MY TESTIMONY IN MINISTRY
-Pastor Ezekiel Atang at Dunamis International Gospel Centre Kingdom Power and Glory World Conference
Day 3 Evening Session
Wednesday 24th November 2021
(3 months ago)
Praise the Lord!!
It gives me great joy today on this 25th Anniversary to stand here for the first time to testify; not as if I’ve not had testimonies but somehow, logistics didn’t just permit me.
I want to congratulate God’s servant and his wife for wonderful 25 years of global impact. 25 of which I have partaken of 16; 2005, September was when God brought in contact with this Commission.
I got to know God’s servant through a tape. I used to buy Bishop Oyedepo’s tapes a lot and then, they will supply me monthly and one of those days, they brought the tapes and I saw 2 tapes and 2 names that were strange. So I told the guy, I want only Bishop. He said, just listen to this one. I said; no, I want only Bishop. He said, just…
He begged me to listen to them. So I kept them aside in the car and on one of the trips I had to go preach in Ikom, I slotted in Daddy’s (Pastor Paul Enenche) tape to listen to it. Church Gist. On the road I kept asking myself, “who is this man.” I listened to it because Ikom is really far from Eket where I was and the tape so intoxicated me that by the time I got to Ikom, the person they invited was not the person they saw because the tape had radicalized something in my mind and I was operating at a strange dimension. So, I kept wanting to know, who is this man and then shortly after that, Reverend Ntia invited him, I didn’t even discuss with Reverend Ntia; they invited him to Uyo. So, I said that’s the man I heard.
So I decided to go from Eket for that meeting. I didn’t sit with them up-stage; I sat downstairs, just in the front line. I didn’t know whether he saw me or not but I just wanted to put a face to the name and that was it.
Few months after that, my wife had to travel to the USA to go and deliver our first child and coming back to the Domestic Airport in Lagos, I saw him seated and I said to myself; “if I greet this man, he may not answer me well oo.” Church Gist. Let me not even greet him at all. Let me just go my way and I passed by him; truly wanting to pass and go but he stood up, stretched his hand to shake me. So everything in my hand fell down and I greeted him and said, “Sir, you don’t know me oo but I know you.”
He said, “No, I know you.”
I said, “No, you don’t know me.”
He said, “I know you.”
I said, “Sir, I know that you don’t know me but I know you…that one tape I got has radicalized my life, has blessed my life and all that.”
I didn’t know why I felt so free with him that day and I told him and said, I’ve been with the Ministry for 15 years and I feel the leading of God to move on to an independent ministry and he said, “Wow, 15 years! and so on and we talked. I told him of the things that God has done for us in Eket and then, I took his number. When I got the number, I said, “I’m sure, this one is his P.A’ s number, it is not his real number.’
Few weeks after I got to Eket, I called him and he picked the phone – Ha! So, I said I just want to greet you Sir for that day and all that and I could hear from his voice that he was praying and few months after that call, I began to have a very deep, strong urge to go see him and I asked myself, “why? Why do I have to get and see him? Is it to invite him for program? I don’t even have such a relationship yet and so on” but for like about 4 months, that urge didn’t go anywhere. So I called him and said, “Sir, I will like to come to Abuja and I’ll like to come on a service day and the Service day was Thursday then, the Mid-week Service. Church Gist. So I came, sat in the congregation and he was preaching on prayer and I could hardly lift my head up because I was bowed writing for like 85 – 90 per cent of the message, I couldn’t carry my head because I was writing and I said to myself, “this is Mid-week Service?” Because I’ve always hated the kind of attendance we have in Mid-week Services. Mid-week Service looks like House Fellowship; very dry and very inconsequential and I said to myself, so somebody is doing Mid-week Service, is this powerful? I was excited, the message was powerful, we had communion and I thought it was over.
The next thing, power broke out. I said, “Ha! Service has not finished?” So, I now went out for those who came for the first time, he told his P.A he wanted to see him and I went into the office and off course, when I landed in Abuja, I already had a mind to invite him because I did not understand why that urge came. So, when I landed, Holy Ghost said, “Don’t invite him, submit to him.” So I said, “I don’t even know him so well” but when I got into the service that Thursday, I had no reservation in my mind. Church Gist. So, I went and I told him what the Holy Ghost said to me and he asked me some questions and then he said, “where do you want to base the Ministry?” Because I’ve made up my mind that nobody will take me out of Eket; I’ve suffered to build this Ministry from scratch, I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t even want to hear “the Lord.” I am going to be in Eket.
So, he asked me where do you want to base the Ministry? I said I want to base in Eket. He just shook his head; the way he shook his head, I said; “oh God!” Then he said, “well you have to negotiate with the Lord that the work you were doing will not be affected negatively and the work you are going to do is going to be fine.” He said, “the work you started is your work and I am sure you want to see it thrive, you want to see it do well.” While he was talking, I just kind of went off. Within some seconds, it just came to me like a knowing; “you are supposed to be in Uyo.” So I said, “oh Sir, it’s Uyo!” I interrupted his talk. Church Gist. He said, “it can be anywhere ooo. Just make sure, nothing happens to the work you were doing and the one you are going to do is going to be fine (that is, don’t try to divide the Church in order to start another Church. If God is sending you, let Him relocate you somewhere else so that the work you built for 15 years, you don’t destroy it because you started another work. God does not start a new work by destroying an old work).
So, when I came, he said okay, “let’s see the next day.” So I came the next day, Friday. It was as if he prepared for me that day. So as I walked into the office, he began to blast some quotes; “God’s will is known when man has no will…,” he quoted like 3 of them. So, I just laughed. So, he said, “is it still Uyo?” I said; “Sir, it is still Uyo.” So, I gave him my books; the 2 books I’d written at that time, he looked at one of them and said, this book looks like a hot seller. I said, yes Sir!
Then he held the 2 books and turned the seat and faced the wall and began to prophesy and he said, “there is a generation, a mentor-less generation; a generation that has no direction and so on, it is to this generation that God has called you” and I’ve heard that prophecy before.
So, I received it, I submitted the little token of seed I brought that day; got back, two weeks after, he called me and asked me; “is it still Uyo?” I said, “Sir, I know it like I know my name, it is Uyo” and then, he came to Reverend Ntia’s church again, about less than two months we have started and I went to see him in the hotel and he said, “I want to come and see your work.”
I said, “Ewoo, if I had known that he was going to come, I would have packaged the place, hired some seats, pulpit and just put the place in order so that it won’t look as if I’m failing.” We were to go from the hotel, it was not as if I should go and come back.
So, we drove in a convoy; we went to the Church, it was desolate, the Church was a wilderness, my pupilt was a plywood pupilt that somebody just gave and we had like 21 seats that I bought from an honorarium that I got, then he went to my office; the table was a table in the garage in the former place in Eket, that a neighbor graciously gave him as I was going with a typist’s chair. Church Gist. So he got in there, the place was terribly desolate, it didn’t look like office. Then he sat on the chair, laid hands on the table and called for the Wisdom of God; prayed over the place, went to the pulpit, laid hands on the pulpit and prophesy.
So after that, he met me by the car and said, “do you really want to do this?” I said, “Yes Sir!” Because I could understand the question because of what he saw. So, that evening, he was preaching in Reverend Ntia’s church and he called for a seed from Psalm 5:12. He called for a seed of N5,000, N51,200… like that. I came out for N51,200. Then he said to me, “you and I know that you don’t have that money” then he said, “God will send somebody to you that will bless you with ten times that amount” and brethren, I was in my office one day when a young man walked in and he said, “Pastor, how are you?” I said, I’m fine
“How is everything?”
I said, I’m fine.
He just kept asking and said, “Pastor what do you need?”
I said, like how?
Next thing he brought out his cheque book and wrote a very huge amount of money and we were able to put somethings in order in the Church and he came back and when I just requested, if he could come for our one year anniversary, I wasn’t expecting a yes. I just said, let me just try and he said he’s going to come. I said, wow! I began to work and all that and by the time he came, that April, 2007; everywhere had transformed. The hall was packed full and he looked round and looked at the equipment and everywhere, I could imagine.
Then he said, he’s seeing the grace on his life at work here right now and so he began to prophesy, prayed for my wife and I; laid hands on us and began to call and by the next year he came, we were having overflow outside and by the third year, we were in our permanent site and we were under a construction and that’s where the simplicity of God’s servant really touched me because, that place didn’t have any form or shape. It was very terrible.
He came, ministered and kept coming; each time he came, something was improving until the day of the dedication and when we were coming from the airport, he said, “the building is completed?” I said, yes Sir, it is completed! He said, “when you take elevator, it is different from a man who takes the staircase. Church Gist. By the time you are at the top floor, the man at the staircase is at the first floor.” He said, when he tell people these things, people don’t understand. The truth of the matter is that being under this cover has not just helped the ministry, but has also preserved my life.
So, we were in that place, we actually struck a deal with the land owner and told him, using the place every first Sunday of the month and let the people see the work so they can give and then pay you. He said, okay. Then we said, “okay, let’s just build a temporary thing in the land and so, we were owing about 2.4 million naira; we were very small and all that and each time I saw him, I will carry a seed and give to him and say, “Sir, we just trust God to finish paying for the land.” He would pray, by the third time I came giving him a seed again, he said, “haha! Have you people not finish paying?” I said Yes Sir, we just picked the Word Sir. He said, no! Go and look at the Church; look for anybody that can loan the Church some money, come back and tell me the balance.
So, I came back to him:”we’ve found somebody that will give us nine hundred thousand and we’ve found out that the balance was 1.5 million.”
He said, “I will give you the 1.5 million.” You know, some people think that fathers; so that they can receive but with this one, I saw something different. I noticed him and Mummy gave us five hundred and Dunamis gave us one million. I tried to resist and said, “Sir, no, please.”
He said, “No, receive it, take it!” He said that things that relationship gives; you don’t reject it. So, I took it and I promised God in my heart; one, I’m going to do the same thing for other ministries and as the Lord bless me, I will bless him with as much money as I could and other ministries have benefited from us; we’ve given them musical equipment, sound equipment, pay rent and so on and so forth and I want to give God the glory for the kind of love that God’s servant has showed towards us; the kind of help and lastly, last year I contacted something that looks like coro. Church Gist. Initially I took it like, it was just ordinary malaria; it was coming and it was getting serious. I’d never had that kind of sickness in my life. It was so terrible, I could not accept that it was coro and so, I called the doctor and the doctor said, just come to isolation.
I said, as how?
He said; “Pastor, just pack your bag”
I said, why should I pack my bag?
But that night, that early hours of the morning, I had to send him a text because I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t do anything, I began to have hiccups, my breath was seizing; I just didn’t want to accept I had breathing problem. My wife said, “you have breathing problem.” I said, I don’t have, I’m just having small, small hiccups.
She said, “you have breathing problems” and he called; I sent him a text and he called and told my wife; “update me every three hours as to the development of this thing.”
In one of those days, I was in the hospital, oxygen ran out or something and they are yet to supply oxygen, he called and blasted everybody around, including Reverend Ntia, he said “where are you and your brother is in the hospital?” Reverend Ntia called me, from there he called the hospital and called everybody. When they brought oxygen, the brought three cans of oxygen, three long ones. We said, why? Just one is okay. They said, no we don’t want trouble. They brought in three.
I want to stand to give God praise because, by the fifth day, the result of my test came out and it was negative. So when they asked me, you have coro. I said, the test said it was negative and not coro. I was just sick, they thought it was coro.
Brethren I’ll like us to stand to our feet, lift our hands and give God praise for mercy, for kindness, for love in this 25 years.
I want to thank you Daddy and Mummy for the kind of love, the humility; you don’t make us feel intimidated, you take us as children and we have grown under your wings. We say, thank you very much Sir
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