“Thus shall ye say unto them, the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens” Jeremiah 10:11
MY name is Pius Chima Okechukwu; I worship at the Lagos Island Parish of the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Lagos.
I have come out here today to give glory to the Lord for granting me the salvation of my soul. It happened that my family was the custodian of the community idols which my people believed were dedicated to the goddess of the land.\
In fact, the shrine had been there even before my mother was married into our family. And so the custom had been that the chief priest of the shrine would always come from my family. After the death of any priest, they would consult the oracle to determine who would take over as the new priest. The last occupant of the position was my uncle.
Now when he died, I was told that the oracle had chosen me to succeed him as the new priest. Though I was still young and not yet a Christian, I rejected the priestly office in my heart, because I didn’t see any benefit derivable from it.
I wasn’t just interested. Along the line, those evil forces manipulated me somehow, and I returned to the village, discussed with my mother and told her that I had changed my mind and was now willing to serve as priest to the idol. My mother was very happy at my decision and even told me of some efforts she had made to ensure I did not die prematurely for refusing the priestly office.
In fact, she said she had spent a lot of money in that regard. Her fear was fuelled by stories of people who were said to have died in times past for refusing to serve the idol when they were chosen. She even cited specific examples in the village.
Before that decision, I had noticed that there were lots of problems in the family, so I resolved that if serving the idol was going to provide solutions to them, then I was ready to make the sacrifice to appease the gods.
When eventually I became the priest, I found out that my expectations were not met and it was like going from bad to worse. The problems worsened rather than move away. I continued to ponder my life and happenings around me which made life very boring.
Now, one fateful Saturday, as I sat in front of my shop, two sisters passed by and after they had gone a little distance, they returned and asked if I could spare a little time, so they could share the word of God with me and I obliged them.
Though I was serving an idol, it didn’t stop me at that time from sometimes reading the Bible or even making some kind of prayers which I did sometimes with kola nuts and incantations. After their message, I sensed a strange thing happening in me.
I found myself itching to open up to them, to tell them what I was into but some forces prevailed against me and I couldn’t muster the will to do that. After they had gone, I started sensing some kind of light inside me and I wondered what was going on. I kept my fingers crossed until they came again after some time to invite me to church.
I honoured their invitation and came to the Watchman fellowship. The message that came from the pulpit that day really broke me down, because it was all about my life and I made up my mind to pitch my tent with the Watchman.
Two weeks after my first encounter with this Ministry, it was announced that there would be a crusade in Ajegunle titled, ‘Heaven And Earth Will Meet At Ajegunle’. I attended the crusade and after the programme, I noticed a great turnaround in my life; and without much ado, I made up my mind to renounce my priestly position.
Though nobody spoke to me one-on-one on the matter, I did not know what moved me to make that decision and go to the village afterwards to announce it.
At the village, I informed my mother that I had decided to quit the priestly office, and surprisingly, she saw reasons with me and said there was no problem if that was what I wanted. Having gained her support and confidence, I proceeded to the home of the eldest person in our kindred and after narrating my story to him, he also gave me his nod to do as I wanted.
The next hurdle, as it were, was what to tell the community but while ruminating on that, God provided an answer. God put it in me to ask the elders when they gathered whether the shrine belonged to the community or my family.
If they said that it belonged to my family, then I would tell them that we intended to take full possession of it and do whatever we wanted with it; but if they said that it belonged to the community, then I would tell them to take what belonged to them that we no longer needed it.
As I threw this question at them when they gathered, their spokesperson answered that it belonged to the community. I now told them that we were handing over to them what belonged to them since we were no longer interested in being its custodian.
When I said this, the spokesman looked at the direction of the eldest man in our family and asked him whether he heard what I had just said. He answered that he was in support of my action. And with that there was nothing they could do again. That was how my family was delivered from serving the idol and I ceased to be its priest.
My testimony serves to confirm that the Watchman is indeed a place of encounter with the Almighty God and where the stones of this life are turned into pillows. My experiences demonstrate the truth in what Bible says in Hebrews 2:15, ‘And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.’
Because we had been in bondage all these years, nothing was working out fine in my family; we had been in poverty and relegated to the background even in the village, but since I gave my life to Christ, there has been a turnaround spiritually and materially.
Praise the Lord!”
