One bright beautiful Monday morning in June 2017, I was checking out Literal Guide emails like a fisherman checks his net and hooks and I saw one fish inside the net.... looking again it was the letter of Johanna Uukongo our third international author. She wrote that she wanted to publish a book with us. If you read inbetween the line, you could hear hope kissing faith.
I wrote her back and gave her Literal Guide WhatsApp contact for further enquiries. She reached out to me on whatsapp and we started talking. She told me she had been following me up for more than three months at the background to check out my genuineness. She said some good stuffs about me and what I do post and said fake people can't reach my thought frequency and thats the reason she beckoned on Literal GUIDE to publish her book. I asked for her facebook ID, she gave me even her Instagram account and I added her.
She sent her book which needed extra hand to become better. We started work, day in day out, we bent on working, brainstorming together tightening every line of the book. I would work on it, then i will send to her. She will go through it and drop her own words on it. We worked like we have known since wayback, we joke and laugh at the same subject. Teamwork at its epoch. She said I wrote about her village in Namibia, like I have been there before.
One day she wasn't coming up online and I wasn't hearing from her. For two weeks I waited and one day she showed up. I was already annoyed but she humbly calmed me down and gave me the reasons and even showed me the Samsung phone that fell into a bucket of water. I wondered where she got those humility and kindness from. I regretted my impatient and felt sorry for her losing her phone.
When we were through structuring the book the way it should be, I sent it to her and just about time to make the first payment. At the mention of Nigeria , the people close to her rallied around her to dissuade her from posting the money, in the name that she was being scammed and we would take the money without rendering our services. They meant well for her and they wanted to keep her safe but many of us in the process of saving ourselves we had killed our dreams. Not Johanna Uukongo she was ready to take the bull of reeds by the horn
She persisted and told them to watch her make the biggest mistake and see how it works out good. I call her the Rare Breed, the giant heart. She was ready to risk her year savings in the hands of the people she had not seen except on internet.
Because of her doggedness we rebranded the book "Beacon In the Tunnel". When she got to Western Union, the clerk there began lecturing her about scammers are their strategies. She was giving her 1001 reasons not to make the payment. She told to clerk to calm down. The clerk told her that this scammers uses charms also yet she persisted. The clerk had no choice than to post the money to Nigeria shaking her head in disappointment.
Now, "Beacon in the Tunnel" is making waves in Namibia, everyone wants to read it including white men; and even albinos see clearly when they read Beacon in the Tunnel even in the dark. Johanna Uukongo had also had a fair share of the wonderful publicities it gave her. She had also gone places she would only dream about just because of this book.
She had appeared where her mates only dream of. She had been on the spotlight, in the news, Namiba ministry of information beckoned on her and congratuled her greatly for such a great book.
Many people had mailed her, telling her how that book had touched their lives. Her name had gone far and wide. This philanthropist also gathered her friends to deliver several social services to the less privileged showing an example of a real beacon. Now, Beacon in the Tunnel is everywhere in Namibia and soon to be everywhere in Africa and the world.
What would have happened if she didn't take that risk, If she had listened to the well meaning people, would this dreams come to fruition? Its good to listen to well meaning people, don't get me wrong but what would have happened if she didn't follow me up for some time to see my genuineness?. What would have happened if we weren't firstly friends and worked together to make her book better? Friends, life is a risk, sometimes, its not about trust but about faith!!!!!
