My testimony

Early life

I was born in 1966, one of nine children. My parents worked long hours to give my brothers, sisters and me a safe and good life. Our family was not especially religious. My grandfather, Pa Mezu Anugwolu, was a traditional healer (what people locally call a “native doctor”) who treated all kinds of sickness with herbs. He had two wives.

But when he was well over a hundred years old, Pa Mezu asked the reverend father of our local church to come, take away the things he had used for his healing work, and lead him to Christ. He did this because he did not want his first grandson, me, to suffer in the future. After he came to Christ, he was married in the church to my grandmother, who was the wife still living at that time.

Later, when I returned to the village, he called me and asked to be alone with me. When everyone had gone out, he said quietly, “Emma, my son, have they told you that I have become a Christian?” I said, “I have only just arrived, and no one has told me anything.” He replied, “I did it because if I am no more, you will be the one who suffers.” I laughed and asked, “How?” He said, “You will not understand now.” Then he prayed that it would be well with me, and I said, “Amen.”

How the fellowship began

I went to the senior pastor of the church where I worshipped and told him that the Lord had told me to hold a Tuesday fellowship in the church. After a week the man of God told me that it might be the Lord’s leading, and he encouraged me and promised to support me in every way. He did, until the Tuesday fellowship began to grow and some difficulties came up, and we were asked to stop. After seven months we tried renting an apartment, but after a year we could not pay the rent and were asked to leave. It was then that we joined the Tuesday and Thursday fellowships together in my compound, where we still meet.

My calling to full-time ministry

It was an unexpected bus ride. One day I was taking my children to school and we passed a gate that was always closed. I felt prompted to go in and ask what they did there. After I dropped the children off, I went back. When the security man opened the gate, I asked him, “What do they do in this place?” He told me it was a theological school where pastors are trained, and advised me to go in and ask about the process. I did, and that is how I became a student at the Christ Apostolic Theological Seminary, Idimu, Lagos, Nigeria, where I earned my certificate, diploma and degree.

Above all, I thank God Almighty and everyone He has used to bring me this far. I thank my wife, my children, my mother and my siblings. May the Lord continue to give us the grace to serve and worship Him in truth always, in Jesus’ name.