By Sam Eyoboka, Lamidi Bamidele & Olayinka Latona
Lagos—AS the 19th Holy Ghost Congress of the Redeemed Christian Church of Nigeria kicked off Monday evening at the old Congress Arena, the General Overseer of the church, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye has cautioned Christians against entanglement with sin, urging all to desist from every appearance of evil.
Speaking during his first sermon titled: “In the beginning”, at the official opening of the Holy Ghost Congress on Kilometer 46 Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Adeboye explained that at creation, all was very well with the first man created by God, stating that when man sinned against God through disobedience God’s glory departed from him.
Continuing, Adeboye stressed that sin hinders complete restoration, adding that there cannot be restoration until sin is dealt with, warning that sin is a terrible thing and a sting that occasions shame, multiple sorrows, hard labour and death.
In his words: “In the beginning all was well, and Man started very well with God. The first divine encounter with man was with blessings, God blessed man with several blessings. Man had enormous mental capacity to name all the things God created; he was the first professor among professors without going to school. He was clothed with God’s glory.
“If you want God’s blessings to last in your life, say no to sin, because I know of some preachers who said you can sin as much as you like after you have become born again. That is not true. It is because they do not know the Bible,” he noted.
Assuring participants of God’s ability to deal with all forms of life’s challenges once they shun sin, embrace holiness and obedience, the revered man of God urged worshippers to be ready to experience God’s miraculous acts, praying that their restoration will be total.
Pastor Adeboye said: “God knows your foundation, He knows the beginning of that problem in your life. He has the ability to uproot any mountain from the very beginning. He was there before your fruitless efforts began, He was there before your bareness, He was there before your storm and when you find yourself in a storm, call upon the one who was there before the storm existed. He will answer you. He can restore all your losses, God can change curse to blessing, hard labour to rest, He can change fear to faith, He can change shame to glory, and God can give you complete restoration.”
Assures participants of God’s answer to prayers
Pastor Adeboye before his ministration, admonished the congregation to take the spiritual retreat very seriously, saying God will hear their diverse petitions: “Do not think God does not hear you, we may be many, the cry may be diverse but He hears individuals, that is why I beseech all to be attentive because you will have testimonies. I pray that God will hear you.”
Thanksgiver never begs—Pastor Ashimolowo
Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo in the first message of the day themed: “Power of Thanksgiving”, explained that thanksgiving is a necessity for all mankind, stressing that victory, breakthrough and restoration are all concealed in praises, maintaining that thanksgiving is the ultimate key to unstoppable breakthrough.
Highlighting some of the powers of thanksgiving, Pastor Ashimolowo counselled that Christians should desist from complaining and mormouring and always show a heart of gratitude to God in all situations, stating that God in return will open heaven and bless them with freedom and supernatural blessings.
In his words: “When you give thanks to God, you trigger blessings, favour, unlimited breakthrough. Through thanksgiving, you prove that you trust God. When you praise, it demoralises Satan and its agents and you are saying God is still in charge of your life. Thanksgiving is an act of honouring God and He will reveal the future to you because He is in charge of your life.”
Some of the early arrivals at the event told our reporter, that they were ready for God’s touch and complete restoration in all their endeavours, especially in the country.
One Mrs. Blessing Okafor who travelled from the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt to attend the one-week spiritual event said: “I believe that the Almighty God will restore all my past glory during this year’s congress, my case will not be different and I will go back home with loads of testimonies.”
Commuters lament hike in fares in the Camp
THERE was a mild drama yesterday as some of the campers lamented the sudden hike in transportation fares within the Redemption Camp. The worshippers said they now pay N80 for the green shuttle buses while the tricycle operators billed them N100 per drop.
Complaining that they were made to pay through their nose going to the New Arena, they described the act as únfair, saying that motorists take advantage of the influx of worshippers during this period. They called on the church leadership, especially Daddy G.O to please come to their aid and put palliative measures in place for them to have access to affordable transportation during the congress.
One of the operators who simply identified himself as ‘Oga’ said the increment was not intentional but due to situation of things in the country and that commuters within the camp do pay a lot of money to get the congress sticker, therefore they have to get their money in return.
It was also gathered that as at Monday evening, hundreds of ‘Yellow Tricycles’ have already flooded the camp Car Park C, Youth Centre and other strategic locations all waiting to get accreditation sticker for them to operate within the camp and the new arena.
However, most of the camp drivers who pleaded anonymity, expressed concern over such arrangement, saying: “The church will not be able to account for these people incase there is any complaint from the passengers. They are not well behaved, majority of them were area boys and touts and will never adhere to the camp rules and regulations and this will not portray the church in good light. The authorities should look beyond the financial gain and protect the church image.”
When our reporter visited Car Park C on Monday, the gate was filled with hundreds of yellow tricycle operators who were seriously engaged in verbal assault of one another which later degenerated to physical combat.
RCCG upgrades madical facilities, security
Pastor Adeboye also assured on security as thousands of participants have begun to converge at the venue, stressing however, that ultimately only God can guarantee security of lives and property. Quoting a Bible passage, Adeboye maintained that except “the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”
Reacting to a Vanguard inquiry about the state of security in the large Camp which is hosting a mammoth crowd of worshippers at this year’s Holy Ghost Congress, a pastor who pleaded anonymity told our reporter that he was only able to say that the church actually had put in place measures that will guarantee safety of lives and property.
The church’s head of the Medical Team, Pastor (Dr.) Femi Adeyemi assured that medical facilities in the camp have been upgraded to meet medical challenges during the congress. According to him, though the mission believes in divine health but adequate arrangements must be put in place to forestall any medical eventualities.
Asked about the state of preparedness, he said: “We are good to go as usual. There are preparatory things that we normally do and all those things are already in place. Whenever we have programmes like this, we have things we deliver on. When you look at the way the camp is, we have many facilities within the camp. We have the maternity and it’s fully ready as usual. We have the Arena Clinic which is usually the hub for most of the activities. If you get there now, you will see that everything is in place and people have started coming in.
“Red Cross is already there. We cannot 100% restrict the direction of flow of vehicular movements, we also have this mobile clinics scattered all over the place. We have about eight ambulances, fully equipped. We have the health center which is like a secondary facility where you can do all sort including surgery. We also do surgery in the maternity now.
“Then when you go to the new arena, there are two places, one close to the G.O’s office and is fully equipped. Right under the altar where you have the ushers, we also have a big facility there. In the old auditorium, what we normally do is that we have mobile clinics. There are three big ambulances in specific locations and mobile clinics that will be scattered around the place. The human resource, like I always say whenever we have programmes like this, the first one or two days, people will be trickling in.
“Whenever we are gathered like that, the kind of specialties that you have on ground; it’s always difficult to find it in any other gathering because we have virtually all the specialists you can think of on ground. The issue now is that should there be need for anything, it’s a matter of knowing who is in charge. We are all doctors but when the chips are down, if you need a general surgeon, a gynecologist, psychiatrist and whatever, we have specialists. That’s the way the whole thing is coordinated.
“The game plan is this, during the convention, we had about three to four deliveries in the new auditorium. If we hadn’t prepared for that, we wouldn’t have been able to do that there. We know occasionaly whenever we have big human flow, we normally have issues with traffic, so what we do is, whatever may be the issue or circumstances we have on our hands, we should be able to manage from any point at least for the first 48 to 72 hours after which if we want to say we want to evacuate; the evacuation we do per se will be within the camp ground.
“If you want to move someone now from the new auditorium, it’s either we move the person to the clinic at the old arena or we move him to the health center. So that’s the way we work. God forbid, should we have a case that is unusual or very heavy, like I told you, whenever we are on ground like this, the human resource we have is because we have such kind of human resource that’s why people gather from all over the country. The moment the program finishes and we can’t continue with this management, we now evacuate to wherever. We don’t just take people to wherever, we still evacuate them to places where we are very influential to ensure a good outcome of whatever happens,” Dr. Adeyemi explained.
He also took time to explain why heavily pregnant women take the risk of travelling long distances to the camp during similar programmes, saying “most of the times, when people have issues, they find it difficult to open their mouth to say it. The bible says the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous runs in to it and are saved. There are so many things that happen to people that when they come they cannot open their mouth to say it but it’s between them and God. And we cannot deny them that factor. Just like we see heavily pregnant women, we also see people who discharge themselves from hospitals. If people discharge themselves from hospitals to come to the camp, it gives you the kind of idea of what things are.”
As the end of the year approaches with harmattan dusts, what are the likely health challenges that people have especially when in a crowd like that?
“One of the very common things is to do with issues with cold, malaria, diarrhea. And occasionally people get dehydrated and exhausted. You can imagine walking from the junction to the new auditorium. Even if you are a sports person, by the time you get there, you will be tired. So what we do is if the place is dusty, we have lots of face masks. There are facilities like nebulae in all of the ambulances. We invest so much in that. We have the ones that just battery operated. For exhaustion, we give the person some water to drink and glucose and they are good to go.
“Occasionaly whenever we have gathering like this, medically, there are some things we call cold cases and there are things we call emergency. Most people come with cold cases because they know that on grounds like this, they are going to get everything free. Some come with old sores or wounds in the leg, these are not emergencies. But they will still come knowing fully well that when they come, they will be attended to and given their medication. We don’t drive them away. They are also welcomed within the one week and they are done and out. At times when we have programs like this and every other person is gone, some of us will still be here running around to make sure that every person that came and were moved somewhere are doing well. That has reduced dramatically now,” Dr. Adeyemi volunteered.
Asked what the cost implication of such medicals to the mission, he hesitated before saying: “There’s a tangible cost and intangible cost. And many at times, the intangible cost far outweighs the tangible cost. When it comes to the issue of medication, funds are provided for us to do some things. But can any fund ever be enough? There’s no parish that’s ever enough. The reason the auditorium is not fenced is because it keeps on expanding. But one thing I can tell you is this, should we exhaust everything we have, which has never happened before, all we need to do is to cry out for help. You don’t want anybody to die….”
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