I was born into a modest family in a village in Togo, West Africa. Nothing in my life, in my village, had predestined me to a happy future, free from the worries about having the basic needs to survive. Ours was a polygamous family. My father had many wives, and my mother was the last of the wives. There were so many children that it was impossible for our parents to adequately care for everyone. Somehow, though, I was able to go to school all the way through high school, and then travel to Lomé, the capital of Togo, which was a great distance from my village, to begin undergraduate studies. I had to pay for my first year of college by working as a laborer in the harbor because there was no one to help me financially.
As graduation drew closer, I became more and more worried. Since I was living in student housing, I would soon need to leave my dorm room to make room for the new students with the approaching school year. Since I had no one to give me a place to stay in Lomé, and I did not have a job, the only option seemed to be to go back to the village. But I did not see myself going back there. I wanted to break free from the limiting experience of my parents, and from my upbringing.
Early one morning at around 1:00 I turned on my radio, as I could not fall asleep, and I came upon a station that was broadcasting a program called Le Héraut de la Science Chrétienne [The Herald of Christian Science]. During the program people spoke of God’s love. They explained that God is Love, and that all men are children of this Love. Love doesn’t punish, Love doesn’t do any harm. On the contrary, Love blesses and is good to all its children. The people on the radio program continued, saying, if anyone found themselves in some difficulty, it did not come from God, it did not come from the individual, and it was not the result of where they lived. It came from a misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of man’s relationship to God. And they said that a real understanding of that relationship would resolve the problem.
