The church has not failed the society —Mrs Akinfenwa

Mrs Comfort Oluwayemisi Akinfenwa, as she clocks 60 today, reminisces on how God has remained faithful to her in spite of her humble beginning in this interview with  Yemisi Aofolaju and Femi Olukunle. Excerpts:

 

WHILE we are congratulating you on your attainment of 60 years, we would like to know where you born and how growing up looked like?

First and foremost, I was, by the grace of God born in the southern part of Kaduna State, at Kafanchan in Jema Local Government in 1957. My parents were traders in the north.  According to the history my mother told me, she had 15 labours, but only the last five children survived. I was about six years’ old, when I lost my father and since then, my mother took up the challenge as she was the third wife and also the last wife of my father.

She was left with barely nothing, but as small as her trade was, she struggled to keep three of her five children educated. I graduated in 1977 from the ECWA Teachers’ College then known as Kagoro Teachers’ College, which was about 11 miles away from Kafanchan where I had my secondary education. My mother made sure she brought us up in the way of the Lord. She was a Baptist. By birth, I am a Baptist, but by marriage, an Anglican. My mother was very strict and luckily for me, I was already 10 years in marriage before she died at the age of 82. I had to delay my marriage because. I needed to struggle to ensure the last child and others before me were married before I settled down. I worked for 10 years after my secondary education before going for NCE at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria’s Institute of Education. I went through correspondence courses and long vacation training in order to help augment the financial commitment of the home.  Having performed well, I was invited for my degree programme and went back to ABU the same year. Here again God backed me by raising one of our priests at St. Michael Cathedral, Kano, who happened to be my husband’s boss, a laity  who co sponsored my education with my husband. After my degree programme, I continued with the mission for 14 years and six years in the teaching service. I retired in 1989 after 20 years in civil service for full ministry service. This was the year we were elevated and moved to Sokoto. I was already rounding off my degree programme when I was posted to the Federal Government College, Sokoto, where I was given a recommendation letter to become a permanent staff because it was only in the federal colleges that religious studies were allowed to be taught. I volunteered to help the girls in the school in guiding them rightly. As I was about settling down with the girls, my husband got a letter of transfer to Ibadan to continue his ministry. I almost went against it, that is telling him we were already established in Sokoto State, as the church we established in Miami, Niger Republic was now an Archdeaconry seat but I dare not choose my lot. I succumbed to move to Ibadan with my husband in the year 2000, because in the Anglican Communion when you are asked to move, you cannot ask questions, and God has been truly helping us even here in Ibadan. I remember coming from a service from Molete and a voice came in that service that we should start the Clergy Wives Fellowship, where we meet every first Friday of the month till date to pray for our husbands, if we had to succeed in the ministry. In Ibadan, I saw God working out miracles in my life as I received a letter to be a member of the Oyo State Pilgrims Welfare Board. I was surprised at how God rewarded me. It was that same year that God paved the way for me to further my studies. I was able to complete this in two years, as my husband sponsored me, and friends rallied round. Out of my five siblings that were alive then, I lost three of them in succession. I’m alive today through the grace of God. I give all glory to God for keeping me to see this glorious day. I trust that God will keep me on to fulfil my destiny and years and to achieve the purpose He has kept me alive.

 

Coming from a polygamous family, and losing your father at a tender age, why do you think your mother was keen to give you education?

Actually, I will not say she did not witness challenges over her decision to send me to school, most especially having come from a polygamous family. But, I thank God for the unity among the women. Though they were three wives, one could not identify, who were the children of the first or the second, or even the third wife. In fact, I grew up to know my step mother as my real mother. I was 15 before I knew my real mother because most times, I stayed with my step mother. One thing God did that surprised me most was that my mother was actually very fat and I did take after my step mum, who was slim. Another mystery was that her children resembled my mother and God gave each of them a male child, as the rest were female. I got fat as I was bearing children and reaching menopause exactly like my mum. My mother was not that educated, but she went through the normal adult education, mainly to be able to read the Bible.

 

What were your growing-up fantasies?

All along, I had wanted to know the Lord more and to serve Him more than anything else and to help fellow human beings, especially the less-privileged. These have been my life ambition. At the outset of our ministry, we made a covenant with God that if He could spare us a child, we would make sure we brought that child up in the way of the Lord as we had lost our first three children in the earlier years of our marriage. As we entered into this covenant, He gave us Emmanuel who is now married. On the day of his birth, God did what we never expected, I was paid a month’s salary out of five being owed, while my husband was given a promotion letter at ABU with  sponsorship for a course. On the same day, his letter of admission into the Theological College came. All these compelled us to name him “Emmanuel,” meaning God is with us. I was given a job as a teacher and matron at St Bartholomew School. The church rose in our support and we never lacked while my husband was in the college. Our decision to serve the Lord opened great doors unto us from even unexpected places and people. Another surprising thing about doing God’s work was Emmanuel’s surviving the ordeal of having his blood transfused after 10 days, unlike the ones we had before him.

 

You are from a Baptist background, did you pass through all the training stages as a Baptist child. If yes, have these trainings really affected your life as the wife of a priest?

Actually, it was a training ground for me. Never did I know that I was going to become a minister’s wife; right from a birth in a Baptist family, a baby is registered immediately into Sunbeam and you cannot just go through life without going through all the stages wherein you are taught the Bible, words of God. Those stages had really served as the foundation for my growth in life and my spiritual upkeep. I appreciate my mum who took the pain to ensure that we are cultured and groomed. Apart from those stages, one must belong to the choir. I was the junior choir mistress then, member of the drama group and also taught at the Sunday school as a youth. Finding myself in the ministry now, was not a surprise to my friends.

 

How did you meet your husband?

I met my husband at the Kagoro Teachers’ Training College as the school was a co-educational institution. They were invited to have a friendly match at Balewa Memorial College in southern Kaduna. His coming to Southern Kaduna brought us together. We were both in sports. We met through sports. He was his school’s goalkeeper, while I was the Girls Games Prefect of my school, as well as a volley ball player. We both represented the North-Central as Kaduna was then known in tournaments.

 

What was the point of attraction then?

Actually, I was just there to watch the match as the Games Prefect. I was there with a friend, my name sake (Yemisi nee Taiwo), from Kwara State, while her boyfriend who she later married, was from my hometown, Ogbomoso. She came from a street adjacent to my husband’s in Zaria. Whenever they were coming to Southern Kaduna, they came together. On that fateful day, I never knew that my husband had been bothering her that he liked me. He told Yemisi Just help me talk to your friend. When she told me, I ignored her. He came to me that fateful day not even minding me, and asserted: ‘I said I want to marry you. I just burst into laughter. ‘You want to marry me? You are seeing me for the first time and the next thing for you to say is that you want to marry me! I told him to give me time to pray over it. He insisted on getting the answer right away. I told him that I was still in school and could not think about marriage. He then declared that he was not thinking of a girlfriend, but a wife. This was how he started writing me. We started befriending each other and we courted for seven and a half years before we got married. Everything then worked out and we got married in 1979. November 15, 2016 marked the 37th year of our wedding.

 

When he told you he wanted to go into the ministry, what was your reaction?

I was really happy.

 

You never thought of the financial implication of his job?

Not at all, because I know it is God that owns all gold and silver and, even our living today is by His power and I never for once doubted His power.

 

How would you describe the day he was made a bishop?

I was really happy for him because I never dreamt that it would be so quick, because the situation is not the same in the Baptist. We only have pastors and deacons. It was a big surprise to me as a very young couple rising to that level. I prayed to God to back him up, for rising to that level came with challenges, but God surmounted all the challenges.

 

As a mother and grandmother, do you think the church or the home has failed in making sure morality is maintained by the youths, specifically the female ones?

I will not say the church has failed. The church is trying to see to it that moral instruction is given in all schools. The church has not really failed instead, we should commend the church for ensuring each church at least has a school. If not for this, it might be a different story we would be saying today. In the far North, I don’t think they even teach Religious Studies like Christian Religious Knowledge in nursery or primary school, except in federal colleges missionary schools. The Bible itself says ‘train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will never depart from it. The decadence could be blamed on the homes. These days most parents are career officers. What will happen to their children when they would be busy throughout the day and hardly see their kids in the morning and by night when they return, the kids would have slept? Tell me, what time do they have for their children while looking for daily bread? In our days, the man was fully engaged with the civil service while the mother found something doing at home to augment and be with the children. By the time I was through with the civil service, I made sure I stayed at home as part of the sacrifice. The nature of our job is always to be on the move, so one has to stay with the family. As a teacher, I know that children have to go through series of developmental stages and if any stage is missed, it becomes a problem, as children are fast learners. By the time they are six or seven years, they would have already grown to form what they are to become as adults. Parents should pay close attention to their children as we are in a computer age, where they know things that parents do not know. These are some of the reasons the decadence has risen much compared to our days where the fear of the Lord was the in thing and we lived as a community. Tell me if there is any family of today that even come together for family meetings.

 

What is the secret behind this youthful looks of yours at 60?

It is God.

 

What would you recommend to those who are 40 and look 70?

They should still keep on trusting the Lord who renews our age. I laugh and exercise a lot as well. I thank the Lord for the way He has created me. I don’t rest as I just want to be involved in doing one thing or the other: I hate staying idle.