STRATEGIC RETREAT
As the world celebrates a new year, the WAD leadership prays for a spiritual revival
Josephine Akarue/Solace Asafo-Hlordzi
January 4, 2011 – Babcock, Nigeria- Adventist Ministers, Conference workers, institutional heads and their spouses gathered at the main campus of Babcock University, Nigeria for a six-day retreat aimed at attaining a spiritual revival in the West Central African Division, WAD.
“We are desperately in need of the Holy Spirit and that is why we are here. We are fasting and praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to enable us conclude God’s work in the Division,” says Pastor Gilbert Wari, WAD President.
Themed, Revival and Reformation, the programme scheduled for Jan 3 – 9, 2011, is the first of its kind in the Division and attracted more than 2,000 church leaders from 22-member countries. Pastor Wari terms it a “provoking revival and reformation” for leaders as envisioned by the World church.
Indeed, Professor J. A. Kayode Makinde, BU President/Vice Chancellor while welcoming delegates remarked that the retreat will set the direction of leadership for the WAD in the next quinquennium.
In spite of the odds and turmoil facing member nations, he sounded an optimistic note, “The landscape may be bleak. But we have hope, not one based on whims and human sentiments, but on Divine power. On this Rock, we stand.”
Pastor Oyeleke Owolabi, President of the North Western Nigerian Union, the host of the event, reaffirmed this confidence. “We have come to seek solution from the Master Teacher Himself; to be led and inspired from above.”
Leading out in the opening prayer session, Pastor Onoalopo Ajibade, the Division Secretary, reminded all that the Lord will honour the prayers to turn the Division around if members will humbly confess their sins, seek His face and turn away from their wicked ways.
“This the best thing to happen at this time in the church’s history,” adding, “More than ever, we need the Holy Spirit to strengthen our leaders for the work that we have been called to do,” declared a participant.