From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Christians are enjoined to emulate the saviour, Jesus Christ, in everything they do. It is perhaps in tandem with this injunction that the president of Tehillah Arena Gospel Centre, Reverend Wisdom Madukwe, decided to emulate Christ, who fed 5,000 people in one swoop as recorded in Matthew 14:13-21 and in other Books of the New Testament of the Good Book.
Rev. Madukwe, touched by the poverty and hunger ravaging many homes, through the Tehillah Ambassadors Foundation (TAF), decided to feed 1,000 homes by donating 1,000 bags of rice to them.
While giving out the bags of rice in Aba, Abia State, recently, Madukwe called on the clergy and churches in Nigeria to reciprocate the gesture of what they receive from God by rendering assistance to the less-privileged.
Extending the call to government and well-meaning individuals in the country, the cleric said giving was not a matter of having much, but a matter of the heart, with the knowledge that “he who gives to the poor, lends to God.”
Not done yet, Madukwe, who promised to soon begin a free medical programme in the city, said the gesture was in replication of the love Jesus Christ showed to the hungry while on earth.
He said it was disheartening that some people had cultivated the culture of praying for the hungry, receiving from God without giving back to the people who needed it most.
“As far as Bible and church are concerned, everything is not prayers. You can’t tell me that someone will come to you, informing you that ‘I and my children have nothing to eat’, you have money in your pocket and you asked that man to kneel down for prayers, you’re not kind.
“You’re completely wrong. That prayer can’t give food. My message to religious leaders is to subscribe to what Christ did. How he took care of the less privileged, fed them, brought them closer. Some people are like the Dead Sea, they only absorb they don’t give back.
“I know what it means to be poor. I understand how it feels to sleep on empty stomach and I understand what it means for your children to say they’re hungry. I may not be from a poor family, but I have experienced it.”
Going further he enthused, “God said to Abraham, I’ll bless you and make you a blessing. Until you become a blessing, you can’t bless others. My message to everyone, especially those that have, is that God will touch them.”
He called on all those who have the hunger to see the poor and less privileged happy to join hands with him and rescue families suffering from abject poverty and deprivation.
“We wear shoes of N200,000, but there are people out there that N200,000 can establish for life, we wear necklaces of N1 million but that can establish three or four persons. That’s my message for all of us. You can’t love without giving.”
Wife of the cleric, Kosarachi Wisdom Madukwe, said that God has been using the foundation to bless indigent families, which she said would continue, as rendering help to the needy is the true work of God.
General manager of the foundation, Michael Ofuonye, said the foundation was designed to reach out to the underprivileged without season or date, describing giving as an everyday thing, depending on the problem at hand.
Some of the beneficiaries, including Mr. Chijioke Onyeabor Egwuonwu, Gracious Onuoha and Mrs. Ozioma Friday, expressed gratitude to the Tehilla Foundation and promised to replicate the gesture to others, no matter how small.