The next day went by very swiftly and Wednesday finally arrived, the day Brandon will embark on the excitingly adventurous journey away from home to his youth service camp site. The journey was estimated to be up to 700km far and would last more than 16hours on the road. This is the farthest he would travel and be from his mom and family since he was born. It was really emotional for him, for a moment he became double minded; ‘to go or not to go’ was his version of the Shakespearian question.
His luggage was already packed the previous night, so all he needed to do was get a taxi to take him to the nearest park. Once again he went through all his documents as instructed by his mom to ensure he didn’t leave anything behind. Earlier that morning his mom woke him up and they did their routine family devotion and obviously he was the bane of the prayers that day as it has been for the last one week or so. The family prayed for journey mercies for him. They also prayed against Brandon being badly influenced in camp.
Horrendous stories have been told of hitherto innocent boys and girls getting corrupted while in camp. Brandon has been a good boy all his life so it sounded weird when that prayer point was raised by his older sister. Nonetheless the whole family including Brandon heartily prayed.
After that they did have breakfast and a few instructions were dished out to Brandon. It’s now 6ː30am and he has to move quickly less he’d miss the bus to Jos. Quickly, Brandon tumbled his backpack into the trunk of the car, kissed his mother, brother and sister goodbye and off he was on this remarkable journey of his lifetime. His family waved at him as the taxi moved out of their compound. Letting go of his mother’s embrace that has been one of the most difficult things he has done all his life.