WHEN 31-year old Dr. Enoch Adejare Adeboye stepped foot into a derelict building housing what was then known as The Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, what was playing in his scientific mind is better imagined. A doctorate degree holder in Applied Mathematics and a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos who was already aspiring to become the youngest vice chancellor in Africa in front of one unlettered priest. How would other lecturers feel? What would he explain to his colleagues, that he was at the church to see his uncle, Rev. Chris Fajemirokun or had gone there to serve God under some-body who cannot even read the English Bible?
Shouldn’t this uncle who had invited a doctorate degree holder to accept any form of preachment from a stack illiterate, have his head examined? The thought of a scientist receiving instructions from one illiterate defies any logic. Like anything, Adeboye-from his controversial conception and birth12 months after, to his 18 years without shoes, involve-ment in gang and his infantile race against high tide to make ends meet right up to his university days and his emergence as the successor of the found-er of a rag tagged indigen-ous church dominated by unlettered old men and women at a tender age of 38 – it’s a circle of quest-ions. Questions! Quest-ions!! Questions!!!
Even, his ancestral home, Ifewara, was said to have shared a history with Israel as it was involved in several wars that scattered the indigenes, many of whom had not returned till today. The ways of the Lord are not the ways of man. Paul, in the Bible, may pass for today’s senior advocate, but when he had an encounter with the Light of God, he was directed to a not too lettered Annanias who restored his sight and taught him what he should know in ministry. Paul was latter to combine his edu-cation with the anointing of God on his life to surpass the accomplishments of the already established apost-les and direct disciples of Jesus Christ.
Such was the story of Pastor Adeboye. Born in a rustic agrarian village of Ifewara, Osun State in South-West Nigeria on March 2, 1942, he fought every mountainous cir-cumstances including even embarking on a hunger strike at tender age to protest his father’s inability to pay his school fees as a result of endemic poverty; to become a major prophet of God being sought after the world over.
Rev. Fajemirokun, an uncle, had actually intro-duced Dr. Adeboye, who was at the time frantically seeking solution to a sickly beloved daughter as well as the plague of a wife who was advised to stop delivery after two caesarian sessions, to the Redeemed Christian Church of God which was then holding services at 9, Willoughby Street, Ebute Metta in Lagos.
The day he stepped foot at that church in 1973, with his wife in tow, Dr. Adeboye had since realised the folly of ever consulting with native doctors and diviners who merely ridiculed him without any solution to his problem. On that Sunday afternoon, he was humbled by the power of God that he didn’t waste any mo-ment to hearken to the altar call by the officiating minister and the General Superintendent, Rev. Josiah Akindayomi and that also marked the end all the crisis in his life which is why he had never looked back since then. The humble mathemati-cian had relished that auspicious moment of his dramatic turn around on Sunday, July 29, 1973, when he made that decision that changed his entire world for good, till this day.
Adeboye was baptized by immersion in September of the same year and was ordained pastor two years later on September 14, 1975, thus beginning an ecclesiastical voyage which culminated into his becoming the General Overseer on January 21, 1981 upon the death of the founder in a London hos-pital two months earlier. He was barely 38 years old. As he marks his 69th birthday today, your best read newspaper dispatch-ed a team to his home town, Ifewara, to find out what was the secret of the entire phenomenal feat credited to his name. The journey to the town was uneventful, though it exposed us to age old story of governmental neglect and inability to tap into possible alternative sources of revenue. In more progressive count-ries, Ifewara would have been turned to a major tourist centre of sort, because of the immense stature of the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God; people would be trouping to the place to do researches.
There were talks of certain missionaries, who occasionally visited the place, either for inspiration or for historical purposes, but the road to the place from Ile-Ife is in a state of disrepair. At some points on the road, two vehicles can hardly pass each other.
One would have expected the Osun State government to take advantage of the man recently voted as one of the 50 most influential individuals in the universe to develop certain monu-ments in the town and establish resorts in the place, for the benefit of people on pilgrimage to Ifewara. After the state capital, Osogbo which plays host to Osun Osogbo, Ifewara could be a major revenue source for the Sunshine state. For all intents and pur-poses, Ifewara can be likened to Nazareth and Pastor Adeboye’s individ-ual story can best be des-cribed as divine, because there was nothing in his homestead to suggest that an eminent prophet of God could be raised in that environment. By his own admission, his 18 years of active poverty could have been a distraction rather than the motivation he derived from it, especially as there was no role model to copy.
The Adeboyes, in Ifewara village, knew and lived in abject poverty. They were farmers who often trekked for hours from their mud house to the farm daily, depending solely on the proceeds from the subsistence farmland for livelihood.
Pastor Adeboye’s unfetter-ed faith in God had dev-eloped from his childhood days when he hanged so tightly to the apron strings of the mother who pro-vided needed prayers, soothing counsels and motherly sacrifices to see her son through school. It was not difficult locating Pastor Adeboye’s place in the rustic town which is still very much an agrarian community till today, since his name was in every-body’s lips in Ifewara. “Whenever Baba comes to town, it is always a carnival of sort as everybody troupes out to welcome him in a grand reception and he acknowledges the accolades in his usual humble manner, even sometimes preventing security personnel from preventing the people from touching him,” one of our guides told us, “he is so free with his people because very many of them adore him.”
To lend credence to the fact that Adeboye is one prophet that had defied several theories including Biblical aphorism that prophets are not appre-ciated in their own homes, the head of the Adeboye Family in Ifewara, Pa Gabriel Bababunmi Ade-boye, could not hide his tears while he paid glow-ing tributes to a younger brother who fought all obstacles to become a world beater, saying: “I am extremely glad that God counted me worthy to be alive today to witness this period as the head of the Adeboye Family.”
According to the Baba, it was Pastor Adeboye that God used to keep me alive till today. Speaking to his visitors tearfully, the elder Adeboye said: “It was my corpse that was brought to this family house. When he heard about my condition, he did not relent in his prayers for me and that is why I am still alive today. I would have died but he insisted that no, I will not die just yet, being the one left behind as a father to him.”
Continuing, Pa Adeboye said the General Overseer prayed on four scarves which he sent home “for me to tie on my head, my leg and hand all of which were lifeless at the time. I was unable to sit down like this. I was like a dead log of wood, but after his prayers, that is why you can see me alive like this. Therefore, I am happy that I am still alive and can benefit from Pastor Adeboye’s milk of human kindness without stress. I am happy and grateful to God. But for Pastor Adeboye I would have been long gone to join my ancestors. So, I will always pray that God should uphold him and enable him to do more for humanity worldwide. He prays for us all as our spiritual father, but we will also not cease to pray for him because God had used him to bring light and succour to this family, this community and indeed the whole wide world.”
Pastor Adeboye’s elder sister, Pastor Arawunmi Akinwale who was on a solidarity visit to the elder Adeboye when some media delegation arrived the family house, also spoke glowingly about the gifting of the Almighty God, saying the family was specially privileged. According to the elder sister, the birth of the General Overseer in that family house 69 years ago, was as controversial as it was miraculous which also lend credence to the saying that God uses the base things of the world to confound the wise and the mighty. Mummy Adeboye, who is now an RCCG pastor, presides over the affairs of the womenfolk in the zonal parish of the church in Ifewara. The Redeemed Christian Church of God had established a School of Discipleship and a maternity home in Ifewara which had delivered eight babies this month alone. While the church and the maternity are occupying a space opposite the old house of the General Overseer along Akunomu area, the school of Disci-pleship is located a little distance away.
Asked to comment on the formative years of the General Overseer, the elder sister whose resem-blance to the prophet is striking said everything about him could only be described as divinely determined. There is simply no other way to describe it—from his conception to his prolong-ed stay in the womb, his exceptional brilliance, his miraculous escape from the East when the Niger-ian Civil War broke out and his ascendancy to the leadership of the church. She opined that all that we are seeing today was foretold.
“He was going to meet our father one day in the farm, when an old man appeared to him on a lonely road and naturally, as a child he was very frightened, seeing a man appear from nowhere. The man told him that his stars were shining and that he was going to be great but he would encounter some challenges but God has conquered everything for him. The man, according to Adejare, instructed him to tell his parents to kill a white rooster for him and his mates. He thanked the old man, and when he turned to look at the man to get a proper description of the man, he was nowhere to be found. Adejare became more frightened and im-mediately ran to meet our father at the farm and narrated his experience to him. When the twosome got back home, they in-formed my mother, who immediately obeyed the instructions.”
Commenting further on his early years, the elder sister described her bro-ther as a very quiet type—easy going, humble and respectful since his child-hood and when asked if there was any objection to marrying from neighbour-ing Ilesha, she said there was none. From the old family house the team proceeded to the Palace of the Adimula of Ifewara, His Royal High-ness Hezekiah Adeniyi Owolola who just return-ed from a trip to neigh-bouring Ile Ife, was very enthusiastic about the subject matter, explaining that he was prepared to postpone his late launch to speak to us. The trad-itional ruler, like the biblical King Hezekiah who became at 24, ascend-ed the ancient throne at the youthful age of 23 and half years. He described Pastor Adeboye as his father who contributed immensely to his educa-tion and has remained his main source of inspiration to date.
“Pastor Adeboye has touched our lives in numerous ways. As small as the community may be, we have almost eight branches of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, here in Ifewara and I am not including other villages around us. If I am to include them we will have almost 50,” he stated, adding: “He is my pastor but I think I am qualified to pray for him esp-ecially at this moment of celebration. May God grant him long life and increased anointing to pilot the affairs of the church till his mandate of planting a church in every nation of the world is accomplished.”
Wife of the zonal pastor of the RCCG, Bethlehem Parish and assistant to the chief matron of the Rccg maternity, Mrs. Bosede Grace Clement said: “Baba is a very kind, generous, humble, merciful and prayerful person. “Whenever he comes to Ifewara, nearly everybody in the town will come to welcome him, to the extent that some will be touching his clothes and calling him, “Dejare” which is the abbreviation of his name, Adejare. In return, he will just humbly respond, “Ipele o, Iku ile o” (How are you all? Hope you are fine). He will not turn anybody down even when his security men are trying to shield the people away, he will said: ‘no!’ They should leave them. He is very free with everybody and he is very merciful.” According to her, Daddy G.O. comes homes whenever he is directed by the Holy Spirit. “We will just see him and he will said he just come to say hello us,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment