In March 2015, a Sister Mrs Fawole fondly called “ArokaJesu”
called me from Columbus Ohio and narrated how she has been given a revelation
in her sleep about a church with her altar filled with bottles of water being
prayed on by the Pastor for people healing and deliverance. She said she hasn’t
seen or been to any church in the physical live where such thing like that
happened. So, she went online and saw one of our Wakati Iyanu Live Programs
where she noticed and saw that our altar was full of water bottle just the same
way she saw it in her dream. And that was when she decided to attend the next
physical gathering of our Wakati Iyanu Yoruba program which she did along with
her husband in the July chapter of 2015.
After her experience, she made an urgent and importunate
(repeated) requests to me and my wife to extend the wing of Wakati Iyanu
(Yoruba) program to the city of Columbus and the State of Ohio.
So, as we normally do, I and my wife went into prayer to see
whether God really want us to …, and when would He want us to go.
So, when we got God approval then;
1. Shared the idea with the other ministers and the then
church committee who sees the move as godly move.
2. I asked my wife (Lady Evangelist Comfort Adenike Oloba)
who is gifted in church planting to go and visit the city (Columbus) to see
what the area look like, and to look for a hall that we can use for our first
night vigil program. She spent few days staying with the Fawoles.
And to the glory God , we planned and carried out
successfully our first Wakati Iyanu Yoruba program on Friday June 7th,
2016, at:2975 Morse Road Ste C,
Columbus, Ohio 43231 with almost two hundred (200) in attendance.
Few members of our Lithonia Assembly were in attendance. Pastor Kehinde
Adelodun from our Indianapolis Assembly with his wife and children drove for
three hours to attend this program.
Also in the weekend of Friday August 12th – Sunday August 14th, 2016 we
came back and of course inaugurated the church service with some members of the
Lithonia Assembly in attendance – Evang. Victoria O’babatunde, Evang. Alphonsus
Oseizagha, Evang. Samuel Oloba, Elder Richard Akolade, Sister Lola Winful,
Sister Odunayo Aluko, Brother Seun Owolabi. Along with us into this inaugural
service was Pastor Joushua Fadipe, whom I introduced to the members, and prayed
for on that Sunday of August 14th, 2016 as a minister in charged on
a temporary deployment until the CAC Authority has found him fit for the job of
the Assembly Pastor.
In this inaugural service, we recorded for the first time in
all our previous church planting a starting member of over one hundred.
We started service in this location and because of the time
available for us (2pm – 4.30pm) the members saw the need to look and secure our
own place of worship whereby the church can be holding regular and Sunday
morning services instead of the afternoon …
Precisely a month after the church inauguration, Lady Evang.
Comfort Oloba was quickly deployed to this baby church for the sake of
stability. She was in the house of the Fawoles for few weeks. The history of our
Columbus Assembly will be incomplete if we failed to appreciate the unrelenting
efforts of Mr & Mrs Fawole.
During this time Evangelist Comfort Oloba tireless and
zealous service coupled with the supports of the Fawole family and that of our
able Evangelist Omifidipe the church was able to secure our present place of
worship at: 834 North Cassady Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, 43219. We cannot forget
the love and the enthusiastic of mommy Deaconess Adelaja and others who at the
inception took it upon themselves to pay for the rent, furniture, and filled
the Pastor house with all manners of food.
While praying and waiting on God to provide us a servant
after God’s own heart to supervise or pastor these great and spiritually hungry
people, I and my wife had to changed our schedules and of course cancelled most
of our mission trips to the church in Spain and . It was a challenging time for
us as leaders and for the church. Because, the church lost virtually all the
starting and committed members due to the issue of Pastor Joshua Fashipe …. Hence, there was no money to sponsor
ministers from Headquarter Assembly. I and my wife with our two boys (Samuel
and Seun) have had to be on road for nine hours to and fro Columbus Assembly
and Atlanta twice (between year 2016 and 2017).
And with the restless efforts of Mr & Mrs Fawole, the
church was able to be legally registered as a Domestic nonprofit Corporation in
the State of Ohio, on October 26th, 2016.
Few of these pioneer members who stood the test of time
were: Mr & Mrs Fawole; Mrs Nike Obayemi (who was appointed as church
Secretary); Mrs Kike Ayeni (who was appointed as the Church Women Leader); Mrs
Dayo Ayeni (who was appointed as the church Treasurer), Evangelist Olukemi
Omifidipe; and Dr & Mrs Isaiah Abimbola; Mr & Mrs Obajobi who have now
relocated to another State. Also, we cannot but sincerely appreciate productive
efforts of our Pastor Abiola Idowu, who God used to fill the vacuum during those
thriving and trying time.
And on Sunday April 1st, 2017 our current man of
God (Pastor Adebowale Dairo) took up the leadership role of the church as the Assembly
Pastor. Pastor Dairo has been a committed, diligent, faithful and
hardworking man of God. He and his wonderful family have been giving their best
to see that the church grow in spiritually, numerically and in every area.
We pray that the church of God will continue to grow and
having bearing in Columbus and her environs in the name of Jesus Christ, our
Lord, Amen!