Joan was born at the end of World War II, during the 1950s; she was a primary school pupil at St. Saviour’s (UNA) School, Kreigani in the present Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area (ONELGA) of Rivers State, Nigeria. James, her father, was a staff of UAC, the British trading company located at Beach, Alinso Okeanu next door to Kreigani; Joan’s mother, Virginia, was a seamstress. In the history of the family of five, none of the three children had ever been flogged in school either for fees or whatever else; theirs was a family of modest means but they had all the basic comfort and, most of all, there was more than enough love to share.
In 1954, Joan’s younger and only brother, Enoch, took ill and was hospitalised at Joinkrama in the present Ahoada West LGA, Rivers State. Due to the cost of Enoch’s treatment, Joan’s school fees of eight pence was not paid so she was flogged by the headmaster who was very dexterous with the cane; however, Joan was allowed to stay in class. Meanwhile, James had travelled on the aquatic highway to Joinkrama to visit his wife and son who was in the private care of Mr. Lagos Joel, a male nurse that offered to tend to Enoch when the hospital gave up on him. Conscious of the dire financial and emotional situation of the family and the health condition of Enoch and knowing that given the absence of her parents she would not pay the fees until her father returned, Joan cried very bitterly on her way home and virtually throughout the night.
The next morning, Joan resolved to face the cane rather than miss classes. She got up early as usual and headed to the beach to take her bath. On the path to the beach, she saw shiny eight pence symmetrically arranged heads up indicating that they did not fall randomly from someone’s pocket; there was no dew on them, which meant that they were placed there that morning. Again, the dew on the grasses that wet her well-crafted legs on the path was incontrovertible telltale of her being the first person on the path that morning. Her conclusion was therefore that God placed the money there for her and so she picked them; at school, she confidently paid her fees with absolute gratitude to God.
In another episode, on February 29, 2000, Blessing Richard was in protracted labour at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Port Harcourt; it was such that she thought she was going to die; so, she prayed fervently not to die in her twenties and leave her children behind. Shortly thereafter, a doctor walked into the labour room, came to her, chitty chatted briefly with her and told her to push; she did and her baby arrived. The doctor took her folder and wrote on it and left. In her words “the doctor was tall and good looking; there was no nurse around at the time.” It turned out that no one knew the doctor, he did not write his name; no one was familiar with the signature and no doctor on duty fit the description. He just walked in, performed the assigned duty and walked away into the light of the day.
In a similar episode on July 28, 2015, Ugochi Vincent went into labour; she was taken to a clinic in Omoku where she spent one week before being referred to Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owerri; unfortunately, the hospital staff were on strike. At Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Port Harcourt she was also rejected on account of the strike. UPTH refused to admit her because of a standing order not to operate without available incubator; at the Military Hospital, Aba Road, Port Harcourt, it was the same story. Government Hospital, Emenike Street demanded a deposit of N50,000.00, which she did not have and they rejected the N20,000.00 in her possession; so, Ugochi slept in the corridor for four days, IN LABOUR!!! Eventually, a hospital in Mile II, Diobu admitted her and successfully conducted Cesarean Section (CS) on August 6, 2015. Subsequently, she was billed for further surgery for a postnatal complication that had become a mystery. Sufficiently frightened, she confided in her cousin the premonition that she will not come out of the theater alive if she ever goes there. Like Blessing, she prayed fervently not to be taken to the theater. Meanwhile, the doctor and his team had concluded preparations to wheel her there the next morning. Later that evening, a doctor came to her bedside, chatted briefly with her, looked at her eyes, touched her stomach and asked if she was hungry to which she answered in the affirmative. The doctor then directed her to eat, which was against the instruction since she was being prepared for surgery the next morning; immediately, her cousin quickly brought food and she ate. Shortly thereafter, nature called and she defecated profusely; that ended the mystery of the intestinal blockage. The next morning, the medical team wondered what happened. But the greater wonder was the identity of the doctor: no one knows him; being a private clinic, it was unusual to have multiple doctors on duty; there were only two doctors on duty and he was not one of them; he did not leave a name; and no one in the hospital fit his “tall and handsome” description. Till date, Blessing and Ugochi refer to him as “miracle doctor;” an occurrence and a description set apart by six years yet sharing the same uncanny exactitude.
The questions that draw from the mystery of the above anecdotes are: (1) was it God that placed the money at the path for Joan? and (2) were the mystery doctors in Blessing and Ugochi’s accounts angels from heaven? By way of an answer, this author offers an emphatic NO. The point is that man has been mind-controlled into simplistically ascribing things that mystify him to either God or Satan and this is because of his limited consciousness of the world around him; that way, he does not stretch his mind in thought; for that is a path he has been dutifully conditioned by institutional religion from the cradle not to thread. Jesus Christ it was who said “in my Father’s house are many mansions…if it were not so I would have told you.” (John, 14:2)  Sadly, the clergy of Christendom have failed to shed light on that weighty and pivotal statement and millions of the faithful dire not commit the blasphemy of asking, seeking and knocking even when Jesus encouraged such enterprise (Matt, 7:7) and when it had been said that “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea, 4:6) Yet, the clergy flares up and the laity trembles when a thawed mind asks any question that interrogates the content of the Bible from an intellectually searching and analytical perspective.
It is offered that it was the intensity of the pain in Joan’s heart that elicited compassion from another dimension beyond this realm of our everyday experience hence precisely the amount needed was placed in an explicit manner at the path and certainty was made that she’d be the first to thread that path that morning. It was also the same intensity of thought of Blessing and Ugochi that precipitated the materialization of a doctor from another realm to perform the medical marvel in both cases. Call them Angels or what have you, we are not alone in this earth environment. Certainly, other Beings live here with us but in another dimension…
Dr. Osai is an Associate Professor in the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.

Jason Osai