A Wise Decision : Adult Mission Story for July 19, 2025

By Andrew McChesney

Genius says he made an unwise decision when he was 14. That was when he smoked for the first time in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Genius hadn’t planned to smoke.

At the time, his aunt was preparing to get married in several months, and she asked him to participate in a traditional dance at the wedding. She hired five male dancers to perform at the wedding, and she asked him to dance with them. She asked the five dancers to give dance lessons to the boy.

Genius enjoyed rehearsing with the dancers in the backyard of his aunt’s house. The young men taught him how to dance. Then one of them offered him a cigarette.

Genius looked at the half-smoked cigarette. He didn’t want to take it. But he was afraid that the dancers would laugh at him if he refused. No one was watching.

Genius took the cigarette.

He choked and coughed as dry, bitter smoke filled his throat and lungs.

Over the next two months of rehearsals, the dancers taught Genius how to smoke without choking and coughing. First, they taught him to smoke tobacco. Then they taught him to smoke marijuana, which is illegal in Zimbabwe.

Genius began to buy tobacco and marijuana with the allowance that he received from his parents. It was just enough money to join the dancers in smoking at their weekly rehearsals.

After a while, Genius stopped buying tobacco and only bought marijuana.

After the wedding, Genius didn’t see the dancers again, but he kept smoking marijuana. He joined neighborhood boys in the secret activity.

Genius wasn’t from a Seventh-day Adventist family, but he had studied at a Seventh-day Adventist school for the past year. One day, he decided to smoke marijuana at school. He and a friend who had smoked together at home snuck behind the school toilets. When they finished smoking, they returned to their classroom.

The smell of marijuana smoke must have clung to Genius because, almost immediately, he was summoned to a teacher’s office. “Who were you smoking with?” the teacher asked.

Genius was scared. He told his friend’s name.

The teacher gave both boys a warning.

“If you do this again, you’re going to be expelled from school,” he said.

The friend smoked again later and was expelled.

But Genius promised the teacher on the spot that he would never smoke again — not at school and not outside of school.

Genius’ Mom was very disappointed when she found out that he had been smoking. When she learned about the dancers, she forbade him from seeing them again. Genius hadn’t seen them for some time anyway, so it was easy for him to promise not to hang out with them.

But it proved harder to stop smoking marijuana. Genius hadn’t been smoking every day, but he still had a desire to smoke.

As he struggled to quit, he remembered that he had learned in school that he could pray to God about anything.

He asked God to forgive him for smoking, and he asked for help to stop.

At that moment, his desire to smoke marijuana disappeared. The habit was broken.

Genius was amazed. He wanted to know more about God, and he began to read the Bible.

Then Genius made what he calls the wisest decision of his life. A year after he stopped smoking, he gave his heart to Jesus and was baptized.

Today, nothing is more important to the 16-year-old boy than beginning the day with the Bible and prayer.

“Spend time with God,” he said.

Genius is fortunate to have his own Bible, but many children in Zimbabwe live in families that cannot afford to buy Bibles for them. One of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath projects will provide Adventurer’s Bibles to needy families in Zimbabwe and other countries in the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division. Thank you for planning a generous offering on September 27.