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27.05.2008 Religion

I Raised The Dead •Rev Adarkwa Yiadom

By Daily Guide
I Raised The Dead Rev Adarkwa Yiadom
27.05.2008 LISTEN

THE KUMASI-based pastor who dared the dreaded fetish priest, Nana Kwaku Bonsam to a contest of supernatural powers has explained the reason for his actions and the circumstances under which a corpse was brought back to life in his church.

Like Jesus Christ, Rev. Ebenezer Adarkwa Yiadom is believed to have given life to the dead.

Rev. Adarkwa Yiadom presides over the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre, said to be the largest church in Kumasi, with an estimated 15,000 members.

Reports are that he is an affluent pastor who charges GH¢50 per head as consultation fee and that he did not only flee from the fetish priest but pronounced curses on people who laughed at him.

Rev. Adarkwa in an exclusive interview with DAILY GUIDE, during which he explained the above reports, gave an insight into his life, his childhood and calling as a pastor, his source of wealth and other interesting issues. The pastor can boast of a fleet of cars including Chryslers.

(DG): Is it true you raised the dead?

Rev. Adarkwa (REV): Oh, I can see you do not still understand how God works. In our church there is no prayer request God does not answer.

That particular incident happened in broad daylight in the full glare of medical doctors and some police officers. They were insisting the corpse should be sent to the mortuary but I had faith that something would happen and so I prayed and the corpse became a living being.

The boy rose from the dead and is alive even till today. People doubted it and he even had to move from one radio station to another telling his story. He is now in Koforidua.

Not just that, but I can also pray and use God's power to make the blind see, the deaf hear and the cripple walk and many more.

We have done it several times and can still do it because our God is still in the miracle business.

DG: But your face looks quite young!

REV: God looks at the heart and not the face. I have spent more time on earth than Jesus Himself spent on this earth so if Jesus was living on earth today, I would be older than Him.
DG: Are you married?

REV: Yes, with five children and the eldest is nine. My wife is also a pastor in my church.

DG: People pay GH¢50 before they are allowed to see you?
REV: I have never done that before. It is never true.

On Tuesdays I do counseling for free and I do not charge anybody. I will use your medium to challenge anybody that has ever given me money for consultation to come out and speak.

On Wednesdays, we have another church service during which offerings are paid just like any other church. We start from GH¢50 upwards.

There has never been a time we start from even GH¢100. It is not compulsory and only for those who can afford.

What happens is that we pray for all those who give offerings and I invite them to my house for counseling, after which I dash each of them a bottle of anointing oil and give them the divine directions on how to use them.

We also give the oil to anybody who pays offering; even if it is GH¢1. I rather give money to my church members.
DG: Tell me about your guest house.

REV: It is for the church because people come from very far places and during our programmes they have nowhere to stay.

I have built over 100 flats for them and I am still building more.
DG: Are you the rich pastor people say you are with two Hummer and three Chrysler vehicles?

REV: Well, you do not expect me to walk on foot to do God's work, so as for cars I have got a lot of them; and very good ones of course. No one gets a good car and says he does not like it. I do not have a Hummer; I have never owned one.

I have two Chryslers about two of the latest model and other different types of good cars. It is also true I own a radio station.

I bought Radio Mercury in Kumasi to do God's work; I bought the station, the entire building and the land on which the building is situated and paid cash for it.

It has become very important now that people are insulting me because of Kwaku Bonsam. But for this station, I will have nobody to tell my story for me in Kumasi?

So I am not rich but very blessed and do not lack any good thing. Mind you, I use my blessings to help those who do not have.

DG: What is it that makes you, a Man of God, want to fight a fetish priest who has not even mentioned your name?

REV: The truth is that I am a Man of God and full of love; I do not hate people. I do not hate Kwaku Bonsam as a person; it is the things he says against the people and Kingdom of God and the way he says them with much arrogance that I so much hate and cannot tolerate. People seem to be getting me wrong.

DG: What can't you tolerate about Kwaku Bonsam?

REV: I heard him on the airwaves saying that he has so much power and that about 1,700 men of God had come to him for Juju and that he can perform the miracles God is using His pastors to perform in the Church.

Such statements are against God because it would make many Christians stop attending church and start to chase fetish priests because they have been told that the pastors themselves go to such places for special powers.

Now, I believe in the God I serve and the anointing He has given me so I decided to stand against anything or person who attempts to destroy the Church of God.

I know I can tap the real and most powerful power from God and if Kwaku Bonsam wants to worship his fetish gods he is free to do so but I cannot tolerate him insulting God and the church and that was why I challenged him to an open battle for us to see who is more powerful- the God I serve or the fetish gods Kwaku Bonsam serves.

DG: Then how come you did not turn up for the contest?
REV: I have heard people say I ran away. That is false and funny.

I was in my right senses when I called for the challenge and I knew my reputation as a Man of God would be on the line when I was challenging him, so if I cannot face him I would have kept my mouth shut.

I am neither a fool nor a coward. Let me tell you what happened.
All along, I was calling for the challenge to take place in Accra on May 15.

Kwaku Bonsam accepted my challenge and said he would face me at the forecourt of GBC in Accra.

But on the said date, I heard reports that he had changed the venue and that he would be at the Kumasi Jackson Park at 10.00am for the showdown. I decided to wait for him since I was already in Kumasi but he did not turn up.

Around 2.00pm, I realized he was not coming so I decided to go to Accra and finish him there. I got to Accra only to hear that he was in Kumasi throwing his weight about.

When I said he should be clear on the venue for the real showdown he said his gods were tired. This is a spiritual thing and spirits do not get tired.

It is sad because he had told about three different newspapers that he would face me at the GBC forecourt so why did he come to Kumasi only when I had left for Accra?

If he thought the fight was in Kumasi then why did he not turn up at the 10.00am that was reported? He only pulled a fast one on me because he knows I would expose him.

DG: Is the battle over between the two of you?

REV: If he would stop blaspheming and worship his lesser gods I have nothing against him, but if he keeps bragging then I would have to put the fear of God in him.

DG: But why you; are you the only pastor in town?

REV: No, I am not but you remember that in the Bible, David was the one who killed Goliath when Prophet Samuel and other men of God were around.

Let's not forget that King Saul was also anointed. We have different levels of anointing and gifts from the God who called us to be His servants.

My calling is to bring down any person who is behaving as if he has more powers than God or is attacking the work of God.

If other pastors think they do not have that weight, that does not mean I have not been given that weight to do what I say I am prepared to do. It's a matter of checking your weight.

DG: I hear you had pronounced curses on people who were saying you had fled from Kwaku Bonsam?

REV: Oh, my young brother, what type of pastor would curse people in that manner? I have had a lot of bad press and that is one example where people had wrongly reported what I said.

Fact is I was giving a reminder and a warning that people should stop mocking Men of God and insulting them simply because of Kwaku Bonsam, because that means they would be standing against the work of God.

The Bible says that is blasphemy and I read Deuteronomy chapter 28 verses 15 downwards which speaks of the curses that come on those who wrongly stand against the work of God.

The Bible says worse things than I explained; you read it and see. For example, it says:

“If you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.”

I was only reading what the Bible says. There are also blessings in the same chapter for those who stand by the Lord's side and I spoke on it too, so why are the reporters being selective?

DG: How did God call you to do his work?

REV: I was a child when the Lord called me; I should be around 14 years by then because my mother died when I was 14. By then life was very tough and I struggled to get a place to sleep or what to eat so eventually I had to leave home and stay with some Moslem friends who were Yorubas from Nigeria.

There came the need for me to become a Moslem because I was staying with them but on the day of my initiation, the Imam in charge called me aside and told me that the Lord had called me to be a pastor and that he had two months more to spend on this earth, and that after his death I should leave the house and heed my divine calling as a pastor.

I found myself in the streets again singing and going on dawn preaching and was living on what people gave me as gifts. I spent almost two years at Atwia in the mountains, praying, fasting and waiting on God.

I remember there was a time a Good Samaritan had to put me in a basket and carry me on his head to descend the mountain because I was too weak to descend.

That is how far the Lord has brought me and I have been doing God's work for the past 22 years.

DG: How did you start the church?

REV: I was moving from house to house preaching the gospel of Christ and gathering people to pray in the evenings until we had a school building to use as our first church premises.

We were 20 in all and the church was called Emmanuel Worship Centre.

I had a dream one night in which I saw myself preaching in a big church that had Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre as its name and the Lord told me that is what our church would look like so we had to change our name.

The congregation kept increasing till the class became too small for us so we moved from one place to another until finally we had to move to my residence at Ahenema Kokoben, where I had a big plot of land; so that is how far the Lord has brought us.

DG: What is the size of your congregation?

REV: We are about 13,000 to 15,000 people. Why, don't you see the congregation on TV? It's a big church and people say it's the largest church in the Ashanti Region.

I have other branches in Sunyani, Tepa, Tema, Spintex Road in Accra and one in Germany.

By Halifax Ansah-Addo

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