A good time was had by all

Sadly this is the last instalment of our South Padre Island Chronicles. Today I am posting a pot pourri of photographs for reflection. I am truly grateful for my wife and kids. If I had been given the chance to have hand picked my family, I couldn't have done any better. As I reflect on the week of our vacation, and nostalgically revisit all the pictures we took, I am reminded that there is nothing better than family.

All the money in the world could not have made this vacation any more enjoyable. Playing racquet ball with my son each day, building sandcastles with my daughters, walking on the beach with my wife, chowing down on "cabrito" in Mexico, fishing in the gulf, and all the other incredibly fun things we did, could not have been any more enjoyable. These things were fun because of the people I shared them with. I am one of the wealthiest men in the world! I make that declaration boldly as I recall a conversation I had just this evening with a dear friend. He reminded me that I am blessed and fortunate because I have a wife and kids who love me, as well as friends, a lead team, and a church that values and prays for me. How could anyone be wealthier than that?

I hope you enjoy these last few photos of our South Padre Island vacation. I know I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing them with you. Drop me a line sometime about your vacation.

Gone Fishing

Believe it or not, last weeks trip to Texas was the first time I've ever gone fishing. On a previous trip to Mercedes, TX, I had gone on an overnight "fishing trip" on a relatively small boat. While the company was wonderful, we spent much of the night bobbing up and down in the water, trying to fall asleep under the stars. As I recall, there was no fishing done whatsoever, and if the truth be told, I was particularly excited to get back to dry land the next day.

Not so this trip. My son and I went out with a couple of avid "professional" fishermen on a really nice boat, and they had more fishing rods between them than I would care to count. After they'd explained the rudimentary details of fishing, we started our first practicum by throwing a net out to catch our own bait, and then we headed out into the gulf a few miles to catch some prized red fish. It was an incredible experience, and by the time I had wrestled my fish into the boat, I'd begun to have dreams of winning some sport fishing competition (not so fast my friend, I'm just kidding). The amazing thing is that only my son and I caught anything before we had to head back to shore (0ur boat developed a little engine trouble). We both caught 27 inch red fish and the experience of reeling them in and wrestling them into the boat was heady.

I must admit that it was one of the highlights of our trip (at least for me) and I really am seriously considering taking up fishing as a hobby (with all that spare time I have). That evening we had fish for dinner, and I admit, I had fish for breakfast the next morning too. There was so much meat that my family could only eat one of the fish (all five of us) over two meals. We gave one of the fish to our friend Efrain, who had been so gracious to take time off from his busy work schedule and hang out with us while we were on vacation. I am attaching a photo of my son and I proudly displaying our catch (and for good measure I am tossing in a photo of Efrain trying to fish with his mouth while tubing). The photo of us holding our prize catch is a little grainy as it was taken on a camera phone. In case you're wondering which one I am, I'm the good looking one on the left, or is it the right?

Anyway, the sense of accomplishment in knowing that I'd actually caught and cleaned my own dinner, made the fish taste better than any I have ever had. I guess it's sort of like 'fishing' for men. Jesus called His disciples to walk with Him, promising to make them "fishers of men." The comparison is drawn from the fact that there is no greater feeling of euphoria than sharing the truths of the scriptures with someone, and then sharing in the privilege of leading them into a personal relationship with Jesus. The satisfaction I derive from "fishing" for men is incomparable to anything else I have ever experienced. It's a joy and a privilege to go "fishing". Maybe you should try it sometime!

Matamoros

One of my most favorite things to do when I visit south Texas, is to visit Mexico. It's a little less than 30 minutes drive from Harlingen through the International Bridge in Brownsville, to a town called Matamoros. A large group of us crossed the border in three cars, on an express mission to get some world famous goat meat. I absolutely love goat meat! In Mexico it is referred to as "Cabrito" and is served roasted and tender, with tortillas and all the "fixins." It was my family's first trip to Mexico, and my wife even found time to visit twice, going to another town called Nuevo Progresso. I am posting some of the photos of our foray into Mexico. In case you're wondering what the spiritual principle for today is, I figured you'd be too preoccuppied with the tantalizing photos of cabrito to worry about that. But just in case you need a little something extra, remember that you'll never really know how good something tastes until you try it, so don't knock goat meat until you've tried it. I'm not sure what that translates into in a spiritual context but I'm pretty sure you'll come up with something. Cabrito anyone?

Walking on Water (okay, in water)

The day we arrived on South Padre Island, we met up with Chad Roy, a friend of a friend, who owns a brand-spanking-new boat. He took us out on the gulf about a mile or so from shore, where we got to see the wild dolphins feeding up close. As they pranced and danced around the boat, sometimes they would come within ten feet of us (it felt as if you could lean out of the boat and touch them). It was an amazing sight and feeling.

Initially the older of my two daughters, who happens to be less adventurous, had her face buried in the crook of her arm, not wanting to see where we were going as we "floated" across the water. As you will see in one of the photographs, that lasted about, oh, all of two seconds before she was in the water prancing and dancing like the dolphins. This was because of her initial perception of the waters of the gulf. Being a mile out from shore, we somehow got the impression that we were out in really deep waters, especially because we were only a few yards away from where the dolphins were feeding (and we had been informed that they only feed in deep water and it was around 20 feet where they were feeding).

When my friend and my son decided to go tubing, we discovered that we were only in about two and a half feet of water. Because the water is rather dark and murky, it was impossible to tell that it was that shallow since we couldn't see the ocean floor. This is how it is in our relationship with God sometimes. He asks us to step out of the boat and trust him to walk on water, but we think "there's no way on earth I can do that, the water's too deep!" Perception isn't always reality though. Our notion that the water where we were was deep, however scary to my daughter, was false. Once she realized that it was actually really shallow, she was willing to step out of the boat and walk on, I mean in water!

It was shallow enough at some points that we got stuck on a sandbar and literally had to pile out of the boat, and dig the bow free so that we could push it into deeper water. Today I am posting pictures of our water escapades. Enjoy!

Green might be the new black

Last week we went on our first family vacation (all expenses paid by someone other than me) since moving to Orlando to start The Well. It was a really relaxing time for me, and I actually rediscovered the joys of hanging out on the beach, wading out into the water and being buffeted by the waves, and just plain doing nothing! I'm back home now. Back to the real world. While I truly enjoyed my time away, I couldn't wait to get back to what I love doing so much: Investing in people's lives and serving our community through The Well.

Anyway, just as I promised last week, I will devote this week to posting photos and stories about the trip so that you can live vicariously through me (This might be just the vacation you've needed yourself). We were meant to have stayed at the condo of a really generous friend of mine. However, when we arrived in Harlingen (the airport you fly into to get to South Padre Island) he informed me that his condo only had one bedroom, a pull-out sofa bed in the sitting room, and no maid service. Since there are five of us in my family, and we were commited to personally not straightening one sheet this week, this would have posed a bit of a problem. He'd already thought of all that ahead of our arrival and had decided to book us into the Radisson for the entire week, on his own dime. Wow! we had a two bed/ two bath condo on the 10th floor overlooking the pool and the beach. What an incredible view to wake up to every morning (I could really get used to that kind of lifestyle).

We cooked much of the time, ate out some of the time and generally blew our disciplined eating lifestyle for the entire week. Fortunately for us we were reliably informed that once you cross the bridge from Port Isabel onto South Padre Island, calories don't count. Phew! What a relief to know since I probably set a new Guiness world record for number of calories consumed in a day. They were right about the calories not counting. My son and I played raquet ball every day and the scales actually indicated that I was losing and not gaining weight (no I didn't adjust the scales, why would you even think that?). Now that's the way to live. To be able to eat whatever you want and not gain a pound. Don't quote me on that though if it doesn't work for you.

Today I will post a few pictures of the view from our room. Is that green I detect on your face? Don't worry, envy is easily taken care of through the deliverance ministry, just call my assistant and set up an appointment!

By the way, today is my precious wife's birthday. It's one of those really special ones with a zero after the first digit, and it isn't thirty. If you know her, drop her a line and wish her a fantastic day.

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 6)

Moving to Colorado Springs was easier said than done. Making the decision to move was not the hard part though. You see, I had read Ted Haggard's, Primary Purpose and became convinced that Colorado Springs was where I needed to be. In November of 1996 ( as I'd previously stated) I was praying and fasting to get some real clarity concerning what our next step would be. I began to sense that we were supposed to relocate from South Bend, IN. The problem was that I had three places I was considering, of which Colorado Springs was one, and I needed to have something or someone tip the scales one way or another.

I had really loved my first trip to Colorado Springs in 1994, and Ted Haggard's book certainly weighed in heavily in favor of our moving there. I loved the fact that there was someone who believed that a city could be transformed through love, prayer, communication and relationship. Ted's book was like water in an arid desert. To know that what I had always believed about city transformation was not only documented in print, but was actually taking place in Colorado Springs through New Life Church, convinced me that I was supposed to be a part of that. I spoke to a couple of trusted confidants and they had nothing but positive encouragement for me in my desire to relocate to Colorado Springs. In fact, the Dean of my college said, "I can't see anything but good coming out of a move to Colorado Springs." (Years later he would move there himself).

With all of that positive affirmation in the "bank" as well as my wifes hearty support (and nothing else in the bank), we packed up all our wordly goods into a 24 foot Ryder truck (we had sold most of our entire household furniture for $750.00 wholesale), hitched my SAAB 900 turbo to the back of the truck, and my six year old son and I set off on the journey of our lives. My wife had some professional exams to take and so she remained behind with our two daughters, one of whom was just three weeks old, for three more weeks. My first clue that we were headed in the right direction was when the brakes locked up on the trailer hauling my car, somewhere on the border of Illinois and Iowa. It took over five hours to finally get a replacement trailer from Ryder, and we finally made it to Omaha, NE at the ungodly hour of 12.30am, having left South Bend at 7.00am. the previous day.

Our inauspicious arrival in Colorado Springs was marked by a deluge of rain, and so I didn't unload the Ryder truck for two days. Finally I contacted Ted, whom I had met a couple of times, and had discussed the possibility of coming to work for New Life Church. He expressed joy at hearing from me and mentioned that he had tried to reach me back in Indiana a couple of weeks earlier to encourage me to consider moving out to The Springs and working for New Life. I was shocked, because I had actually picked up from South Bend with no guarantees of employment, and since I hadn't heard from him, I assumed he wasn't interested in hiring me. Apparently, at the time he had called, my phone had been disconnected (for a day or two) for non payment of my bill, and of all the times he could have called, it was then.

I guess God really wanted to see if I would be obedient and move even when I didn't know that I had the guarantee of employment. If the truth be told, it never crossed my mind not to move even though I hadn't heard from Ted. In fact, I was willing to take a customer service job answering the phones at MCI (at the time, the largest employer in The Springs) in order to ensure that I was in Colorado Springs. I set up an appointment to meet with Ted four days after arriving in The Springs, and that was the day I began working for New Life Church. Ted had the administrator cut me my first paycheck and I couldn't contain my excitement at what God had in store for me. The next five years would prove some of the most memorable and rewarding years of my life.

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 5)

It was around November of ’96 while praying and fasting, that I really began to feel that my time in South Bend, IN was coming to an end. While I experienced sadness at the fact that we would be leaving all the trusted relationships we had formed over the years, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of elation that God was moving me closer to my destiny. Bible School and its attendant ‘field practicum’ was over! Yay!! As I reflected on our five year sojourn in Notre Dame Country, it wasn’t the difficult times that readily came to mind. I recalled the “mystery benefactor” who, for one full year had left a care package outside the door of our apartment every single week. There were weeks when we didn’t have the money to buy diapers for my son. Those weeks would find diapers in the care package. It seemed that every time we had a significant need, God would speak to our “MB” (as we came to affectionately refer to this person), and that need would be miraculously filled in our care package.

I remembered being recommended by the Dean of my college to speak at a church in a small town called Wabash, IN. They were in the process of finding a senior pastor and needed to fill the pulpit every Sunday in the interim. I spoke to the head elder at the church over the phone, and he asked that I speak two Sundays in a row. Arrangements were made for me to be picked up by the folks from the church since I didn’t have a reliable enough car to make the two hour journey. The night before I left for the first speaking engagement, we had a couple of friends over at our apartment. As we were praying that God would visibly manifest His presence in the services the next two Sundays, one of our friends felt compelled to pray that God would supernaturally provide a decent car for us that would be paid for, insured, and registered so that I wouldn’t have to depend on anyone picking me up the following Sunday. I volubly expressed my Amen, but felt much less confident inside that any such thing could happen than I was willing to admit.

The next day appeared to justify my lack of confidence in the prayers. The people that came to pick me up were a sweet, middle-aged couple. When they discovered that I was black, they were a little uncertain that they had made the right decision in inviting me to come and speak to their small-town, all white church. Wabash had only one black person in it and he arrived there when I did. I expressed my appreciation to the couple for driving four hours to and from Wabash just to pick me up, and explained that I would secure a ride for the following Sunday so that they wouldn’t have to endure the arduous drive for another weekend. They quickly explained to me that they had secured someone else to speak for the following Sunday and so wouldn’t require me for more than that weekend.

On the journey to Wabash we spent the two hour drive getting to know each other really well. They had warmed to me by the time we arrived, and explained that they were going to bring me in round the back, straight into the pastor’s study, while they met with the rest of the elders to prepare them for someone a little bit different than they had expected. I took all this in stride, and preached a passionate sermon about attitude being the key to altitude. At the end of the service people were lining up to get a copy of the message on tape. They had to search the cupboards to find their tape duplicating machine which had seldom been used. I was asked to stay behind and speak at an evening service which they had hurriedly put together.

Since I was staying for a previously unscheduled service, they took me out to lunch in neighboring Marion. En-route to Marion, we drove past an auto dealership that had a Peugeot 505 station wagon on the lot. As we drove by the dealership, I expressed surprise at seeing a car that you rarely find in the USA. On the way back from lunch, my host turned in to the dealership and pulled up right behind the Peugeot. We got out and walked around the car as he quizzed me about its performance and maintenance. We got back in time for the evening service, and afterwards, this precious couple that had already driven four hours that day (not counting our trip to Marion), proceeded to drive me all the way back to South Bend.

Our parting conversation was about what time I wanted to be picked up the next Sunday! Apparently, I had passed the “color” test and was eligible to preach as originally scheduled. On Tuesday evening I got a phone call from Dean (the man who had picked me up) asking me for my drivers license info. I was a little perturbed and asked why he needed this. He explained that he needed the info for the insurance for the Peugeot 505 which the Lord had impressed upon him to buy for me, insure, and register it for a whole year. When I explained that I couldn’t afford to pay him back for the car, he asked if I was deaf or hard of hearing. “The Lord told me to buy it for you; I didn’t say anything about paying me back.” Wow!

The next Sunday found me driving myself and my family to Wabash in my brand new Peugeot 505. At the end of the service, the elders offered me the position of senior pastor of the church with a parsonage attached to the offer. My destiny however, lay elsewhere. Onward to Colorado!

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 4)

As I continue my reflections on the process of transitioning from an alien, I have come to realize that a significant part of this process of finding my purpose necessarily required that I experience all of the highs and the lows that I experienced in South Bend, IN. There were lessons learned, too numerous to detail here, that, unknown to me were preparing me for my destiny. I know. I know. It sounds almost cliché to say that God was working character in me through suffering. However, as cliché as it may sound, this is clearly how God has chosen to deal with His own. Evidently we’re not smart enough to get it simply by reading about other people’s experiences, because if we were, the Bible would be all that we needed to learn to trust God and take Him at His word. As it stands, even personal experience sometimes has to be repeated before we get the picture. Why, even the mighty David didn’t figure out that Saul had a vendetta against him until after the sixth attempt on his life (and he was a man after God’s own heart)!

It became crystallized in me over the course of my time in Indiana, that I had this burning passion to “surf” in some really “dangerous” waters. Psalm 2: 8 had continued to reverberate around my head and my heart. “Ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” The more I read it, the more I pondered the potency of this verse. Has anyone ever taken this verse literally, I wondered? What will it cost me to ask for the nations? Do you have to have special training and insight to be able to ask such a huge thing? Whatever the answers to those questions (I’m still finding them out); I took the plunge and asked. I prayed fervently that I wanted my life to make a difference not just in the lives of people in my immediate sphere of influence, but in the nations of the world. Further more, I wanted to be the first Nigerian (that I know of) to pastor a life-giving, life-changing church in the USA that was truly multicultural and multigenerational. Apparently I had no idea what I was asking.

I like what Mark Batterson says in his book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.

“At some point in our spiritual journeys, we run into something called reality. And it usually happens when we’re driving sixty miles per hour with no seat belt on! The result is spiritual whiplash. Simple answers don’t suffice, and God doesn’t fit into the nice, neat boxes He used to fit into…We experience psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs. In other words, something happens that doesn’t jibe with what we believe.
Dissonance comes in two primary flavors: unanswerable questions and unexplainable experiences. And I have tasted lots of both flavors.”

Well written Mark. I couldn’t have said it any clearer in application to my life and circumstances. Either I had really made God mad by asking what I had asked, or the learning curve that I had to walk was significant, before I would be ready to begin this journey. Whatever the case, I was bombarded on every side. Here are just a couple of memories:

Many of the students at my Bible College, including me, went to church in places other than the church the school was affiliated with. At some point, someone in the hierarchy decided that that was not such a good idea and determined that everyone who went to school there was obligated to also go to church there. Many of us protested, explaining that we were already involved in ministry at the churches we attended. Leadership considered this response and then decided that it made sense for people who were indigenous students, but as for the rest of us, we hadn’t lived in the States long enough to make that kind of commitment to a local church and so the “decree” would stand.

I refused to comply, citing the fact that I was the one who got to choose where my family worshiped and no one else had the right to usurp that right. I was promptly kicked out of school pending the time I could pay the balance of my tuition, even though the original arrangement for me, as it was for everyone else, allowed me to pay my tuition in installments. Kicked out of Bible College? Who gets kicked out of Bible College? Eventually I graduated but had the dubious distinction of being the only one in my graduating class that was not licensed by the ministry. I was called all kinds of uncomplimentary names and assured that I wouldn’t amount to much in ministry anyway. And this was the place where I was receiving my spiritual preparation for ministry!

Shortly after graduation, I started a ministry with the stated purpose of networking and building bridges between churches and indeed between other ministries in other nations. I felt called to host an event for the local churches tagged, Unity Celebration of Praise and jumped in at the deep end by investing what little finances we had. As I approached different church leaders and explained the vision, many jumped on board, while just as many questioned my motives. I was even asked by one pastor, who I thought I was, and what gave me the right to be organizing such an event since I wasn’t the recognized apostolic leader of the city? I simply explained that even Samuel was used by God to anoint David as king even though he was not in the direct line of succession for the Levitical priesthood. He reluctantly agreed to participate in the event. On the day of the event, the Saint Mary’s College auditorium (across the street from the University of Notre Dame) was filled to its capacity. We incredibly had twenty churches participate in the worship experience, including the church that had chosen not to license me. The event had cost us over $15,000.00 and we had hoped to recoup that expense from taking up an offering, but when the offering was counted we had raised $800.00.

Talk about the flavors of “unanswerable questions and unexplainable experiences.” I was gutted. These experiences were mere microcosms of much of my ministry in South Bend, IN. Yet there was and is a purpose to it all. My friend, Dino Rizzo of Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA says that, as we surf the waves of ministry which God prepares for us, there are certain key things to remember. He quotes Rick Warren as saying, “You can’t make waves, God sends them. He just wants us to learn how to ride them.” He further opines that we must be willing to paddle out a distance from the shore so that we can find the “big un-ridden waves.” He suggests that some of the biggest thrills won’t show up at our doors so we have to be willing to paddle out and find them. Finally, Dino reminds us that we will, on occasion, wipe-out. We will hit the reef of rejection no matter how much you do right, so never surf alone.

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 3)

South Bend, Indiana was a bit of a culture shock for me. On my previous trips to America, I had only visited large cities. I had also spent a lot of my formative years in London and Lagos, both cities with dense populations. South Bend was, well… different! For the first three months I lived in the dorm while my wife and son lived with her sister. In Maryland! It was an extremely difficult three months made even more difficult by the fact that I missed my son’s first birthday. As I settled in to the routine of Bible School, I found that, with nothing around to serve as a distraction, I spent much of my time praying, studying and excelling in my classes. There was, however, one class which turned out to be extremely exacting. The most amazing thing about this class was the fact that I hadn’t signed up for it (at least not consciously). It was called “Character Building 101” and almost all the lessons occurred outside of the classroom. As the three month mark approached, I began to look around for an apartment and a job so that I could take care of my family when they finally arrived in South Bend.

Finding a job that fit around my school schedule proved more difficult than expected. I had morning classes, some evening classes, and even a couple of classes that ran from 7.00 – 9.00pm. I took whatever job came along that would pay me. I worked in basement waterproofing, construction labor, I cleaned the floor of a gas station mini-mart after hours, a couple of photo labs, why, I even worked with a fellow student who had a business felling trees (and these are the jobs I remember). I did so much manual labor; I had no need to go to the gym. The lessons were long and hard. Many times, I found myself questioning if I’d really heard God’s call to ministry. I had assumed that once I arrived in the US, there would be a welcome mat rolled out for me and things would all fall into place quite nicely. This was not the case.

For the first time in my adult life, I found that I was not in a position to call the shots. I was miserable, unfulfilled, and uncertain as to whether or not I was in the right place. I had come to the States after a three year stint in the UK working for Federal Express. In the UK I had an official car, a great income, and a beautiful home. Life was good. This transition to the “ministry-of-suffering” certainly wasn’t my idea of effective preparation for a full-time ministry calling. Why couldn’t we just stick with the homiletics and eschatological theology? I didn’t sign up for this kind of life did I? Then something happened that shook me to my core. I was working for Lester Sumrall’s prayer line, covering the “graveyard” shift. One of my responsibilities was to call up ministry partners and find out if they had any requests I could pray with them about. I took a prayer request from a lady who needed Divine intervention as she approached the deadline to finish working on a banner she was making. After I had prayed with her for a few minutes, she hung up and I promptly forgot the call, until I received a letter from her about a week later. Below are sections of the letter verbatim.




Saturday April 11, 1992

Dear Joe, (this is the name I was known by at the time)

I appreciate so much your call last week. I must tell you that the power of God came on me during our conversation so that I was literally trembling all over—when this happens to me, I know there is something very powerful going on. I shook for 10 minutes after we hung up so that my 4 yr. old asked why I was shaking.

I feel such a prophetic stirring about you when I pray for you. Something interfaced in the Spirit when you called. God has put you on my heart very strongly. You have a destiny to touch nations. I somehow feel that you suffered disappointment when you arrived here. Your high expectations were not met in the place you so looked forward to learning of God in. You are a man after the EXCELLENT MINISTRY— a man who is a 100-fold servant. God is putting steel in your soul and spirit to shine in places that are apathetic and jaded. He is going to bring through you a fresh anointing to people who are “familiar” with the things of God.

God says to you—I have set you in a place to grow and become a warrior of wide experience…

A destiny to touch nations? A man after excellent ministry? Bring a fresh anointing through me? Did she have any idea who I was and how much I was second-guessing my calling and purpose? If she didn’t, God sure did. And, Oh, by the way, that part about "sufferred disappointment," multiply that by ten! It was the first time anyone had so accurately “read my mail” without even knowing me. For the first time since arriving in the USA, I began to realize that God had orchestrated all of these circumstances from the very beginning. Like Joseph of the Old Testament, I did indeed have a greater destiny, but its fulfillment was hinged on the lessons I would learn along the way.

I wonder what Joseph must have been thinking as he went from the pit, to the palace (as a slave), to the prison, and then to Prime Minister (Genesis 37 – 46). His destiny was always to become Prime Minister of Egypt and to deliver the world from famine, but the lessons along the way were essential to his ability to fulfill his purpose. Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor of National Community Church, refers to these types of experiences as, “chasing lions.” Only after you have dared the difficult and seemingly impossible, will you be prepared to step into your purpose. Like Mark points out in his book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, David made Beniah head of his personal army presumably because he liked his resume. You see, Beniah had killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day. Not many men belong to the lion-killers-club. But David did, and Beniah’s singular act of bravery endeared him to David and earned him a stepping stone into the courts of the king. What lion are you chasing?

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 2)

I arrived in the USA in November of 1991, full of hopes and dreams of making a difference in my native homeland of Nigeria. My purpose in coming to the States was to pursue a degree in Christian Ministry that would prepare me for the rigors of what might lie ahead on my return to Nigeria. I had already started a small group which had grown into a church a few years earlier. That process had exposed my significant weaknesses and I was determined to acquire all the necessary skills and knowledge that would make my next foray into ministry a resounding success.

Bible school was not what I expected. For some otherworldly reason, I had this notion that everyone in Bible school was sold out to the service of the Kingdom and had little or no time for frivolities. Imagine my horror when I discovered that a group of the guys had stayed up all night in the room next to mine trying to record my snoring. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I woke up one morning a couple of weeks after arriving in South Bend, IN, only to find toothpaste smeared on walls, doors and carpets all over the dorm. While I had slept blissfully, a completely ‘unspiritual’ toothpaste fight had taken place.

This was my intro to American Christianity. As I attempted to process this with my Dean, his completely ‘unwarranted’ and ‘unsolicited’ counsel to me was, “lighten up already!” I knew right then that I had inadvertently come to the wrong place. Or had I? My next four years would bring me face to face with many of my errant perceptions about God. I quickly learned that God was more interested in developing character in me than He was in developing my speaking skills. I protested vehemently to God about the lack of a commitment to extended prayer times and Bible studies by my fellow students, and He protested to me about my lack of commitment to building relationships with the very people that I claimed I was called to love and serve.

I discovered that my education would turn out to be more practical than I had ever imagined. In an attempt to support my small but growing family (my wife and I had a son who turned one a few months after our arrival in the US), I got a job working at a factory. My job?…capping aerosol cans as they came down the assembly lines. My work hours were 11.00pm to 7.00am, and pretty soon this exacting schedule (I had school from 8.00am till 12.00noon and had to stay awake until I picked my wife up from work at 4.00pm) began to take its toll on me. One evening, with a lull in the aerosol can traffic coming down the assembly line, I dozed off standing up, and was rudely awakened to the sounds of commotion at the end of the line. A group of cans had passed me by as I dozed and the uncapped cans had to be cleared off the assembly line and manually packaged. Needless to say, I was summarily fired the next morning. My shift manager called me into his office and handed me the proverbial pink slip (This is the first and only job I have ever been fired from).

I was beside myself. Me, a college graduate working in this menial job just so I could pay the bills, fired? Unknown to me though, God had other plans, but He also had issues with my pride and needed to teach me a thing or two. I had read somewhere that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Well, He must have had to deal with a ton of stuff in me ‘cos it felt like a brick wall was pushing against me. This was my first ministry practicum.

I ended up taking a position as the head soccer coach for a High School girl’s team. My first meeting with the parents and players provided me with my second ministry practicum. One of the kid’s parents was none other than the foreman who had fired me from my inglorious can-capping job. At the end of the meeting. He asked to speak with me, and voiced concern that I might make his daughter pay for the fact that he had fired me, by marginalizing her. The carnal side of me wanted to gloat at my new found authority over him, but I was reminded of Esther’s story. As Mordecai (Esther’s uncle) encouraged her to present herself before the king in defense of her people, the Jews (it was certain death to go before the king uninvited), he reminded her that if death came to the Jews it would no doubt eventually find her out even though she was in the kings palace. His word’s, enshrined for eternity, “…For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

I assured him that, as a Christian I couldn’t live with my conscience if I resorted to such unfair and immoral tactics. As it happened, his daughter turned out to be one of the better players, as well as one of the best behaved people on the team. She was an asset to have on our team, and I learned so much about her family and their commitment to Jesus over the course of the year. The lesson for me became clearer by the day. I was not called to live my life by the dictates of how I perceived that people had treated me, but by how the Scriptures instructed me to live. It occurred to me that, if I hadn’t been fired from my capping job, I would never have gotten the job as a coach. This job provided me with tremendous opportunities to be a witness for Christ in the lives of so many young people, as I went on to coach with a travel soccer club and with the University of Notre Dame soccer camps. Who would have thought that Bible school training happened outside of the classroom?

CHRONICLES OF AN ALIEN (Part 1)

I’ve spent the better part of my adult life living in the USA even though I was not born here. It’s been, to say the least, a sometimes arduous yet incredibly rewarding journey. Having spent the last sixteen years of my life here, I still have people ask me where my accent is from. At this point I am quick to point out that I speak English the way it was designed to be spoken (I spent my early childhood years in London and so I speak with somewhat of a British affectation), and so I am not the one with the accent but they are. I relate this to you simply because I am learning that aliens stick out in a crowd. Apparently, no matter how I dress or attempt to blend into the crowd, there is something about the way I sound that always gives me away.

I am learning that this can at once be a benefit or a hindrance. I make my living as a speaker (pastoring a church) and so it certainly helps when my congregation thinks that my “accent” makes my sermons more interesting and easier to follow (I sure hope they enjoy the sermons for more reasons than the accent). However, on a trip across the border to Mexico, I learned that my accent does not necessarily make it easier for me to get back into the USA through customs and immigration. I had gone to speak at a church in South Texas (close to the Mexican border) and they had asked if I would be willing to do a TV recording for an international audience. I readily agreed, only to find out that the recording would be done in Mexico. After bribing me with the promise of a lunch of my favorite “Cabrito,” I was keener than ever to make this unscheduled visit to our friendly southern neighbors.

Everything went without a hitch until we arrived at the US side of the border on our way back. I was traveling with my American host who happens to be from Mexico by parentage but has spent all of his life in the USA. (For the purpose of clarity, I should mention to you that I am a US citizen by naturalization, but we will reserve details about that story for another day). The border immigration officer was polite but officious, and asked us if we were US citizens, to which we both replied in the affirmative. He leaned in to the car and looked at me a little closer. Now I am a big, black, clean-shaven man, with a goatie. I have in fact been accused of being an NFL player on many occasions (an accusation to which I don’t offer much resistance), and so you wouldn’t be overly presumptuous if you assumed that I was American. My host on the other hand looks every bit like a Mexican, and to all intents and purposes could have been using me to get across the border into the US.

The officer proceeded to ask me a series of questions, and the more I spoke, the more suspicious he became (He had probably figured me for a Mexican in disguise trying to get across the border illegally). Finally he asked me where I was born and when I told him, Lagos, Nigeria, he promptly had us pull over into a parking spot, where he proceeded to search our car and then ask me for proof of citizenship. As he processed my documentation to ascertain its veracity, I kept thinking to myself, “If only I had a more American accent, we could have driven straight through, into the welcoming arms of my adopted country.”

Interesting story but what’s the point? Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about aliens (no, not the kind on X-files or anything of the sort), the kind of aliens that the Bible refers to Christians as.

Therefore remember that you, once gentiles in the flesh…were without Christ, being aliens…having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2: 11, 12)

I guess aliens stand out in a crowd of people who are all the same. This, I’m discovering, is often what it’s like to be a Christian. We wear our Christianity like a robe (or an accent) and sometimes it serves us well and other times it, quite frankly, stinks. My journey as a Christian in the USA has offered huge learning opportunities, and each time I take advantage of them, I find myself the beneficiary of improvements in my character, calling, and purpose. But there are other “aliens” out there. People who do not share my experience of knowing Christ. These are the ones that I am trying to reach. These are the people for whom I have chosen to make America my home, and responded to my calling as Lead Pastor of The Well. So over the next few weeks, I will be chronicling a lot of my personal journey here (good and bad), in the hope that, perhaps someone who is searching for answers might find them through my journey, and then begin their own journey in earnest. I love being an alien!