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The saying that �Who Jah Bless, No man Curse� seems to have worked in the life of Mr Lawrence Kpoeduu, a teacher in one of the Junior High Schools in Tema. Those who witnessed the ordeal of the trained teacher from the Volta region expressed utter shock or could not believe it was a true story. Mr Kpoeduu had a broken piece of �Okapi� knife stacked in his right jaw since 1988 until in 2007 when he had it removed through a surgical operation. Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Chronicle last Wednesday, Kpoeduu said �the broken piece of Okapi knife was pushed into my upper jaw by five wicked assailants; namely Kweku Ofori, Kwesi Amoah, Kofi Mensah, Salifu Musa and Sammy on July 11, 1988, around 11.00pm at La Bawaleshie.� Narrating his ordeal to newsmen, the Tema-based teacher said the incident happened somewhere in 1988 after he had passed out of the Accra Teacher Training College and was posted to the Weija DC Methodist School. According to him, because his salary was not sufficient, he decided to engage in part time business to help him gain extra income to augment his salary. Fortunately for him, Mr Kpoeduu said a half brother of the then Senior Housemaster of the Accra Teacher Training College introduced him into the business of travelling to Akwadum in Koforidua in the Eastern region to buy local drinks and sent it to the area which has now become known as American House at East Legon. �From there, I will send the drinks to Kpando-Torkor in the Volta Region to sell and I was making a lot of money from the business,� he narrated, saying �barely three weeks after I started the business, one Yaa Janet from Kwahu-Asaaka, who had been selling banku in the area came to solicit help from me, but perhaps, because she was shy, she could not ask me.� �What happened was that, she stayed there till late that night, and it happened that she had to sleep overnight. When I returned from town, I came to meet the lady there, unknown that the five guys had already laid ambush waiting for me,� he said. In the process, one of the young men who claimed Yaa Janet was his girlfriend, with whom he had a child, and with his four other friends they pounced on him and subjected him to severe beating and ended up stabbing him with the Okapi Knife. Upon realising the severity of his case, Mr Kpoeduu said he was rushed to the Legon Hospital, where he received treatment from one Dr Kanda, who was the doctor on duty. Eight years and five months later, Mr Kpoeduu said he caught his wife red-handed having an affair with someone. Upon confrontation, the person who was having the affair with his wife pounced on him and assaulted him at the same spot on his jaw, after which he began feeling severe pains. �Since then I started looking for treatment but to no avail, until in 2007 when I heard of the Mercy Ship. Initially, they removed one of my molars, but to no avail,� he said. Furthermore, he told the Chronicle that �the doctor continued to work on my jaw since January 2, 2007, and three days later there was a swelling on my face.� For this reason, he noted that the doctors took an x-ray for the first time and took another one later at Tema Manhean, but could not detect any problem. It was on the Mercy ship that a knife was discovered in his jaw, between the flesh and the gum. �This deadly implement, which measured 7-7cm (3 inches) long and 2.4cm (0.15 inches) wide was extracted through my mouth by a dentist of Mercy Ship Organisation on 5th January 2007, at the Tema Manhean JSS workshop,� he said pointing to the knife in a picture he was holding. He thus expressed sincerest appreciation to members of the Mercy ship who contributed to ensure the removal of the knife from his jaw. After the extraction, Mr Kpoeduu said he decided to dedicate his life to work on the vessel, but things did not go as planned, hence he resolved to dedicate his entire life to the service of God.