Good evening. Good evening. Is the microphone? OK, yeah.
That was great. Of ages, our father, who is our confeder. Our provident, our teacher, our broker. The one who was, who is, and who is to come.
Ever loving father. We thank you for this precious movement. We thank you for this gathering. We call on you this evening to dwell in our midst, to teachers.
Nobody does that, and we call on you to open our eyes so that your work can so a seat that we are dominating our lives in Jesus' name. Anyway, I would like to appreciate it. Not a book church for these opportunities. I know how not to be standing here tonight.
And to be given the privilege to share my testimony of how I got saved. And hopefully I pray that God will use it to touch our lives and even make it better in Jesus' name. I don't have any specific date. Maybe I'm not conscious of it, or I am not the type that keeps dates.
So I can actually say this is the day that I happened. But I know the moment when things started changing, when I wasn't the way I used to be any longer. I would like to break it down into three aspects. A friend of Brother, I think he called him, his best friend, Brother John Wells.
He came here, I think, three weeks ago. And there was a part of efficiency that he broke down into two. And immediately I saw it. The only spirit just promptly.
And I got attracted to it. And I started working on it. I didn't even know that it did like this. It's because I can see myself in that picture.
And that's what I'm going to work with tonight. It's, it said, it broke into two, me and Christ, and Christ in me. I don't know if you remember. So me and Christ, he says, this is salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And Christ in me, this is transformation, the ongoing work of God affecting every area of our life that we not conclude until we see him. Now, the me and Christ, salvation by grace through faith. I'm going to say me and Christ, my own story of me and Christ was, it was more of a default thing because I was born and raised by a Christian parent, a very strict one. When I say street, if you're from Africa, or you know, my mom wakes up five a.m.
And you dare not. If you sleep five minutes to five, you must be at the gathering. And we call it one introversion. So, and sometimes we want to play hard, hard boy, and we want to dodge if it's only mom, we can play with mom.
But immediately, if my father is around, it doesn't even ring the bell. It doesn't jing-goody bell because we have a small bell at home. So it doesn't jing-goody bell. It just sits in the living room and it's not singing.
And once you hear his baritone voice, wherever you were in your dream, you must be torn back to life. I'm run down to this city room. So, that was how I grew up. And we attended a lot of church programs, night vigils.
I remember my mom, she gathered some children in the evenings, Sunday evenings like this, and it teaches us Bible. There is a particular book that I think it was published by Giovanni with my husband, pictures in it. And it was a good book that was used to raise the earth. It's called my book of Bible story.
I don't know if anybody, my book of Bible story. So, we see something in the book holding a line on. We see Jesus Christ in the manger. So it gives us picture and we can relate to whatever she was saying that time.
And, yeah, we were green, things were lovely. By default, just like I said, our names have God in it. It's not, you know, my full name is Tolu Washeh, which means what we came to pass. So, my younger brother is a Mufulu Washeh.
It means I have given God to take care of him, you know. And the third one is, well, you are from Elio, God gave me joy. The fourth one is Mufin, it's you, Lord God is my refuge, you know. I like, so it was a strict environment.
And we were growing and we were enjoying everything. Though sometimes we ask some questions like, why should we pray every day? Why should we go to church every day? Sometimes we can't even pick what they are saying in the church.
But it's more of a routine. You can't complain, you must go. So that was me in Christ. So I see it like a default thing.
I was just born into it. I got familiar with it. We had some memory verses in the Bible that before we go to bed at night, you must say it, the old family must say it together. And in that period, there was a story, I'm going to share it.
I, in the midst of the night period, I want to be night sessions, I slept off. And being a strict for that time I have, he decided not to spunk me, he left me alone, and he completed the prayer. And everybody was going to bed. He was watching me, I was sleeping.
And it tapped me. Immediately I opened my eyes, I knew I wasn't from it because I can't see anybody again. So he said, I will not beat you. But you know what, I'm going to sit here, you will start your own hymn, you will preach to me, and you will pray before we go to bed.
And it took me almost 45 minutes to go through all that, and we prayed together, and we went to bed. So it was that strict. But as strict as it was, you will think that it's going to be a smooth transition into Christ in me, why God spoke, and that's where the story began. Now what do I mean by God spoke?
It was a period that I have so many definitions for while reflecting back. I thought in my mind that it's not just automatically shift. I have a younger brother that God is automatically, there were times that I have questions and the way answers I'm going to be looking at. Where did you learn all this from?
I see we're enraged by this period. Now this is the period I know that I was saved enough. I was saved, but I was not saved enough. Not to want to obey my flesh.
Not to have lost two desires. Greed was there. Malice, we wrote together. Outbust of Fanga.
That was one of my weakness at that time. And I continued in that. And it's also a period of time in my life I know that Jesus Christ was reaching out to me, and also the world was reaching out to me as well. Because we're having fun.
Pates, girls. And sometimes I mix on journey. If I'm telling my father now that I went to this place, it's just shaking that really to tell you how dangerous those moments were for me. But I didn't see it.
In that moment I lost a friend. At the time I had to reach out to him. Wow. And it was that dangerous.
That's why I have a feeling sometimes that what I was doing was wrong. But I still get validation from a friend around. And that made my guilt to disappear. And I was like, yeah, let's enjoy this moment.
It's one of those moments. I realized afterwards Jesus wanted a relationship. But I kept falling for religion. I shared a story with my, I call him, he's more than a friend now, like my uncle now, like a brother, but I gave him.
I told him I have a big Bible, massive one. I did that size. And I can't even know what was going in the Bible. I lost touch with what was going on in the Bible.
But the zeal was still there. I can't connect with the zeal any longer. So I decided to join an horse-run department in a very large church. And why I joined?
Because later on I was testing myself, I was searching my mind. Why did you even do that? There's this girl. That's not like that.
I know that if I'm in the horse-run department, there's no big, closest opportunity for me to meet her, to see, to notice if he's in church. And one day we always have a small prayer session before everybody's sent to a unit. And the head of the unit got a call from the pastor and said, okay, brother, can you just give us a short message and pray for us? And so everybody can go to their unit.
My spirit left me. Because it was, I was like, did I hear you well? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, just give us a short message. Let's take message out of this.
I don't even know what to say about it. Train, I can't even open my mouth here. And I rushed a fine. It said what happened?
I said, please, save me from this. I just don't know what to say. It looked at me. I'm joking.
It said with this is your big Bible. And I felt so ashamed of myself. And I got home. I met my brother because we were in the same room.
We were in the same university. I met my brother. He said, I was in the same room. And he smiled.
And he said, if it's like a questioner, that was given to us. And in that questioner, they hacked me. Are you born again? And I hacked my brother.
And my born again. He smiled again. I said, well, I have a clue. Yes, because I know he smiled.
It was just smiling. He said, you know what? He said, I wish I can answer for you. But I know you still get the reading.
And I didn't bother. I told him, okay, why is such him for the reading? And he just helped me to prepare some short, short messages I can put in the Bible. So in case I am called the next time, I will have something to tell them.
And he did. And why did he did that? I went through some of those messages. I was like, I can't do these two.
And he called now. I had another opportunity again. And he called me again. And I was able to read some of those things out because I was prepared.
It wasn't perfect. It was the beginning. So I kept moving on. And the real journey started when I had to leave Nigeria to England.
I completed my degree, worked briefly in Nigeria, then left for England to continue my studies. And it was, I didn't have it on a plot of gold. I am from a low, I can't say midu income, because I will say it's fluctuating between midu and low. It can be low this month and midu next month.
It's not as constant as we have it. It was fluctuating between midu and low. Unfortunately, that time, it was an economic meltdown in the world. And some of the shares that my father invested in, that time, the other thing, if you guys need having a need, this is what I'm going to sell first.
Unfortunately, it was so bad that it got probably 200,000 naira out of something, what, five million from me. So it humbled the whole family. But I had to do what I wanted to do. We borrowed and then we left.
But before I left, I have a home call that has been telling me, you know what, when you come down here, your life is going to change. When I say change, it's going to be like an overnight change. If you get a security job, you're going to be doing something like seven pounds per hour. And I couple of head instant, seven pounds into naira, that's seven times 250.
And you're like, wow. And I called my wife now. We're wearing my red hat. I said, you know what, let's open your bank account.
I'm going there to change our life. I get there. I'm going to walk and I'm going to keep sending money down here. You keep saving things there.
Then we can try our life and then start. And we went. We opened our bank account and I went like, it's so you're going to be back to front to get in. So the first mistake I made was that the money left with me, like what was we were able to get around.
I started giving it how. I don't worry. This is not the real money. I'm going for the real money.
So if you are from Africa or you've ever hoped like this, you will understand what I'm saying. So I started giving out the money and I was left with 300 pounds. So I bought a ticket. I was supposed to buy a ticket to Manchester.
But I was ignorant. I bought a ticket to London. I got to London thinking London, Manchester, I don't know if you just don't throw like them. Everybody's, everybody was, I like seeing what's coming down from the plane.
And I hacked one of the airline stuff. Excuse me, I'm going to Manchester. You guys said, what? Tonight I knew that was a problem instantly.
So I said, yes. So it said, wow. It checked the time again. I said, wow.
I've been there before. I said, no. He said, wow. You know what?
If you can just rush down and clear yourself and I knew that was a problem. So I had one light jacket on me and a box. So I was able to clear myself with the UKBA cost on people and I was allowed into the city and everything changed. I was hungry.
I went to a store. I bought hair grow and I juice. And you know, being the first time the hair grow, I can feel it was so cold. I was like, the normal hair grow in Nigeria used to be warm.
I don't understand. So I took a bite. I couldn't continue. I had to throw it away.
And in the midst of that, I was still trying to search for the train that is going to take me to Manchester. So according to all the stores, I had to pay out of my £300 to £50 to Manchester. So I paid £50. I was left with £250.
So with my £250, I landed in my uncle's house in New Year's in Bankar. He had an expectation that Bankar has arrived. He's going to ease my own financial expenses as well. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he started unfolding gradually. And I can now realize that I'm not in the dreamland that I thought I was coming into. And don't forget that we've sold everything. I can invest money.
So I was alone. I found myself alone. And that was the moment things started changing in my life. And I can relate that to what happened to David in the Cave of Hadlam.
Things started changing. No further. No more that to cry to. I don't even want to tell them what I was going through because it's going to create another attention.
So I had to face it alone. And in the midst of that, I started searching my hat. I got broken and got inside my prayer. My uncle called me one evening and told me that, you know what?
I just got a job for you in Doncaster. I was happy when I said Doncaster. Doncaster, to Manchester, is like one hour, 45 minute by train. So how do I go there every day and come back?
I said, well, you know what? Meanwhile, I had a shortfall of payment in my tuition fee. So I was thinking that, well, I don't know. I might not be writing those exams.
I was already rounding off in my mind. But when it came with the offer, I had to think about it again. So I went to Doncaster. Thinking that it's going to be like a house, it's going to be a sane living.
When I got there, there is a mask from, I think, Orange UK is a telecommunication company. They used to vandalize the masks. So the need is secured together. It's going to be on ground like 24 hours.
At the time they vandalize the masks, they lose a lot of money. So they have a caravan. Is it a caravan? They want you to take to.
Yeah, so when I saw it, I was totally sad. But my uncle looked at me. You have to do it. So I took up the challenge.
I'm going to be sleeping there for 24 hours. And I have lectures in Manchester. So I'm going to move from there to Manchester for like, I will leave there on Thursday and come back on Saturday morning. So I'm doing the only period I can have my back.
So it was that rough. But you know what? I'm going to say that was actually the changing period because I saw no one. I only saw God.
And I was hooked to two things, my books and Bible and the development started. And the development started. And the development started. I started praying.
I found praying easy. Well, maybe because I had nothing to do. But it was like the beginning. And I kept moving.
And I kept moving. And for the glory of God, I was able to raise money, to complete the payment for my diploma program and to start my master's program. And immediately I was able to do that after the month. They called and they said the job is over.
And I was happy because now I was a changed man. And the first thing that changed in me was the fact that I did not want to leave his presence any longer. I got addicted to it. I wanted to such more.
To learn more. To read more. You know, each time now I understand why I think it was just right. I said, I was happy when they said they'd go to the house of God.
So and the whole thing started. And I called my uncle. Can we start a Bible fellowship at home? And he loved the idea.
And we started. And every Sunday evening we bring people outside. And it was a team of joy. And I finished from my programs and I returned to Nigeria.
And now I know what Jesus Christ said. You shall know the truth. And the truth shall set you free. Now I know the meaning of going to church.
It wasn't like it used to be. Now I can understand messages being preached. And I kept growing. I kept growing.
I kept growing. Now there was a time we have to move away from Nigeria. And to come down to Canada. And it was another story.
So we landed in Canada. And we've heard a lot about the environment, how things have started changing about things before I get into all those things. And I didn't want to involve my family in there. This is my second spell I brought.
I have lent so many things. And I was not conscious of messages that I would pass in across to my children and my family, my wife. So I was praying to God. God, I need a church.
I went online. And I would be seeing that when I see the flag or the ring board, the flag, when I see it, I say, no. It was now becoming real to me. Wow, this is what I'm going to leave through.
And a friend of mine introduced me to Brother Gabriel. And as we were just talking, I hacked him. Which church do you think? And he said, not Brother Gabriel.
I said, wow, I've had that name before. But he said, yeah, he's a good church. If you don't mind, you can come. And I go home.
I told my wife, I was finally in church. She had a whole story as well. She was coming from a Pentecostar church, where the whole this site is going to be instruments. We've seen, we clapped.
I wish you can just see one of these churches on YouTube. You have it in YouTube. And I have an idea of what I'm talking about. So I told her not Brother Gabriel, but she was disappointed.
She said, maybe I'm the only one that would be going there that she's found a church. I said, you know what? We are not going to go to separate church. We will go to not broke.
I stood my ground. And I brought her here. I said, you know what? I want us to grow.
We share this in my ground. And I know what I'm missing. I grew up in Christ's apostolic church. I will, if you don't mind, I can give you the name of the church after this.
And I'm going ahead and make sure it's such a name. It's a prayerful church. So we pray a lot. It's a prayer for prayer.
Infrastructure wise, you have to pray food. You have to pray job. You have to pray. And when I say prayer, it's not, it's a fiving prayer.
You pray like a warrior. But I discovered that we were in thought the word. That was what was missing. And if you understand the word, that's what you build relationship, that's what connects you to Jesus Christ.
That's what multiplies the grace in you. So I brought her in. And after the service, she looked at me. She said.
I tried as much as possible to put a smile, a brief face. I said, this is it. This is the church. I love this song.
She said, we went home. And I told her, I said, you know what? Adaptability in business world is the key to success. You have to learn how to adapt.
Let's try it again. And we came again. And I can remember I would pray that day. She fell in love.
And as we're about rounding off, moving out. Mary, Mary, the monitor. She walked in. So I said, she came to my side and said, you guys, if you want to put down your name, she's ready to take our names.
And I looked at my wife, Tanvi. And while she was still thinking, Mary said, you know what? I've been in this church for more than 40 years. And there's one thing I'm going to say, this is home.
And I told my wife, that's it. Let's put down her name. Let's put down her name. And that was how we became part of the not-broke Bible church.
And ever since we joined, I am telling you, without mixing word, without, I'm telling you the way it is. We have been growing. My children have been growing. My wife has been growing.
Now, after a while, we evaluated ourselves again at home. And I said, can you compare this to what we were doing in Nigeria? Yeah, the dancing, the drunk set, we missed the fun. But now you know the reason why Jesus Christ, you know it better than the way it came to work, it's not about it.
Now, you know why it's presence. Dwelling is in its presence. It's more important than its presence. You know now that if you are in its presence, you don't have its presence.
We now understand all those things. And it has been one way of moving, we were growing. And the rejoice thing as well, has really helped my family, especially the children. And I remember when I joined the prayer session first.
And we were about to pray. And until everybody said, amen. I never knew we were praying. Because it wasn't the same.
I was in my mind, I was thinking like, OK, it's still trying to analyze its prayer. Until everybody said, amen. Wow. And I told myself, this is like learning how to work again.
Because it wasn't the same kind of prayer we were used to. But the glory of God, I can tell you that things are not the way used to be. We are getting there. So in rounding up, I'm going to take a cue from what Brother Madonna shared in the morning.
It didn't do also much in it, but it was part of what I think brought me to Christ. First Peter, 3 was 9. And that passage says something about God's vision. I'm sorry, I just have to.
And it says, the Lord is not really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sick. He does not want anyone to be destroyed. But once everyone to repaint.
And that was like the connecting dirt to my messy. I can see patients, God's patients, in what I went through. Just like the story he shared in the morning, the story of his friend, he could have in me. But it was patient.
And Paul says something. In 4 stimulus, 1, 13 to 14, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ in my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had messy on me because I did it in ignorance and home belief. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was.
It filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ, Jesus. And I underlined how generous and gracious. Some of us might have something similar with my background, with the story of me in Christ. Some of us might be raised by godly parents in godly environment.
But just like I said, there was a transition which I got stored in. From that moment to Christ in me. Yes. One thing I discovered in that transition is the fact that there were lots of frustrations.
There were lots of mistakes. Why? Because Christ wasn't growing in me. Yes, I was saved.
I believe if Jesus Christ would come that time, I'm going to make heaven. But I was living hell-hud. And that led me to what David said in Psalm 51 was 10. It says, creating me, exhale in heart, whole god, renew a loyal spirit within me until our heart is renewed.
Just like I shared in the communion this morning. Yes. There is the only reason you have to be making everyone is the fact that it was scallest, but I was out in general to explain that. Also, ever believed, believe it in him, will not perish.
So your belief in him will make you to guarantee you eternal life. But there's more. He wants you to do more on heart as well. Until your heart is renewed, you can't embrace him more.
You can't have the best of him. And that was what my journey has taught me. And ever since, I've been growing. And in conclusion, there's a word in my background, or my profession is in sub-liking.
We have a Japanese word that says kizing. Kizing, if you're into business, you know kizing. It's a common word in business. Well, it means change for better.
So we have agents of like, as continuous improvement. And that's how we should be. And that's how the journey has been for me. I like to improve.
I like to improve. But we can do that until we keep such a description. We evaluate ourselves with what we find in the description. And that's how we can improve.
That's how we can see ourselves. And I strongly believe that my relationship with God is experiencing that. And I can't but mention my opportunity. Can I see opportunity or grace or kinetic gift?
The Bible study has tremendously helped me as well. I see it as an opportunity wherever I meet people that are senior in here that have been through tea content of life as well. And I share from the experiences. And sometimes, my wife looks me and I see them as wise.
And I smile. You don't know where it's going from. So at this stage, I will say you keep praying for me and my family. That as we are in Christ, that Christ should keep growing in us.
That we should continue to dwell in some presence. That is presence. We'll never depart from us. Let us pray.