
Global leader of Kingdom Impact Vision International Outreach (KIVI), a missionary and diplomat, Evangelist Junior Nwaubani, during his recent visit to Nigeria, where some Christian leaders were on ground to rub minds on ways of collaborating for kingdom advancement, shared with CHINYERE ABIAZIEM part of his experiences in ministry, why Christians/Churches should focus on soul winning, teamwork and unity instead of engaging in rivalry, pulling members from other churches and inconsequential activities
From your experiences on your frequent mission trips, what are the things you think need to change particularly in the Nigerian church?
It is not only in Nigeria, we need unity in the body of Christ. For us to be able to achieve more, we need to unite. The person that you do not want to unite with is also believing that he is going to heaven, just like you are believing you are going to heaven. When we get to heaven, is God going to be happy with you? That the person, maybe somebody next to you, is also a Christian, but you refused to actually unite with the person to reach this main mandate that Christ has given to every believer to go and make disciples. What heaven celebrates over is winning souls, for there is joy in heaven over a soul.
Can there truly be unity and what is the focus of KIVI?
The scripture says that they may be one. We are going to one heaven, there is no reason why we cannot be united. In following the agenda of Jesus Christ, unity must be there. In KIVI we are keen on evangelism and do not focus on doctrines. The Global Christian Network currently active in 28 countries has a mission to spread the message of Jesus Christ worldwide. We evangelise, we work with and are ready to work with churches that believe Jesus is the son of God, that believe in the Holy Spirit and believe that Jesus came to die for our sins, rose up and that he is coming back again for his church. There are a set of churches we do not work with because of their beliefs.
With the works going on home and abroad, how is funding realised?
First, when our hearts are together, the funding is there. There is no problem with money. But if we have our own personal agenda, that is why you see that it looks like there is no money. This is because why would I want to go and support another church when it is all about my goal and me? I won’t go and support another church, but when I see that we are one, driving the same purpose, the money that I have can be used to help. I can pray for another church. I can support other churches and make sure that they are growing and are doing well. We have seen a lot of things happen. I live in the United Kingdom and I have been there for over 45 years of my life. Now, I can tell you that not uniting is causing a lot of problems. In the UK right now, you see that even churches are being bought by other religions. These are churches that have been built there for 20 years. When the revival hit a place like the United Kingdom, they propagated the gospel all over the world and they carried the gospel to Africa. Let me tell you something. Part of the revival that took place in the United Kingdom brought Christianity to us now. One of the first things that revival does is to make sure that you propagate the gospel, ready to die for what you believe in. Despite no cure for malaria at that time, 80 per cent of the people that were shipping out to India, to Africa, were dying. But every three months, they were shipping people out to go and propagate that same gospel that they know that 80 per cent were going to die because of malaria, and they were still carrying on. Why? This is because it was no longer centred around them. See, the minute we realise that Christianity is not pastor-centric, apostle-centric, bishop-centric, but to understand that it is Christ-centric, it makes a lot of difference. Our focus needs to go back to the main mandate and what it is supposed to be, which is about Christ.
When this mandate came, you said you started in Bangladesh. What was the crucial thing you saw?
I was serving in Bangladesh as a diplomat for the British High Commission. I was posted to Bangladesh, so my wife and children went there. I have seen things and I have seen money but I realised that Christianity is even more than what we are seeking for. The money that we think we want to have, the Muslims have it. Do you understand what I am saying? Other people have it. If that is what the blessings of God is then, I am telling you then we should say that all these people are more blessed than we are. How can that be the main purpose why we are called? I am not called because of money. Do you understand? Even when you are talking of good health, you know, we are going to go through things. But the thing there is that when I got to Bangladesh and I was able to see, I mean, money was there. I was working as a diplomat. Everything is taken care of. But it got to my heart, how am I going to reach out to the people out there? When talking about reaching out, you are talking of taking a high risk; risk that you are ready to die. Then, for me to step out as a diplomat, to go and preach the gospel outside the diplomatic area. I am taking a risk for my job because part of the job policy is that I can go out there with security or tell my office that I am going to go and preach the gospel and they will give me security. But, God said to me, go out there. The first thing I did, of course, was to do what we normally do. I would organise the diplomats in the expat area, invite all of them for dinner, and have dinner every night, every evening. I have a cook, the money is there, they will cook and everything. But I realised that these people, they do not even want to know about Christ. This is because the more I was doing that, I realised they would come and eat my food, they would drink, they would enjoy. When I tell them about Jesus Christ, they will say, ‘oh, you know, Junior, you are a very nice man, but, you know, we don’t do God’. Then I went back to God, I said, look, I am not achieving the purpose. That was when the Spirit of God said to me, ‘are you ready to die for what you believe in’? The problem that we have as Christians is that we think that Christianity is just about me just enjoying and God bless me. That is the Christianity that we have preached for a long time. I am telling you, it is not taking us anywhere. The gospel is a gospel that you must be ready to die for what you believe in. It was until I took a step out there, risked everything that I realised the difference of what God meant. Telling you what happened in Bangladesh, it is actually a long story.
You could tell a bit…
I stepped out, but before then I called my children, I told my wife, I said, ‘look, I feel I should go out there’. But to go out there means that I’m risking my job, which means that I’m risking my life because Bangladesh is 96 percent Muslim. Once they know that you are a Christian, your head can be chopped off to be sincere with you. Let me tell you the difference. We go and we are praying that God, as I am going, God, bring me back. But do you know, the Apostle Paul says ‘to live is Christ, to die is gain.’ There is a theology that we need to change in our head before we can see a change. If we do not we are not going to see a change. That was what clicked in Bangladesh.I was like, okay how am I going to go and reach out to the Muslim when I know my head can be chopped off? Even the guy that I spoke to, that I heard, that I was inviting other diplomats to come and eat. The guy said to me, I want to invite you to my village. But do you know what? If you come to my village, don’t say Jesus. When you want to talk, just say God. I said, okay let me take the risk. I called my children, four lovely daughters, sat down and I said, I can go and I might not come back. Actually, I wrote some three hymns and I gave it to my family and I said, if I don’t come back, please sing these songs at my funeral. I told them, nobody should cry, if anything happens to me, because God is good in all things. The day I was to leave for the village where I was invited came and I set out and we got there after eight hours, we even took a ferry. Upon getting there and while in the room I was to stay in, I saw a wall gecko and told myself I will tell whomever knocks on the door, to take me to another room, because I cannot stand wall geckos right from childhood. When someone came and knocked on the door, I said, ‘oh, please, can you move me to another room’, that I was not going to sleep in the room where I was. That was when I knew the life of a missionary is not easy. But do you know what? When the person knocked, he said, ‘you are the missionary’, I said, yes. He said, somebody has just died 100 yards, you should come and pray. I asked if the person was a Muslim and he said yes. I told him that they should go and bury the person because Muslims bury within 24 hours. He said, no, but you are the missionary, come and pray. That day was April 1, I will never forget. What came to my mind, supposing they are trying to pull my legs, April Fool. But I locked the door and I followed him. As I followed him, all that was going in my head, if you go there and you go and pray, if they kill you. Every thought started running in my head. When I got to the place I saw people crying and they took me straight to the woman that was dead. They were putting cotton wool in her nose , so I stood there. I could not pray because I was so scared for my own life. I remembered that they told me, don’t say Jesus. I could not say anything. Oh, my God. I was full of fear. Then suddenly I realized I could speak in tongues. I said, nobody will understand tongues. I could not even close my eyes. In fear, as I was praying in fear, the woman that was dead sneezed and she coughed. I started crying because, you know, when you don’t believe something, people start rushing in and started asking for prayers.