National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Working for God often comes with its challenges which at the end culminate in victory. Ajisafe Kunle Emmanuel was a promising young man, a gospel singer who had ministered in various states in Nigeria. He was also a footballer with Santos Football Club, Ilorin. He later left all to serve as a missionary teacher with a mission outfit called The Kingdom Project (TKP). The graduate of The College of Education Ilorin and the University of Ilorin, Kwara State in the course of mission work had an accident where he lost a limb. In this interview with DAYO EMMANUEL, Ajisafe relayed his missionary experience in Okutala village in Moro Local Government Area of Kwara State. Now on an artificial leg, he has refused to quit the field but wants assistance on getting a modern limb to ease his operation in the rural village. Excerpts:
Tell us a brief about yourself; your education, childhood.
I was born and bred in Ilorin Kwara State capital, my dad is from Ekiti State. We all grew around the Airforce barracks where my father built his house. I attended the College of Education in Ilorin, I also attended the University of Ilorin where I studied Geography.
How has your study of Geography influenced your career as a missionary?
I am a missionary teacher with the grace of God to study Geography. Geography is the study of the earth as the home of man. It makes us to know the culture of people, the terrain. The knowledge of Geography by the grace of God has been a blessing to me and it is facilitating the work.
When did you become a missionary?
Glory to God for His ways of orchestrating things. I didn’t just wake up one day to say I want to be a missionary teacher. I am a professional teacher, God has His ways. I joined The Kingdom Project (TKP) in the year 2008. With time, I was deployed to this place called Okutala. I got an information TKP was looking for missionary teachers, I just got the information and I said okay. I love research and at the same time I have a kind of passion for the work of God. Coming here and seeing the state of things and the harvest on the field as a teacher and at the same time as a minister is beyond being a teacher. I would say this is my entry point at TKP.
What is the administrative structure in TKP like?
We have the visioner, Evangelist Olusola Adebayo. He got the vision 20 years ago, it clocked 20 this month November 2016. We didn’t have a President we have an International Director and we have a crew working with him. He is the international Director.
How many fields does the TKP has?
Presently the organisation is working in about nine foreign fields mostly in African countries and a number of indigenous fields about six within Nigeria. These are interior villages in Kwara, Ogun, Oyo states.
What is your personal experience working with TKP?
By God’s grace I got to know more about mission through TKP. Though in my local Church the word is not scarce about missions. We talk about missions we have mission day but not like the practical one I’m now involved in. We thank God for raising mission outfits where all they do is missions, we also thank God for churches looking into missions. We thank God for putting it in their hearts to have mission based organisations which makes it possible for a lot of people to be organising mission trips and mission organisations. Through TKP I was able to get to know missions more. I will call the organisation a rescue organisation, a rescue mission. Anywhere TKP is operating by God’s grace it is a rescue operation. We are the light of the world, the master wants us to be the light of the world. Anywhere we are, we are solving problems and helping the physical needs of people as well in terms of education and medical services. We have a hospital in a village called Elebu, we have qualified medical personnel. We have doctors doing fine.
How is the mission funded?
We are funded through partners and individuals who do support. As missionaries, we also give to missions as well.
Do you have a church base who can also fund?
No. we don’t operate church. We are interdenominational.
What can you call your challenges in this kind of rural environment of Okutala?
Honestly before now if somebody asks me this question we’ll be talking about money but now I have come to realise one of the main challenges of Christ’s missions is the non-challant attitude of Christ’s believers. Not even the Muslims around here. The Muslims here are looking up to the Christians. When we talk to people about Christ, the response we get is ‘so if I become a Christian I would be like so and so person who calls himself a Christian?’ Some Christians are far from what we call Christianity. They are far from what Christ is and that is the very negative examples the unbelievers see and that has formed a negative imagination. These are the so called Christians they can easily point to; people involved in ocultic activities, drunkenness, immorality etc. so they are not seeing that light and that has hindered the expansion of the way of Christ here. They are ready to come to Christ but the imagination they have needs to be cast down. But once someone is a missionary and can lead by example, then the people can point to a Christian living like Christ they then can see good examples it won’t take long the negative imagination they have would be pulled down. That is what we are facing here.
When you don’t have a church base how do you disciple your converts? How do you put them in churches where they can grow?
Based on the pattern of TKP, we don’t establish churches. If we are in an environment where there is no church we can set up a church. But where there are churches and the church is functioning there is no need of setting up a church. We were trained to have disciple meetings when someone gets a convert so that the person can grow. We disciple the person for three months and then we point the fellow to a church in the environment.
How many pupils are there in your school?
Presently there are close to 300 pupils from primary one to five.
Any intention of starting a secondary school?
Yes, there is a plan to start up a secondary school only that the community declined. They don’t want it.
Didn’t you tell them the importance of a secondary school?
They do know the importance. They have a kind of fear that if Ambassador School sets up a secondary school, it would affect the community secondary school. They do have a secondary school that is serving a lot of other communities around. The Okutala village is a central village.
How many other communities?
There are over 20 other communities. They come here for secondary and primary school education. From the experience of the Ambassador primary school, the mission came here in 2006 with public primary school and a private Islamic/koranic school which were flourishing at that period. Then, our school; the Ambassador school came which is a mission school with diligence, as in what is expected of trained missionary teachers, that made the community to fall in love and the parents withdraw their children. Now every household desires that at least one of their children should attend our school. Some schools are closed down.
It means you have some of the secondary school students who were from your primary school?
Yes, some of them are now in SS2. I mean from our first set.
Do they have any form of appreciation, do they look back to appreciate what you are going?
The answer is no sir. Due to some religious bias.
If in 10 years they are still not appreciating, someday the children would look back because the Bible says teach a child the way he should go and when he is grown up he would not depart from it.
Exactly sir by the grace of God.
You once talked about your operation and the artificial limb. How did you come about it and how easy is it with your operation?
I told you this school was set up in 2006 and I came on board in 2008. I started working here and I found fulfilment, enjoying it and not enduring it. In 2008 I had a fatal accident that claimed my left leg. I was on one of my mission trips I was having a mission bike, a motorcycle I got that same year. I had not had it for six months when I had the accident.
On which road?
From Oke Oyi to Ilorin. It happened just about two poles from the Polytechnic. I was going to Ilorin for missions sake. My left leg from kneel downward was cut off immediately. It was not amputated. The doctor called it traumatic amputation. I have never heard it before. The people around the environment nobody could come to render assistance, they never saw such before but God helped me. Initially naturally I was in coma but I carried the leg. I was conscious initially, I didn’t feel any pain. I was on the bike my leg cut off when I was still on the bike. The man involved was drunk and driving something like a van. The bike was still on motion I just looked back I saw my leg, then I fell down. The first thing that came to my mind was that God I have a destiny that I am yet to fulfill my destiny. Immediately it came to my awareness that those gifts and talents God gave me. I was a singer, I had bands, I sang in some states in Nigeria. I was a footballer trusting God that I would play football outside this country. I played for a club called Santos in Ilorin. I was rushed to the hospital by non-Yoruba people I don’t know if they were Hausas or Nupes. They carried me into the pick-up van, the same van involved. The man was paralised, it was God that even saved me I would have had another accident. He was the one driving again with tension, applying break anyhow. I was rushed to the teaching hospital. I was surprised the hospital was on strike and they had to rush me to a specialist hospital at Alagbado. They called it specialist hospital but doctors were not on ground. The nurses did what they could do. I was still the one making the phone calls, people asked if I was mad. But God just allowed it to teach me some lessons I was conscious. I called my family members, called my Director.
What exactly were you going for at Ilorin then when it happened?
It happened that a friend was in the university that period he was having an exam and the portal was about to close. The person was my disciple by the grace of God. I used to go there and teach him, our director was in the church I was thinking I would see him too. I was to assist to give the brother some money then see the director and come back to the field. It was a Sunday we had Bible study. That was when it happened. I was told that the ball and socket joint were affected. I was the one telling them nothing happened to it, don’t remove it. I can still move the little stump remaining, don’t remove it. I had never heard someone using postases before, I didn’t know there was anything called artificial limb. Something just told me don’t allow them to cut it. The doctor that came was there, my people didn’t know the location of Alagbado so before they came it was two hours it was a little late. The doctor and nurses were talking of removing it I said that is not the first thing, blood was just gushing out. Had it been they removed the ball and socket joint I would have not been able to walk again the way I’m walking but God helped me. To cut the story short, after one and half month God used a woman to buy the artificial limb for =N=120,000. It was that same year that I was running a degree program because of the passion I have for the work. I went for direct entry, I told you I had NCE so I entered for direct entry. I was to go for a part time, three months contact period to represent a year. I was in 400Level then and I was to have my last exam just like one and half months interval. Satan just planned it like that. I used the postesses though I could not walk with it without support. I was using two crutches, with it I did my exam. Sometimes before I finish an exam it would have been filled with blood. The doctors were like I should not be allowed to write the exam, I said the devil would have been so happy if I didn’t write my exams. They were not professionals about it at all. That was how I came to know about anything called artificial limb.
The mission got this vehicle for your movement to be easy?
The mission prayed and God provided it. The car came by a miracle. The donor never saw my picture. We have never seen each other till today. I have never known the man after two years of using the car. TKP sends a kind of newsletter after I got convinced I had to come to back to the field, that was after 11 months of this incidents, I was still using crutches, I was just coming from my morning devotion, I thank God for the grace to hear God. Nobody could have said, Kunle you are going back to Okutala, nobody can, even if God sends you to tell me it would take courage to come and tell me after what happened. I just finished doing my morning devotion and God said you are going back, I said your will be done o Lord, I told my mission director this is what I got he said are you sure, I thank God for his life, he is a man of God, he believed God spoke to me, within ne and half week arrangements were made and he and one other brother drove me in the car to this place.
Could you drive before the accident?
No I couldn’t drive, I only could ride a motorcycle and I told you I just got the bike about six months before the accident, I wasn’t a perfect cyclist but here is a way that God do is work, later I could walk without crutches, I dropped one walking stick.
Ked with one and I bought a walking stick and later I left it, next thing was to get a car. That time I was like a loosed soldier, I said so far I am still alive God must have saved me for a purpose because I could have died. Sometimes before I return in the night blood would have filled everywhere.
Were you married then?
I was single that time. Some people were pitying me how would this one marry, I didn’t even have a fiancée before then. Then 2013 by God’s grace God connected me with a sister who later became my wife.
Then how did the car come?
Well about how the car came in 2014, a newsletter was sent out by TKP and a man just responded from Lagos. That was how the vehicle came. A man that I am yet to meet, I have never met him till now. That was how the car came.
What assistance do you need now to get a better limb?
The Yorubas used to have an adage that one does not value what he has until it is lost. Sometimes with two legs you don’t even know how to thank God for it. You see it as a normal thing but until this happened to me. I thank God for what happened to me. I thank God for the one leg remaining. I thank God for the artificial one and those that God gave the wisdom to produce the artificial leg. Today I can still move around, follow up my disciples. I’m still being able to follow up mama Rufia, baba Biliki and talk to them about Christ. Some don’t want to come to the missionary but you have to go to them. The one I’m using now I have been using it since 2012, there has been a lot of wear and tear I need a better one and recently someone is working on getting me a better one from Canada. The process is on.
Was there any time you had the temptation or urge to quit?
Thank God for our director, he is still alive, he is someone that can verify this story. There was a time I used to have a particular dream. I would see myself in military uniform and in rescue operations. I would see myself recsuing people. I used to have this dream almost on a monthly basis. So I interpreted it personally that may be God wanted me to join the army. I went to meet my Mission Director. I told him I wanted to leave Okutala. He said we have trusted you so much why are you leaving? I thank God for his life, he has committed a lot of things to me. As I am here I am the PRO of the African Christian Teachers in the whole of Africa. He has committed a lot of things to me. He said you can’t just leave, you have a big future. I continued to see visions of being a soldier. I grew up around the Oloje barracks it is the air force barracks in Ilorin. I was born there, my dad built a house there. As I was talking with him my letter of resignation was with me. He was preaching to me, I told him I have written my resignation letter. He put it on the table, he shouted, Kunle who taught you all these? Are you fighting with someone? I will collect the letter and put it beside me and would be praying for you. He allowed me to go he said God should allow me to see what he is seeing. It wasn’t two weeks I came back that I wasn’t going again. Thank God for the gift to hear God. It is not easy to sit with this job. I don’t know who is somewhere like how I was then who would read this interview and be encouraged. That it is not time to leave the field. Such persons could read this interview. God allowed what happened to me. Secret things belong to God. I know. If God allows me human will is so strong, if God had allowed me to become a soldier and this thing happened to me, can military administration of any country allow me to continue working for them after the accident? I would have been dumped but in God’s work, even in our disability we are still functioning for God. So someone may have this as an encouragement. My dad’s elder brother was a very good officer at the NDA so it would have been easy for me to enroll and I may have lost my life to disobedient.
