Pastor Peter Adigwe to speak at Roscoe UMC
COSHOCTON – Pastor Peter Adigwe (a-DEEG-way) has been called by God to help the children who have become orphans in his village of Benin City, Nigeria.
About 30 children who roam the streets begging for food and shelter or young girls who have been a victim to human trafficking have been rescued by Pastor Adigwe and the ones who support his mission through a school they have founded in the village. Students at the school are between the ages of 3 and 18 and are fed two hot meals a day, breakfast and lunch, and are taught from the government curriculum and the Bible.
In addition to his school, Pastor Adigwe also has a medical clinic where currently about half a dozen young women are being trained in nursing. He has recently purchased five acres of land in the rainforest where he hopes to create Camp Beulah Land.
“The goal is to be able to have a children’s home and take them out of foster homes and place them into their own place to call home,” said Sheldon Mencer, who has worked with Pastor Adigwe since 1997.
Pastor Adigwe first came to Ohio in 1991 as the guest of Rev. Jerry Hanshaw in Newcomerstown. In 1997, he returned and that is when Mencer first met the pastor.
“That’s when we became aware of his desire to rescue these children from the streets,” said Mencer.
Pastor Adigwe has recently returned to Coshocton and will be speaking this Saturday, Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Roscoe United Methodist Church. The goal of his visit is to raise enough funds to finish the first building of Camp Beulah Land. Mencer has launched an Above and Beyond Campaign where people are being asked to bring an offering above and beyond what they would normally give to help fund the new building in Nigeria.
Pastor Adigwe has lived the life some of these children are living.
“He knows what it’s like to starve, to be beaten and abused,” said Mencer. “He served as a house slave for 10 years. His mother and father disowned him when he was six.”
Pastor Adigwe’s father disowned him because he refused to become a voodoo priest, and as the oldest son in the household, he was expected to do this without question. Unbeknownst to his father, Pastor Adigwe was secretly attending missionary meetings when he was a child and learned about the Mother Mary and Jesus Christ. Because of this, he refused his father and was disowned.
While wondering the streets, Pasto Adigwe became a target in the 1970s during Nigeria’s civil war. Government officials attacked his village and slaughtered people for three days. When they found Pastor Adigwe, they beat him and hacked him with machetes. Unbelievably, he survived and hid in a cornfield for three days watching other suffer worse fates.
When he returned home to let his father know he was alive, his father turned him out again. Rejected twice by his own family, Pastor Adigwe resigned himself to the thought of suicide. That is when things began to change. One night as he was sleeping, he awoke to a voice who said, “Follow me and your future will be bright.” Thinking it was a dream, he went back to sleep only to hear the voice twice more. That night, he turned his life over to Christ.
“No one else had ever preached to him,” said Mencer. “Only the Lord in the middle of the night.”
Now, Pastor Adigwe, along with his supporters, are trying to change the lives of these children and to make a difference in the world by helping spread the gospel to children who might not otherwise hear it and to create a lasting relationship between Africa and America.
Mencer and his wife, Tammy, have traveled to Nigeria on a few occasions with Pastor Adigwe and although it can be scary at times, Mencer believes they are doing what God has called them to do.
“I would rather be doing what I believe God has called me to do and die in that state and teaching he gospel to those who need it and make a difference in this world,” said Mencer. “We have an obligation to represent our country where they will see America not as an enemy but as a friend.”
beth@coshoctoncountybeacon.com
Category: Faith
