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Since roughly two millennia ago, celebration of Easter has remained an enduring legacy. It has continued to enjoy active relevance among Christians. The love and sacrifice epitomized by Jesus Christ are of trans-generational significance. They are not theories built on luxuries and convenience. They are not sermonizing on religious traditions. Beyond the rituals, the challenge for contemporary adherents of Christ’s teachings is how to influence the world with what Christ taught and modeled during His earthly ministry. How does one show love to one another who has no capability to repay? Is it possible, at a time of economic crunch, to put smiles on the faces of those languishing in pains? How would the poor, the less privileged, the sick, the abandoned, and the ‘wretched of the earth’ know that Christ loves them? That is what the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Desire of Nations Parish, Jabi, Abuja, has demonstrated for years.
When I first visited the Church in 2024, I witnessed loving-kindness at a time of mindless self-centeredness. My eyes saw the helpless and the heart-broken finding comfort. I saw long queues of hundreds of people waiting to be served lunch by humane officers of the Church’s Welfare Department.
It was like those queuing to cast their votes in an Option-A4 election. The church workers were compassionate and passionate. They were happy with the sweat of managing a desperately-hungry crowd. They did so with joy; fulfilling the law of Christ. The beneficiaries were mainly women, youth, and children. Stories that touch the heart! No media hype. No discrimination. No ruffling. No slave-driving as a condition for free food. They were rather treated with utmost dignity and respect.
Over time, I discovered that the free lunch programme is a weekly affair. The Church has an arrangement in place to feed the needy every Sunday. The vision of the General Overseer of RCCG, Pastor E. A. Adeboye is to go beyond preaching of the gospel to touching of lives in practical terms The presiding minister of the Parish who also doubles as the Pastor in charge of FCT Province 5 and the Assistant Pastor in charge of RCCG Region 45, Pastor Victor Olurunmodimu, told me that the church feeds no less than 300 people on weekly basis. Expectedly, the needy comes to the Church every Sunday with certainty of quality meal.
In Nigeria today, food crisis and high cost of living in Nigeria have pushed many to the rank of the poor. Beggars have become more daring. People are doing the unthinkable to eat, and leaving those at the bottom rung of the social ladder to survive, either by hook or crook, without lending a helping hand by Christians, negates the love of Christ. It was unbearable hunger that made Esau to naively sell his birthright. It was hunger that made many carnally-minded Israelites to remember Egyptian cucumbers and onions from the wilderness trip to the promised land.
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The risk associated with leaving a hungry person without feeding him can be unimaginable. When King David’s camp was invaded in Ziklag, it was the abandoned, hungry servant of the Amalekites, who was resuscitated with food, that gave David the information that led to the success of his operation ‘pursue-overtake-and-recover-all.’
As common as food is, leaving someone without it is a security risk. The stampede experienced in sharing food handouts in Abuja, Anambra and Oyo States on the eve of 2024 Christmas in Nigeria showed what hunger can do. Even in war situations, deliberate starvation of a people, perhaps through food blockade, is a war crime. The 1962 International Humanitarian Law made it so. That is the gap which RCCG, Desire of Nations Parish has set out to fill in a sustainable manner. A clear demonstration of empathy, social conscience, moral force, and sacrificial love. The Church could have taken the easy path of blaming the government. But it chose to be different and act as an instrument of speeding the light in a greedy world governed by the Sprit of Mammon. Like the children of Issachar, the Church has the understanding that the haves cannot sleep when the have-nots are awake.
Indeed, the Parish has a tradition of reaching out to sinners and those in need of help. Beyond the food ministry, the Prison and Hospital Evangelism Units of the Church have affected many lives. The inmates of nearby Correctional Facilities in Kuje, Suleja and Gwagwalada are periodically visited with food items, money, bibles, and devotionals. Those who could not fulfill their bail conditions with a little as low as N20,000 had received help that set them free. Hospital bills of some patients are paid. Some are assisted to obtain right medications. These are the footsteps of the Good Shepherd who went out in search of one lost sheep amid one hundred.
In 2025, Dakibiyu, a slum in the West of Abuja city-centre, cannot forget the Church’s mission in a hurry. The inhabitants of the area which is about 20 minutes’ drive to the Central Business District, received free medical services during the evangelism outreach. The kind gestures were also extended to Idu, Gwagwa and Mararaba suburbs. As typical with slums, the areas are overcrowded by poor people with run-down and unorganized housing, dirtiness, and inferior living conditions. Slums do not just emerge on its own. A slum is an irony of the struggle between “affluence and affliction.” People who came to exploit the beautiful opportunities in the city but could not afford the high cost of living, resort to living in slums with the locals. They take off and return there after daily struggles. Yet, the church still reached out to them with the message of hope and eternal value.
As the mountain of the house of God is exalted above the hills, let more churches show more commitment in lifting people out of multi-dimensional poverty that entrapped over 133 million Nigerians. Let the church overrun evil with the inextinguishable light of kindness. “The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.”
