Kumuyi in Ogoniland: a crusade with a golden touch

Ancient Greece had a mythological king with a golden touch. The tale is that whatever King Midas handled became gold. It was a power he was said to have requested from a god. Midas enjoyed this boon until it threatened his sanity and humanity. He couldn’t eat food nor drink water because all turned into gold when he touched them. The situation became tragic when, upon hugging his daughter, she was changed into a lifeless golden image. The monarch was sad. You can’t celebrate a possession that denies you life. Midas’ sea of gold was devoid of the true joy that should come with wealth.

But in our day, we have in our midst Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, a servant of Heaven who preaches that God’s abundant blessings come without any accompanying sorrow experienced by a king. This is what we see repeatedly at Kumuyi’s outreaches, which we have come to know as Global Crusade with Kumuyi, GCK. Although the founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, the evangelist has, through GCK, taken on the role of the non-denominational cleric delivering the Gospel of Christ to all the world beyond the four walls of his Church.

Pursuing that mission, the GCK train was recently at Bori, Rivers State, south-south of Nigeria, for six days from Thursday October, 27 to Tuesday November, 1, 2022. The theme was Supernatural Freedom through Christ.

Held on the grounds of Birabi Memorial Grammar School, BMGS, Bori, Rivers State, the crusade revealed that man can have enduring freedom only as he embraces the living Word of God, and not by a rabid race for the things of the world as expressed in silver and gold. In effect, he taught that Ogoniland may be oil-rich, yet it doesn’t translate into instant freedom or joy. The king in the Greek mythology didn’t have joy despite being surrounded by gold. The absence of the spiritual essence was the missing link. Where you don’t have it, you don’t have the inner and durable joy to accompany your wealth. This is the condition of humanity at the moment. Despite his great advances in wealth creation initiatives and in science and technology, man is in distress. Why? He has disallowed his Creator from the scheme of things. He is the Author of joy, order and peace. His absence leads to grief, disorder and insecurity, even where you have all the riches of the universe.

Kumuyi supplied this Divine revelation aplenty at Bori. Right from Day One, the renowned man of God told the teeming thousands who came to his crusade that the first step to an encounter with true enjoyment of the riches Heaven offers man is to be delivered from sin. He said the sinner can receive this salvation as he or she genuinely repents of his breach of the laws of the Lord, asks for forgiveness, makes a solemn commitment to forsake sin, and admits Jesus Christ the Son of God as his personal Lord and Saviour. He or she must then continue to be a follower of the Lord by obeying Him as he reads His Word and remaining in the company of believers.

Some 3,054 out of those who heard Kumuyi’s message that night gave their lives to Christ, signaling that they were positioning themselves for God’s joy blessings which He gives, ‘’and he addeth no sorrow with it.’’ Proverbs 10:22.

By Day Two, word had reached more people about the move of God the previous night on the crusade ground. After Kumuyi’s sermon, following the call on the people to receive salvation, a record 4,984 stood up for Jesus Christ. It was unprecedented. They overwhelmed the ushers and other workers entrusted to attend to them.

It was evidence that the Lord was firmly in control at Bori GCK. Salvation is of God, not of man. Its presence precedes all the other blessings or riches or miracles man can get from Heaven. And Pastor Kumuyi never failed to harp on that. He insisted that such physical marvels as healing from terminal diseases, restoration to life from the dead, miraculous supply of need, deliverance from demonic afflictions etc. may astound us. Yet, the miracle of salvation beats them all.

And so after the people at Bori GCK gladly received the salvation message from Kumuyi, the messenger of God in his prayers called upon his God to bless the multitude. The Lord played His part by showering miracles of different shapes on the people night by night.

There was a cornucopia of testimonies to the goodness of God. A lady’s hunchback was miraculously removed and God gave her a child to replace the reproach. A man who had endured a severe kneecap discomfort for 20 years following an accident got delivered at Bori after his condition had defied medical attention. An online testifier from Kano spoke of the three-fold healing he experienced after connecting to GCK session: he was delivered from ulcer, diabetes and sore leg. There was also the case of one who got cured by the Divine intervention after a 40-year bout with paralysis.

The staying lesson from Pastor Kumuyi’s GCK trip to Bori is that possessing the so-called golden touch manifesting in vast mineral resources without the Godly touch brings misery and insecurity. It’s the Christ contact (input) that makes the difference, and leads to true joy and peace here in the world and eventually to Heaven.

.Mkpaoro is the coordinator of the International Friendship League in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, while Ojewale is a writer in Ota, Ogun State