This brilliant publication, crafted by one of the finest African minds, Archbishop Emeritus Cornelius Fontem Esua, and Rev. Sr. Jackie Atabong, daughter of Dorothy Atabong, is the first of its kind and breaks all literary records in this category. Overflowing with breathtaking suspense, it unveils the amazing tale of the prodigious nine-year-old daughter of a catechist born in the backwoods of Mbetta in the early 1930s. Because of his foresight and dream for her, the father made her undertake the arduous trek of 350 miles over a fortnight period carrying her own box to Soppo in search of the Golden Fleece of quality education. There, she was visited for the first and last time by her beloved father, who, upon his return home, died, leaving behind in his will the care of his family with the priest of the parish. Not long after, the priest who was sponsoring her also suddenly died, rendering the poor girl destitute with a hopelessly bleak and penurious future. The entire story sounds like a theatrical film taken out of Hollywood, yet every syllable of it is cast in concrete reality.
The proverbs: "God's ways are not our ways" and "He writes straight on crooked lines" are fully concretized in this story. Thus, it was at this nadir in her life that the Mill Hill Missionary Sisters of St. Joseph stepped in and adopted her as a 'Convent Girl' in St. Mary's Primary School, Soppo. There, she maintained the unbroken record of academic excellence she brought from Mbetta. A fantastic genius, barely four years later, she passed the entrance exam into Holy Child Teachers Training College, Ifuho, Ikot - Ekpene, Nigeria, remarkably while still in Standard Five and amazingly won the lone government scholarship available that year.
