The house of prayer

A tenant recounts how his Landlord’s weekly prayer vigil meetings are affecting his enjoyment of his apartment

They have begun again, God must send them a miracle tonight, just like He was demanded to send miracles last week. The prayerful people were shouting in tongues and singing for joy, while I was battling to sleep. Sometimes, I felt slightly sinful for becoming so angry at people’s prayers, but the noise seemed like they were having the vigil in my house. My landlord’s Miracle Vigil was held every Friday from 10pm to 4am. I was a participant; my willingness had never been an issue. I had moved from my former apartment mainly because of the church down the street. They had prayer sessions twice a week and Praise Night once a week. I also participated from my bedroom. I was once pushed to the edge, I went to meet the pastor and pleaded with him to remove or reduce the volume of the microphone stationed outside his church. He looked at me like I was the devil, squinted his eyes and said in his best preachy voice, “the purpose of the microphone is to bring people closer to God. When they hear the word, they are convinced. Do you want to stop God’s work?” I had to look like a saint and reply, “No sir. But God also wants us to rest”. I said that part under my breath, afraid that he will rebuke me if I said anything again.

I put my head under my pillow and forced myself to sleep. “O lord, enlarge my territory”, was the last prayer point I heard before I drifted to sleep for a short while, waking up 30 minutes later with a headache. The sitting room used for the vigil was right on top of my room. I stood up and went to the kitchen looking for what to eat. I had given up on sleep. The next day, I saw my landlord talking to the gateman downstairs. I hurriedly went to meet him. We exchanged greetings and I wanted to tell him how I couldn’t sleep during the vigil but I felt a little ashamed to speak my mind. I later told him, “Ah! That vigil was so powerful, I couldn’t sleep.”

He just smiled and said he hoped I prayed along with them. I nodded. The gateman must have sensed my sarcasm, which the landlord chose to ignore and smirked with his head bowed. My head still ached and I had a meeting at the office in an hour. I went to prepare my slides for the meeting. I had planned to prepare them early in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, but it seemed that the Miracle Vigil was now every Friday.

For the next one month, I hardly slept on Fridays. The problem was I had meetings almost every Saturday; therefore, I was always drowsy and had a splitting headache.

I tried changing the room I slept in, but there was no significant difference. It seemed these people now moved to every part of the house to pray. Their impact could be felt everywhere. I tried to plead with the landlord, telling him that maybe all the, ‘Blood of Jesus’ shouts could be reduced. I wondered why other tenants didn’t complain and later found out that although the sound was not as loud as mine from their side of the compound, they had devised means to deal with the landlord’s excesses. One tenant said he moved in with his friend on Fridays to have a peaceful night. Another said I should be happy he wasn’t into voodoo he practised every night. She went further to tell me tales of her former landlord who was into the occultic arts.

Someone then advised me that the State Government has laws against noise pollution and I should report. Report my own landlord?