OKOH...A Modern Day Timothy

                                                                      

(First published in a Kingdom People magazine Special Section, Vanguards of the Faith in 2010).

The just elected President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Most Reverend Daniel Okoh's antecedents remind one of Timothy, the Bishop of Ephesus, who was Apostle Paul's spiritual son and travelling companion.

Of him the great Apostle wrote: “the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also” (2 Timothy 1:5 KJV). In other words, faith ran in the family three generations deep!

Of the General Superintendent of the Christ Holy Church International, second term vice-president of Christian Association of Nigeria and current President of the continent-wide Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), it can fittingly be written: the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Agnes, and thy father, Marius...”

Indeed, his is an enviable pedigree in the Christian faith in Nigeria, beginning East of the Niger. His grandmother Prophetess Agnes Okoh answered the call of God to be an itinerant evangelist and subsequently founded the church in 1947. No mean feat for a woman who was illiterate in western education and operating in the then fiercely male-dominated ambience of Igboland of Eastern Nigeria.

Born to Onumba Emordi and Ntonefu at Ndoni in today's Rivers State in 1905, she resettled at Asaba, after the death of her parents and married a Ghanaian immigrant sailor, James Okoh, in 1924.
Six years later, she was widowed and left with only two of her several children, survivors of the high child mortality rate in their family.

Her husband's sudden death and the loss of many of her children in rapid succession took their toll upon her. Severe migraine and despondency set in. She sought healing wherever it was said to be available, traditional or western. Nothing worked until she came across a prophetess, who healed her miraculously.
Thereafter, she relocated to Enugu, then capital of Eastern Nigeria, became a textile trader and simply set about being mother and bread winner.

Then, in April 1943 as she returned from the market one day, she heard a voice repeatedly calling out ‘Matthew 10’. She looked around again and again to ‘see' the voice, until she was persuaded there was nobody.

Puzzled, she headed for a partially literate friend's place with the question: what is Matthew 8?

Her friend got a young man to read to the the Gospel According to St Matthew Chapter 10 to her from the Union Igbo translation.

Sensing a call upon her life, but needing clarification, Agnes, accompanied by her friend, went to see the prophetess through whom she had earlier been healed. The prophetess aligned with their thought, but advised her to await another confirmation from God.

 Agnes took the advice and continued her textile business until 1947 when she responded to a strong, irrepressible impulse to preach the Gospel. As a result, she sold everything she had in stock, gave the proceeds to the poor and set out with a Bible and bell in hand, to preach the Gospel.

Someday the full story of this woman of God will be told in full. It suffices to state that what is tiday kniwn as Christ Holy Church International began as a nameless 12-man prayer group led by an illiterate, but spiritually gifted, zealous woman, who sold all she had and took to the street in answer to the call upon her life. It metamorphosed to Odozi Obodo Prayer Ministry and Christ Apostolic Church, Odozi Obodo to what it has become in the hands of her son and grandson. Talk of the unfeigned faith of a twentieth century Lois.
If Grandma Agnes was a latter-day Lois, Marius Anyetei, though male, can be styled as a modern day Eunice, the first-line inheritor of his mother's faith.

He was born April 15, 1927, one of only two children who did not pre-deceased their father, James. He started his Christian walk in the Catholic Church where he was baptised and even served mass at the Catholic Church in Asaba.

Marius, a civil engineer, public works department official was initially a sceptic. Although he was witness to how his mother suffered from depression and migraines for many years and was miraculously healed by a prophetess and how he at 20, his mother began to heal and preach the Word of God from one place to another, he was still unconvinced about God’s call upon her life.

He even tried to entice her back to the textile trade with a substantial seed-capital, which she rejected. This changed his attitude to the mum, but it didn't make a ministry candidate out of him. He continued apace with his plan for further education abroad in spite of his mother's prophecy that he would later be called to do the work of God.

Again, this is not the place to discuss Marius Okoh's many exploits in ministry as administrator, moderniser, teacher and leader.

Of whom it was recorded in one of Dr Thomas Odaro's  works on the Okohs as follows: "God gave him a lot of spiritual gifts which enabled him to distinctively evangelise, counsel, pastor, teach, and perform miracles in the name of our Lord Jesus." By the time he passed on at 53 on March 2, 1980, predeceasing his mother by 15 years, he had been credited with raising the dead, increasing the church's congregation from one to about 300 and his reputation was such that he was described in his epitaph as "a foremost African evangelist."

There can be little doubt that it is the same "unfeigned faith" that is in grandson and son Daniel which led to his ascendancy to the headship of the church, by divine prophesy. As a result of this, the church has grown from 300 congregations at inception when his daddy died in 1980, to over 850 congregations comprising of over two million members at present, including five in Ghana and two in Togo.

To achieve this monumental feat, this "Timothy" has zealously and selflessly adhered strictly, by faith, to the principle upon which the church was founded and developed. These include regular open air evangelistic crusades, indoor revivals, where healing, prophetic utterances, emphasis on the Word of God have continually yielded bountiful fruits in testimonies of changed lives.

Other hallmarks of Christ Holy Church under the visionary leadership of Daniel Okoh, include empathetic communal responsibility and great emphasis on unity and stability. As part of Church responsibility to the larger society, apart from meeting the spiritual needs of her members, the church has built schools and skills training centres in many towns and villages.

At Avedo, a village in the Volta region of Ghana, the church has a six-classroom elementary school, where the students enjoy fee-free education. The Church is also involved in HIV & AIDS awareness campaign.

Indeed, Dr Okoh represents the new face of churches founded in Africa for Africans. He is one of the younger generation of leaders who while holding on to the faith of the founding fathers refuse to be held down by tradition. That explains why apart from seeking the spiritual needs he likes to style the Christ Holy Church International as reformed Aladura with a mission to worship to worship the Triune God in holiness and to teach and spread the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ across borders, race and cultures urgently, powerfully, faithfully, wisely and fearfully till Jesus Christ comes again.