Encomium
ABOUT 30 years after an idea for a prayer mountain was revealed to Pastor E. A. Adeboye, General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and his wife, Pastor (Mrs.) Foluke Adeboye in faraway South Korea, an out of this world prayer mountain has been completed in Ifewara, Osun State.
Mount Carmel Prayer Mountain, as the place is called, was opened recently at a relatively quiet ceremony that drew elders and pastors from the RCCG family and dignitaries from Ifewara, as well as workers and volunteers of the project.
The prayer village, ENCOMIUM Weekly learnt, has sanctuaries, dormitories, chalets and numerous prayer huts flowing down the slope of a hill, overlooked by bigger residential blocks. There are also halls of various sizes. And to avoid the distraction of going out for one’s daily needs, there is a restaurant, bookshop, a supermarket, reliable electricity among others.
Our source said: “Welcoming guests at the opening ceremony, Pastor (Mrs.) Foluke Adeboye, who coordinated the construction, reportedly revealed that although the plot of land had been bought by them years ago for a prayer mountain, the land had been lying fallow until about seven years ago when her husband moved for its development.
“Who is going to help you build it?” She said she asked.
And Pastor Adeboye answered: “God, but you will be following His leading to do it.”
“As she wondered how she would start, an architect volunteered her services to design the facility, and, with the support of engineers and other workers, the forested hill slope has turned years later into a beauty to behold.”
“We had been inspired to build a prayer mountain by what we saw in South Korea in 1985. We went for a David Yonggi Cho prayer conference there, and one afternoon, they took the delegates to their prayer mountain, which we admired so much.
“But then, we said: “God, this is South Korea; we travelled almost a whole day to get here. How can we have something like this in Nigeria?”
“So since 1985, we had it in our minds that one day, there would be a prayer mountain of a similar status in Nigeria,” she added while tracing the origin of the project.
Also explaining how they got the name of the prayer mountain, she said: “We named this Mount Carmel after the Mount Carmel where Prophet Elijah defeated the work of the devil. We also remembered the Mount of Transfiguration.”
Daddy G.O was equally quoted as saying they returned from South Korea in 1985 and decided there would be a prayer mountain in Nigeria that people from all over the world would come to pray.
According to him, they consulted and later bought the land but the challenges of developing it delayed the project.
“The challenges were much, but what I had discussed with God about the prayer mountain remained burning in my heart. The way I had planned it, the place should have been built many years ago. But in the face of the enormous challenges, we resorted to building a place called “Halleluyah House” at Redemption camp.
“Yet the passion for the prayer mountain was still burning in my heart. I believed that by the time I was 60 years old, we would have built it, but it was not possible. When I was getting to 70 years old, I remembered that every year after 70 years of a man on earth is extra time.”
“To ensure that the dream would not die, and efforts that had been made would not be fruitless, I called my wife and gave her the responsibility to build this prayer mountain,” Adeboye further revealed.
At the opening of the wondrous structure touted as an element of religious tourism, were some elders of Ifewara, Professor Folu Aboaba, Elder Morounfolu Olusola Olakunri (SAN), Elder Felix Ohiwerei, Pastor Wale Oke and his wife among others.
Set to unveil the first part of their N20 billion 3-km auditorium, Adeboye’s RCCG has, ahead of its unveiling (this forth-coming 63rd Church Convention) officially commissioned a Prayer Garden.
The recently unveiled magnificent facility- located some 10 minutes off Ife, the hometown of Pastor Adeboye- is worth millions of naira.
This is in addition to RCCG’s land mark Redemption camp, a model city that serves as the church’s world headquarters with luxury flats for their members and staff.
- UCHE OLEHI
