SHORT STORIES OF MIRACULOUS OUTCOMES FROM MISSIONS AID OUTREACHES

A. ITAKA

Located in Etung LGA of Cross River State, it took a visitor about three hours of local boat ride in those days, to arrive Itaka from Ikom. As at that time in 1998, an 80-year-old indigene was yet to see a bicycle for the first time. While civilization was too far from them, occultism and witchcraft were rife. When Missions Aid International entered the land of Itaka in 1998, their king as at then, Chief Enya, declared that we were the first ‘Government’ they had ever seen. We entered the land with Free Medicare and Welfare projects alongside the strong preaching of the gospel. Our powerful challenge against their occultism and witchcraft led to the public burning of five shrines and the public repentance of two of their chief priests. The ruling Epe cult was sacked and their hall and occult paraphernalia were burnt during a holy riot conducted by the repentant Itaka youth. The event nearly turned fatal as the revenge-seeking cultists surrounded the missionaries with machetes and other weapons. At that point the Lord led Pastor Emma Nwachukwu to challenge them to a power contest. He told them that the first among them to step forward to kill anybody would fall down and die immediately. At that point all the cultists withdrew by moving backwards until they all left.

As majority of Itaka people saw the power of Jesus, they repented of their sins and godlessness and turned to God. Today, God has rewarded them for accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. The Lord used Missions Aid International to locate an International Secondary School in Itaka in year 2003 and in April 2010 we constructed a jetty (habour) worth several millions of naira for Itaka people at their beachhead. The Lord has also turned the heart of the State Government to Itaka. Now they have a state school, hospital and ongoing electrification project. Also a road has been constructed that finally connected Itaka by land to the rest of the world! Praise the Lord!

B. GIDAN GIZO

This is a Maguzawa community in Sumaila LGA of Kano State. They are believed to be among the original settlers of Kano State but they were instructed by their fore fathers never to accept Islam. And just like the Rechabites of Jeremiah 35, they have fastidiously obeyed their fore fathers and rejected Islam up to this day. This has cost them dearly because the sharia state Government of Kano has given it back to them by ensuring that no form of civilization entered the land of Gidan Gizo! The Government ensured that all other villages around them have good roads, electricity, water boreholes, schools, hospitals and even mosques financed by the State while Gidan Gizo remained a bush without any motorable road or any other amenities. The water they drank from their hand dug well has the colour of milk. The people died of cheap sicknesses, as they were not allowed to visit hospitals in neighbouring Moslem villages unless they were willing to convert to Islam. Their children too did not go to school for the same reason. What was most bizarre as at then was that the Gidan Gizo people who rejected Islam in preference to Christianity knew nothing about Jesus Christ, except the cross they hung on the doors of their mud houses. This was the physical and spiritual state of these persecuted and abandoned people until God led MAI missionaries to discover them in 2006. Since then, their story has changed! The Lord has used us to provide the missing amenities in Gidan Gizo including water borehole, school, clinic and electrification. Also a big church has been built for them and a missionary family now lives among them and is teaching them how to live as true Christians.

C. IBWA

When we discovered this community, near Abuja, in the year 2002, there was only one known Christian from the community. Every other indigene was a Moslem! However when the Lord sent us on this potentially suicidal mission, we entered the land with the bible in one hand and Free Medicare and other life enhancing gifts on the other. To the glory of God, we were well received to the extent that the chief of Ibwa gave us a free land for the building of a Christian church. Today, Christianity has taken root in Ibwa.

D. KAFFIN KORO

In some mission fields, we were presented with the dilemma of choosing either to abandon the gospel or surrender our lives. To the glory of God, we have been consistent in choosing not to abandon the gospel. In Kaffin Koro, Niger State, in 2005, the Sharia State Government banned Missions Aid International from preaching publicly in their state, just before the well-advertised crusades were to commence. By God’s grace, we boldly ignored them and went ahead with the crusade, which recorded over three thousand adults in attendance every night for six days. Midway into the program, the State Security Service arrested the Missions Director, Pastor Emmanuel Nwachukwu, but released him same day with a stern warning never to preach in the state anymore. However, from the SSS office, Pastor Nwachukwu returned to the crusade ground and the program continued for three more days until the Kaffin Koro people believed and confessed that Jesus Christ is the Lord! On the very last day of the crusade, the very SSS official that arrested Pastor Emmanuel on day three, returned to the crusade ground, this time, not to arrest but to apologize to him. Praise God!

E. BORTIANOR, GHANA

Bortianor in Ghana was known as the headquarters of witchcraft in West Africa. When Missions Aid international entered the land in 2004, not only did power change hands but the chief priest of the Papla witchcraft deity surrendered his life to Jesus! Today, the transformational anointing of MAI has yielded fruit in Bortianor. Civilization has entered Bortianor including roads, mega buildings and 4-star hotels.

F. LOME, TOGO

In the year 2005, MAI executed a project that started a new church in Lome, capital of Togo. Soon after the project, God used the converts of that program to start a revolution in other areas of Togo. One of them, Appom Faustin, was chosen as the new chief priest of his village shrine soon after he became born again at our program. He not only stood for Christ against his whole village of Agome Koutoukpa but single handedly destroyed the oracle and all their totems of worship, presenting Jesus to them as the only true God!

G. ENUMGBA

This is a community in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State. Again, here were a people held hostage by witchcraft and idolatry. Agatu is the headquarters of where the spiritual insurance against death by gunshots is done in Nigeria. In fact, the evening our missions team arrived in Enumgba, ten elderly witches in a single file, six women and four men, danced around the village with short brooms in their hands cursing us, their unwelcome visitors! Why were we not welcome? Because by the law of the reigning evil in Enumgba, nothing good must