By Daniel Kanu
Founder, Kingsway International Christan Centre KICC and Convener Christ Compassion for the Rural World, CCRW, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo has asked Nigerians to keep encouraging one another and to be their brother’s keeper.
This is as he expressed satisfaction for : Ibadan This Is Love crusade, where thousands of food items including: rice, beans, garri , sugar, Noddles, and clothing materials were distributed.
Also medical outreach Services were extended to both the young and the elderly in the areas of major and minor surgeries, eye test and distribution of over 7,000 eye glasses.
Ashimolowo, who spoke with Daily Sun at the weekend after the crusade said he felt fulfilled at the joy and smiles that beamed the faces of beneficiaries.
Said Ashimolowo ” we need to make a difference in someone’s life We (Nigerians) need to encourage people near us, we need to encourage one another, be your brother’s keeper and you will be amazed at the outcome.
“So, in this Christmas do something for the next person near you. As a pastor in England for 40 years and for the past 12 years we’ve been giving a thousand hampers to people in England because there is poverty everywhere.
” And 90 percent of about that 1000 hampers in England goes to white families and that tells you poverty does not know colour or tribe.”
Speaking about his assessment and impression of the Ibadan crusade, the globally respected clergy said: “It has been five days of this crusade, so far so good.
“We give God all glory; we give him all the praise for how far He has helped us. “We were in shock as to the level of response from Ibadan people. The response was overwhelming.
“sometimes posters billboards and radio interviews are hard to believe by the nature of the kind of compassion crusade we came with, especially when you are telling people you’re bringing 150,000 bags of beans; 150,000 bags of rice, 50, 000 bags of garri and medicals.
“it just looks almost impossible but they came. The people were glad. So it has been more than expected. It has been successful and it has been quite a testimony.”
Explaining further, Ashimolowo said that the “Ibadan crusade and medical services were probably three to four times bigger than Ikorodu and handling was far better. Also the cooperation of the churches here was great, so that is one of the reasons we registered huge success.
” On Thursday for instance, we had about six different groups of people the largest, the reasons being the eye people who are here waiting to see optometrists probably in excess of three thousand people.
“We’re ready for them because we have 7, 000 glasses to give out, apart from that, the next group was the 60 years and above and we’re ready for them too. We had 30,000 dewormers for children.
“There is a lot of challenges, the children born in Nigeria have a lot of problem with the water they drink. Many of the satchet water people that sell around we don’t even know the source, how clean and treated they are and so we are adequately prepared because we have medicine for the young men, nursing mothers, we have medicine for the older men.
“People troopedi into the Liberty stadium in their thousands to benefit from all that were distributed. I am overjoyed by the outcome of the outreach.
“The people who were operated upon; we were told it lasted for over 10 hours, and there was even a surgery that lasted 13 hours. There were major surgeries.
” I must commend that the doctors handled top cases. For 10-hour to 13-hour, they handled tough surgeries such as reshaping faces, CCRW is responsible for as much as two to three weeks post surgeries while they’re in the hospital and even when they finish and are living the hospital CCRW will also give them some curative medicine to help them manage their lives until they are okay and the people are grateful.
“The people that have had hernia taking out, fibroids taken out and some of them could be having post surgery treatment. I’m sure so far so good, we have had more than 70 intensive surgeries that took 10-hour to 13-hour.. But in all we had not less than 711 surgeries.
“At a time, I observed that for the older women we don’t have clothes for them, the 130, 000 we had this year, are these clothes from the US, you can’t give Mama, our mothers trousers to be wearing or blouse.
“So within a short time I had to take money from my own company to quickly bring in 7,000 Ankara and as the Ankara came late. Sometimes God knows how he does his things. I was not happy with the girl who was bringing the Ankara, not knowing that she had challenges while she was coming, she had to sleep in Abeokuta and eventually she arrived here and immediately they saw it, the old women began to clap their hands, praising God and I really thank God for everything.
“People came all the way from Akure, Igboho, people came from Owo, Delta State, Port Harcourt, Lagos, and it’s very fulfilling to see people saved and they were grateful and the prayers they offered you could see it from the bottom of their hearts.
“I always remind them that we are not doing this because we have excess money, and we are not an NGO. We’re the body of Christ, we are Christ compassion to the rural world we are doing this for the love of God. So it was fulfilling.”