Friday, 29th March 2024
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Adeboye 0pens prayer mountain in Ifewara

SOME 30 years after an idea for a prayer mountain was birthed 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, a magnificent prayer mountain has been unveiled in Ifewara, Osun State. Ifewara, some 10 minutes off Ife,…
Adeboye

Adeboye

SOME 30 years after an idea for a prayer mountain was birthed 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, a magnificent prayer mountain has been unveiled in Ifewara, Osun State. Ifewara, some 10 minutes off Ife, is the hometown of Pastor Adeboye.

Named Mount Carmel Prayer Mountain, the facility 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.

Specifically built and fully equipped for its purpose as a prayer village, it is a modern facility of a magnificent mix of 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 other facilities.

Welcoming guests at the opening ceremony, Pastor (Mrs) Foluke Adeboye, who was in charge of the construction, 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.

Tracing the origin of the project, she said: “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.”

Also explaining 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.”

Corroborating his wife’s account, Pastor Adeboye, said: “When we returned from South Korea in 1985, we decided by the Grace of God that there would be a prayer mountain in Nigeria that people from all over the world would come to pray.”

They consulted and later bought the land but the challenges of developing it delayed the project:

He recalled: “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.

Present at the event were some elders of Ifewara, Professor Folu Aboaba, Elder Moronfolu Olusola Olakunri (SAN), Elder Felix Ohiwerei, Pastor Wale Oke and his wife.

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