By Muyiwa Adeyemi for All Seraphs Media
Since 1925, when the greatest Prophet from Africa, St Moses Orimolade Tunolase, founded the Cherubim & Seraphim, there have been many great men and women that God has used in His Vineyard to keep the fire burning.
There have been great exploits in the five fold ministries and God is still using numerous vessels to propagate the gospel and plant churches in all the six continents of the world.
We recognise and appreciate their efforts, both living and those that have joined the Saints!
But the way and manner in which the Founder, Love of Christ Generation Church, Cherubim and Seraphim (LOC) and Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the White Garment Churches, Reverend Mother (Dr) Esther Abimbola Ajayi has changed the narrative of the C & S church is unprecedented and so awesome that many are asking who is Esther Abimbola Ajayi?
Her singular contributions to changing the landscape of the Seraphim Land, Maba, Km 40, Lagos/ Ibadan expressway, turning a hitherto sparsely populated environment into a beehive of spiritual activities are stuffs of legends.
The list of her philanthropic gesture is almost endless: From giving hope to the almost moribund Moses Orimolade University (MOU) Project, where she has spent about N4b, to fulfilling the life ambition of hundreds of Seraphs by sponsoring them on Holy Pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and the sponsoring of numerous youth programs and empowering them.
It also includes identifying talented young Seraphs and awarding them scholarships, sponsoring of many Unification programs including quarterly vigils, Seraphim Day Celebration, First Seraph Media Summit, Praise Night at MOU, and building of Secretariat to Lagos State Chapter of the Unification among others.
There is hardly any church that Iya Adura, as she is being fondly called, has not touched. The Eternal Order of the Cherubim & Seraphim will forever be grateful to her for rebuilding Okokoro where the founder of the Church, St Moses Orimolade told his disciples to bury him, which has been named as the International Headquarters of the church. Also Ikare, Moses Orimolade’s hometown, where she has built blocks of classrooms with modern facilities at Orimolade Primary School. Her personal presence at Orile Igbon, the Headquarters of the Movement has also been a blessing. She has built a personal residence on that Galille, to mention few.
Most Nigerians will not forget in a hurry, their spiritual experiences at “Celebrate the Comforter”, held at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), Lagos in 2019 where kings and powers that be in the country joined several thousands of Seraphs all over the world and Celestial Church members to celebrate Jesus Christ and sang praises to His Holy name. The management of the TBS described the event as the best program with largest crowd ever hosted on that national monument built to celebrate Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
It is instructive to note that the first edition of the program which attracted the presence of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi; and the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwoolu was held in London. The second edition was in New York, the United States of America while the third was held in Nigeria. Many Nigerians have appealed to her that Celebrate the Comforter should be an annual event in Nigeria.
Apart from her numerous developmental strides in the C & S, thousands of people from many countries have benefitted from the milk of kindness that freely flows from the founder of the Abimbola Esther Ajayi Foundation. She was in Rwanda in 2019 to wipe tears away from hundreds of victims of genocidal war that saw over three million massacred in that country.
A week visit to that country after 20 years of the ethnic war gave hope to many and her generous support is springing one of the best hospitals in that war-ravaged country.
The Vice President of Liberia, Dr Jewel Howard Taylor was profoundly happy with her gesture which gave hope to the hopeless in that country when she visited. Indeed, he came to Nigeria to say a special thank you to Iya Adura. Writing about her philanthropic gesture in Ghana, Benin Republic, the United Kingdom, Madagascar, Saint Kitts and the Netherlands and Israel where she donated several computers to aid the teaching of IT among Israeli children could take chapters in a book.
However, Iya Adura’s great exploits at several international fora especially at the United Nations, New York, where she led other white garment church leaders to address the world, in their flowing white garments was a climax of her genuine desire to change the narrative of the church to the internationally acceptable religious organisation.
With Iya Adura, many churches that had hitherto rejected people in white garments in their church premises have allowed her to mount their pulpit, wearing her white garment with her peculiar cap to match. Indeed, Iya Adura is a friend of the world renowned Evangelist, Mark Mudock, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and his wife, Folu, Baba S. K. Abiara of the CAC, to mention few.
Only in December 2020, the Inspector General of Police Muhammad Adamu personally wrote to thank Iya Adura for building the Headquarters of Special Protection Unit (SPU) in Ikeja, Lagos and got kudos from Governor Babajide Sanwoolu for providing a better environment for the boys at the Lagos Correctional Home, Oregun where she refurbished the Home and provided them with a Computer Laboratory, Sewing Machines, bunks, and changing of the landscape to interlocking blocks, apart from refurbishing their dormitory and Kitchen.
Thousands of Seraphs that benefitted from the palliatives she shared during pandemic will not forget her generosity and motherly love.
To bring home the nature of her charity works, on January 4, 2020, the Ogun State Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) organised a Special thanksgiving service for the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo at the Presidential Library, Abeokuta where Iya Adura was the Special Guest of Honour. During the program, a Personal Assistant of a Governorship candidate in the State was struggling to get a contact number of one of the aides of Iya Adura which I had to intervene.
The gentle man told me that he and his colleagues had been trying to reach Iya Adura because of one Mr Dotun Oladipupo who Iya Adura had assisted to survive Sickle Cell crisis.
He said that Oladipupo, who was a lecturer at the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta, is a Sickle Cell carrier and at the point of death. His video while groaning in pains was sent to Esther Ajayi Foundation and within a week, Dotun was assisted to fly to India for a bone marrow transplant that cost over N10m.
The surgical operation was successful and the man had another opportunity to live to accomplish his dreams. The gentle man now wrote a book titled: “The Warrior In Crisis,” a memoir of a Sickle Cell warrior and a chapter was dedicated to Iya Adura who he said he had never met or physically seen but would want her to grace the occasion as the Special Guest of Honour.
When I contacted Iya Adura, she could not remember his case out of many the foundation assisted in that year, but she promised to make enquiries about him. About ten minutes later, she said Dotun’s story was true and she asked about his health. When I told her about the book launch and the desire of the gentleman to meet her just to say Thank you, Iya Adura said, “God has sent me to him and I have delivered the message, there is no need for him to see me, he should just go and thank God. Please represent me at the book launch to honor him”. That is Iya Adura for you!
For few things we can mention as her contributions to the church and humanity at large especially for making White Garment Churches a cynosure of all eyes, All Seraphs media hereby presents to you our Seraph of the Year 2020, a renowned Evangelist, a Prophetess, a Bible Scholar, a philanthropist, a cheerful giver, a lover of Christ, a loving mother, a darling and pretty wife of Reverend Dr Ademuyiwa Ajayi, a beautiful singer, a Deborah of our time, the Esther of this generation, a game changer, a builder, a destiny changer, Iya Alaanu of Africa, Reverend Mother, (Dr) Captain Esther Abimbola Ajayi.
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