Canvassing for Hope for a Better Nigeria
Despite the hue and cry of Nigerians over hardship, Pastor Emily Ola-Ojo of the Jesus is Light Ministries, has assured that there is hope for a better tomorrow. Ola-Ojo, who spoke at the church's 50th anniversary last Sunday in Agodo Egbe area of Lagos, admonished Nigerians to brace up for the next phase, just as she further expressed optimism that there would be reprieve.
While announcing her retirement from the position of General Overseer, having served in that capacity for about two decades after the demise of her husband, reiterated that “There is hope and reprieve on the way. In this desert and wilderness economic situation in Nigeria, we will receive divine and miraculous help.
“When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongues are parched with thirst, the Lord will hear them and will not forsake them. I am optimistic that help is on the way”.
She recalled with nostalgia how her late husband, Apostle Gbemiga Ola-Ojo started the ministry as a family prayer meeting in their three bedroom apartment in Kano state.
She said, “Little did we know that the private family prayer meeting would blossom into a church. No one thought of starting a church as my husband was only a teacher. He had zero training in ministry or theology, yet, God found in him a prepared instrument to fulfil his divine plan to found this.
"The beginning was expectedly challenging but the several challenges and persecution of the past have only served the purpose of God for this ministry, making it better, bigger and more spiritually effective, what with the fact that a businessman was suddenly given the divine assignment to begin to lead a church."
Highpoint of the ceremony was the announcement of her retirement as the General Overseer and the appointment of Pastor Bayo Adaramola, as successor.
She also announced the the constitution of a five-man Council of Elders charged with the responsibility of approving subsequent General Overseers in the church.
The new General Overseer, Adaramola, who promised to sustain the legacy of truth by the founder of the church, charged church leaders in Nigeria to base their teachings on the tenets of truth and core values, if the desire to have good leaders occupying key positions must be achieved.
He said, “Enough of finger pointing and saying 'this leader is bad, that leader is wicked'. I have never seen any government, any leader that has led this country that people did not condemn. Are we then going to heaven to bring an angel?
“Nations are built from the bottom to the top, not from the up- down. Many people make the mistake of condemning the leader, I'm not one of those. I tell them, leaders have their faults, we pray for them but as for us, what are our contributions to these things we desire.
" We want honesty everywhere, we want faithfulness, loyalty everywhere ,are we doing that among ourselves? Is that the norm in our families? How many of us are actually honest in our daily dealings, our places of work and in the church?".
Attributing the cause of the present state of the nation to loss of family values, he said, " family values are condemned, they are no longer observed, there is a lot of disintegration of relationships, breakdown of values and norms of the society.
“Our youths have been misled; many are now pursuing things that do not make for the peace of the land. So we need to retrospect and search for ourselves.
Leaders are our product. They are my relatives and yours.So if we don't change ourselves, leaders will never change”.
Adaramola, therefore charged church leaders to remind their congregants of these values, reminding that the church was meant to impact the world and not the other way round.