Part 1 of the “Timothy Series” – Faith, Mentorship, and the Making of a Youth Leader
Raised by Women. Shaped by Fire. Called by God.
Tim turned eighteen yesterday. But as dawn crept through his curtains in thin, trembling lines, he already felt the weight of adulthood pressing on his chest.
He lay awake, restless, replaying the events of the night before — the surprise party, the laughter, the noise, and the one face he wished hadn’t been there.
Chloe.
His grade‑school crush.
His childhood almost‑love.
The girl who still leaned toward him like a flame seeking oxygen.
Ben and Steu meant well, but they didn’t understand.
Not the way SY, his best friend, did.
Not the way SY’s father, who treated Tim like a son, did.
And certainly not the way Pastor Pee, the old man who had become his spiritual father, did.
But Pastor Pee had been gone for months.
No word.
No explanation.
Just absence.
And Tim needed him now more than ever.
Adventure. Writing. Impact.
A House Built by Women and Morning Worship
At exactly 5AM, the house stirred the way it always had.
His grandmother’s voice rose first — singing her morning ritual about knocking on His gates and entering His courtyard with praise. As a child who slept in her room, that song terrified him. He thought she was leaving him alone in the dark to go knock on some mysterious gate. He would cling to her nightgown, begging her not to go.
But she always slipped away gently, dancing around the room, singing with joy that made no sense to his young mind. Eventually, he joined her — toddling behind her, mumbling the words, stamping the memory into his bones.
Even at college, he woke just before 5AM, almost hearing her voice.
From the next room came softer sounds — his mother, Yuni, muttering prayers as she prepared for work. She moved quietly, catching the early bus for her hour‑long commute.
These two women had built his world.
Strong. Steady. Unshakeable.
His grandparents were missionaries who had planted churches, built communities, and raised him with faith as their inheritance.
After his grandfather died suddenly, Grandma refused to leave the village.
“My life is here,” she said. And she meant it. Staying there to raise her young daughter.
Yuni left for university, but returned in her second year — pregnant, frightened, determined. Tim met his father twice. Both encounters left him feeling like an inconvenience. But at least they cured the ache of wondering.
The Old Man Who Carried Fire
One mercy in all of this was SY’s family.
SY was his best friend—the brother he never had. SY’s father treated Tim like a son, giving him a taste of what a father’s presence could feel like.
Although SY’s father had been a blessing, everything changed the day the old man arrived.
Pastor Pee.
A balding, limping, ordinary‑looking man who somehow carried fire in his chest. Fire that leapt into every room he entered. Fire that softened the hardest men and steadied the weakest boys.
He saw Tim — truly saw him.
“They’ve given you something most boys don’t have,” he once told him.
2 Timothy 1:6
“A knowledge of God. A fear of God. A foundation I can build on.”
And build he did.
He took Tim into men’s meetings — sacred spaces where Tim learned that manhood wasn’t what the streets preached. Pastor Pee chiseled the men, shaping them into protectors, not predators. Into leaders, not tyrants. Into lightbearers.
Tim soaked it all in.
He learned how to treat women with tenderness.
How to guard his heart.
How to lead with integrity.
How to be an example even without a father’s name behind him.
Those teachings were the only reason he kept his distance from Chloe.
Her emotions were loud now, but what about tomorrow?
Would he be willing to marry her?
Abandon the dreams his mother and grandmother held for him?
Risk becoming the kind of man who left a woman raising a child alone?
Would parents trust their daughters to a youth mentor who couldn’t control himself?
Everything felt fragile.
Everything felt heavy.
One wrong move and the whole structure of his future could collapse.
And the one person who understood him — more even than SY’s father — had vanished.
The Whisper in the Morning Prayer
As the women prayed that morning, their voices rising like incense, Tim’s thoughts spiraled.
Pastor Pee… I need you. Where are you?
And then — in the quiet, in the ache, in the space between longing and fear — a whisper brushed his spirit.
Not the old man’s voice.
A deeper one.
A nearer one.
“Timothy… I am here. How can I help?”
And suddenly, the room wasn’t just filled with prayer.
It was filled with Presence.
Coming Next: Timothy — Part 2
The Disappearance of Pastor Pee: What Happened to the Old Man?
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