“New Church” is told from Ariyike’s point of view and spans 1998 and 1999 in the family’s lives.

Ariyike tells Bibike to stop singing along with Jennifer Lopez because “Jesus is coming” (21) and music like that isn’t appropriate. Bibike laughs, which is unusual since she is often quiet. Ariyike explains that her pastor, Pastor David, said the rapture is coming soon. Bibike disagrees, saying it’s unfair of God to speak only to Pastor David.

Their mother started a new job as a teacher and is acting differently than before she was fired from her previous job. Father doesn’t say anything about it; he is often working on starting his own businesses. Because he is home more, he is the “favorite parent” (24).

Mother tells Bibike and Ariyike about how “worldly music” (27) is bad. Ariyike starts to cry because she is afraid of failing God. She also believes she can hear the voice of God and that “[i]t sounded like an old man speaking softly in the distance. I did not know, in the way Pastor David apparently did, how to decipher what the voice was saying. But I believed that someday I, too, would understand His voice” (27).

Ariyike met Pastor David when he came to the school to ask the principal about using the assembly space. She started going to his church and fell in love with him. She brought Bibike once, but Pastor David mistook Bibike for Ariyike, which made the latter mad. As a result, she introduced her sister as “my twin, Bibike, the One Who Doesn’t Believe in Jesus” (30).

Father converts their home into a business-services support center with printers, copiers, and computers. Mother resists at first, but when she loses her job again, she consents. The business struggles, and an old friend recommends attending Pastor David’s “New Church” because of stories about people experiencing positive change through the church. This excites Ariyike, who calls it “the very best day of my life” (35).

Through the New Church, the family meets Pastor Samuel. Mother is uncomfortable with the attention the man pays Bibike and Ariyike, so they leave the room whenever he visits. Pastor Samuel scams the family out of ten million naira, which Father gets by taking a high-interest loan out against their house. Pastor Samuel leaves without a trace. The New Church eventually kicks out the family.

The bank sends warnings about paying back the money. Mother leaves in the night for New York. 

Andrew’s narrative in this chapter jumps to 2000. Andrew and Peter have decided to build a chicken coop so they can sell their eggs.

They meet up with Solomon, who says he knows where to get maize to feed the chickens. He tries to explain it’s near the bakery, but Andrew and Peter don’t know where that is because they are new to the area since their father dropped off all the children to live with their grandmother.

Solomon, Andrew, and Peter go to their neighbor’s house where they see Stanley and several other boys playing foosball. There are also girls dancing, and Andrew feels attracted to them, saying, “I start to feel the feeling again. This time it is a different, more sure feeling (53).

As pigeons fly around, one of the boys suggests building a bird trap. Peter mentions they have supplies at their house since they’re constructing a chicken coop. The other boys want to see their progress, so they all go to Andrew and Peter’s.

Andrew notices how tall Peter has gotten, remembering he once called him “Mr. Big Head Small Body” (56). Their father encouraged Peter not to take it to heart saying he was a lion and that “the son of a lion is a lion” (56). Since their father has left, Andrew wonders what they are now.

The chapter ends when another boy starts to hammer together two sticks and accidentally puts a nail through Peter’s hand.

The book shifts to Peter’s perspective, picking up right where Andrew left off. He relates how he feels like he and Andrew are always “one argument away from being enemies” (58). He does what Andrew says and doesn’t disagree with him even when he’s wrong—like when Andrew tells Peter a riddle to distract him from the wound on his hand. Peter thinks that his answer is better, even though Andrew says it isn’t right.

Andrew cleans Peter’s hand and Peter tells him a riddle. They make dinner, and Andrew uses the wrong lid, making a mess. Peter knows this will anger their grandmother, who refers to them as a single unit (“the boys”) and their sisters as a single unit (“the girls”). When Andrew accidentally left a pair of underwear out, their grandmother hung them up and complained. Embarrassed, Andrew threw them out once she left the house.

Peter aches, his throat dries, and his neck begins to hurt, but he says he’s okay. He messily eats, and Andrew doesn’t comment so Peter knows he looks very ill.

He remembers Andrew twisting his finger to the point of pain when they were kids and their mother telling Andrew to stop while their father said it was less rough than when he was a boy. Peter thinks how he still looks for people who look like his parents in movies, wondering if he even remembers what they look like.

Andrew leaves to get Peter some medicine while their grandmother sleeps; this indicates the severity of his sickness. When their father left, Peter had to figure out on his own that the children had been abandoned. He says:

When you’re the youngest in the family, everyone tries to protect you. They lie to you, they cover for you […] Sometimes it seemed like there was a duvet of silence over all the important stuff about our family. There was no one willing to lift it up for me, to let me see for myself what it was all about (64).

Bibike comes home and though Andrew says Peter is improving because of the medicine, Bibike sends him to ask one of her friend’s fathers for a ride to a more distant hospital where it will be easier for them to run away if they can’t afford the bills.

Grandmother, Bibike, Ariyike, Andrew, and Peter all go together. Grandmother is distrustful of the doctors, wanting to make sure they give Peter the best care. Ariyike prays. Bibike explains they will be able to save his arm, but Andrew notes what she is not saying when he tells Peter, “You are going to be a footballer anyway, you do not need two hands to score goals like Yekini” (70).

Though his right hand doesn’t grip anymore, Peter believes everything will be alright because Andrew tells him a riddle and steals his hospital food—just as he always does.