guest speaker Hurricane Humberto laid hands during Solemn Assembly last September.

This is holy ground, complete with herbal incense and living creatures that give glory night and day. A modern-day interpretation of Ecclesiastes. There has been a time for everything here, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die,

A time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to fess up and tell your neighbour about the cadaver in your apartment and a time to have that other son-of-a-bitch deported for putting his hands on you.

The most memorable of all these is the time that boy took his inheritance and left for good. 

There had to be more to life than collecting empty liquor bottles, late-night car chases, drunken arguments and primary school with little-to-no sleep.

NB: Good is just a word.