“Show of hands; how many of you in this room have seen an angel before?

Okay, okay. Twenty hands. Out of about a hundred. Not bad, not bad.

How many people have seen angels and know that they saw angels?

Ah. Way less hands.

If we had enough time we could exchange stories and I’ll fawn over each one. The unique incidences surrounding your meeting, what they looked like, how you reacted. I could get some popcorn and just have a field day. But the organisers only gave me 15 minutes to be up here so we won’t do that. At least, not today.

One of my favorite things to do is talk about serendipity or more accurately, “Kairos.” In Greek language, there are two words used to describe time; Chronos and Kairos. Chronos refers to quantitative or exact time, and Kairos means ‘right or critical moment’. It is in moments of Kairos that we meet angels. Just when we need them.

The first time I saw an angel was in 2015. Actually, they were two. My brother and I were on our way to school in Ado-Ekiti, with another sibling duo. We were in one of the smaller towns just before Ado-Ekiti when one tire had come undone from the car and we were stranded. With our car in this quiet road with no vehicles in sight but overgrown grass, we were prime prey for a disaster. I was petrified.

We all stood there contemplating what to do. The driver said the tire was damned and he did not have an extra one. He suggested leaving us to go and find a solution somewhere in town and we started to yell at him about his silly suggestion. It was just then that the angels came along.

They were an old couple in a Sienna car, the exact colour as ours. They slowed down and asked us what had happened and then offered to take us to school. We all stood there looking at them wondering if this was a kidnapping ploy. Personally, I took it that I would never attend law school as this would probably be the last time I would be alive.

As we moved, the angels didn’t speak to us. Neither did they glow or do anything out of the ordinary. All six of us were cramped in the full vehicle until we got to school. We could not stop saying thank you to them. They just kept smiling, not responding to our many thank yous. They waved us goodbye and left us like they did not just save our lives.

When I tell people that story, a lot of people argue with me about it. The difference between the two groups who raised their hands at the beginning of my talk is that the latter met their angels at the opportune time. At Kairos. If that moment was not a turning point in their lives, if it was a Chronos moment, they wouldn’t have met an angel or considered them one. They could have been “helpful people”. But you see in Kairos, those defining moments of our seemingly regular lives, is where we have these encounters with these beings. Call them what you want; I know what they were. They were angels. They exist and they meet us exactly when we need them."