By Paul Chika Emekwulu
What I am about to share happened on Sunday, December 17, 2023. I just came back from Sunday service. About one or two hours later a ten year old boy, (Let’s call him Uchechukwu) visited me. He is a familiar face and was standing at the front gate. I stood up to meet him.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“I am running an errand up the street (pointing in a western direction up a street that is a part of a T-Junction that runs from east to west).
“You have closed, right.”
(It was few days to Christmas)
“Yes,” he responded.
We went through the exam results of everyone in the family of six children. It was all good news for all of them except the oldest of four girls who hadn’t received the news yet.
“What do you think her’s would look like?” I asked Uchechukwu.
“She always comes out in flying colours,” he answered.
“When are you starting school next term?”
“Monday, January 8,” Uchechukwu confidently responded without expecting any more questions.
“That’s what they told you at school,” I said.
“No,” Uchechukwu said in pretense. He lied. Usually when the school is breaking up for the holidays, the school announces the resumption date. It looks like a tradition. That was the practice when I was in primary school and I believe it is still the practice. It hasn’t probably changed.
“Yes, it is all the same everywhere even in other states like Imo and Enugwu. It seems like a plan,” I finally told him.
“How do you know January 8 would be a Monday?”
He was busy with his fingers and finally said, “Because I figured it out in my head,” .
“How?” I asked the ten year old.
“I just did it,” he responded.
“Yes, I know, but how did you do it?”
I knew he was lying but I feigned ignorance.
Feigning ignorance I said, “Teach me. It is like be my teacher, I’ll be your student. “Teach me so that in turn I can teach someone who doesn’t know how to figure it out.”
When he started shying away from this question I immediately knew that a teachable moment had arrived. I already knew he was lying.
I have penchant for teachable moments. Teachable moments are those times when learning takes place formally or informally. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the four walls of a classroom. Learning can take place in a hospital delivery room not only for the nurses but for the doctors and lay people. A teachable moment could be while spending time with a bricklayer at work, or in this case at my front gate.
“How many days are there in December?”
I asked Uchechukwu.
“Twenty-five,” he responded.
“If that is your answer, then your method for figuring out January 8 as Monday is wrong,” I told him. “That’s mago, mago,” (My word for manipulation) I continued.
“Let me ask you again.”
“How many days are there in the month of December?”
This time he said, “Ten.”
Again, he was wrong and that clearly confirms that he lied about not being told when the school would resume for the new school term. Otherwise, it doesn’t take two points to determine a straight line anymore but I am glad it still does. Of course Deutereonomy 19:15 also says, “You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
At this time I knew the right answer wasn’t going to come because he was all guessing.
Continuing he then resorted to counting, using Sunday, December 17 as a point of reference. When he was done with counting he landed at January 10 as being Monday which is inconsistent with what he told me at the very beginning. The result was as follows:
January 8, 2023 – Monday
January 10, 2023 – Monday
“The same day of the month cannot bear the same date. How can January 8 and January 10 be the same day of the month?” I asked Uchechukwu. All I got was a stare.
“Someone is wrong,” I said.
We continued staring at each other like two cocks engaged in a fight.
“Someone is not telling the truth and I know that someone is not me,” I said.
“Who is not telling the truth?” I asked him.
“Not me,” Uchechukwu responded chuckling but immediately decided to change his answer.
“Who is lying?” I asked him again.
This time he admitted and confessed that he was lying. I told him that that was exactly the preaching that Sunday at Church – being righteous. Yes, the preaching was about being righteous.
This got me scared about this ten year old. I got scared because lying with small things like this that don’t carry any punishment could lead to lying about big things that carry a heavy punishment possibly a jail time or a fine or both.
The word of God in Luke 16:10-14 (The Easy-to-Read Version – ERV) says, “Whoever can be trusted with small things can be trusted with big things. Whoever is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in big things too.”
The worst is that he is not the only pebble on the beach (not alone). What we are talking about here is a commonplace among the “now” generation (Ndị Kịtaa). It is scaring and troublesome as well.
Next we proceeded to figuring out the answer to our problem using two methods:
Method I:
We started with this question:
“How many days in the week?”
I asked him.
He gave two answers and they were all wrong. At that time I started to think that maybe what we are discussing wasn’t age appropriate. We continued anyway and we did so for two reasons:
(1) First, we have to finish what we started.
(2) Apart from Uchechukwu someone might benefit from this. So, the second reason is for reader’s interest.
Now since there are 7 days in the week, we can start by adding 7 to get to the next Sunday. We agreed and started doing exactly that.
We started like this:
Sunday, December (17+7) = December 24
Sunday, December (24+7) = Sunday December 31
Now since the last addition resulted to 31 which is the number of days in December, I asked him to tell me what next we had to do.
There was silence.
To break the silence I asked, “After December 31, what do we have?”
Again, an awkward silence followed. After we exchanged meaningful glances he said, “January.”
“Okay,” I said. Next I led him to understand that we have to make 7 to belong to January. .
“Doing so we have January what? ” I asked him.
“January 7,” he responded.
“Exactly,” I confirmed.
“Now we can continue counting from January 1.”
We agreed. Doing so we have:
January 1 – Monday
January 2 – Tuesday
January 3 – Wednesday
January 4 – Thursday
January 5 – Friday
January 6 – Saturday
January 7 – Sunday
January 8 – Monday
Therefore, January 8 will be a Monday,” We jointly concluded and proceeded to the second method for figuring out the resumption date.
Method 2
With this method we can continue to add 7 as we did before but the addition will take us to the new year 2024. The “7” doesn’t belong to December. Rather, it belongs to the first month of the New Year 2024 and that month is January.
So, Sunday, December (31+7) = Sunday, December 38.
We have to bear in mind that there are only 31 days in the month of December. And what does that mean?
It means we have to subtract 31 (belonging to December) from 38. When that is done what is left? What is left is 7. And what does that mean?
It means that 7 belongs to the month of January. And what does that mean?
It means that we have January 7 and it is a Sunday.
Now if January 7 is a Sunday, is the next day not Monday? Of course, the answer is yes and what is Monday if Sunday was January 7. The answer of course is that Monday will be January 8 and that is the resumption date which Uchechukwu lied about. We are done!
