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!