(My Life Testimony Compressed)
GROWING UP
I was born into a Christian home, and my father is a pastor. We had a level of strictness in our house, considering we lived in Ajegunle at the time. Religious activities were a do-or-die affair in my house, and my father would force you to do everything his way. We all looked forward to the day we’d grow up and break out of his shackles. I watched my older siblings rebel once they became of age. It made me believe God was a stern being, sitting up there and waiting to strike. I recall twisting one Igbo song that says, “God’s eyes are up there watching us, so tell sinners that the big eyes are watching.” My version was “Tell the big eyes not to look at me again.” As a teenager, I had purposed in my heart that I would prefer going to hell as all the stories about heaven sounded very boring. In my defense, hell would be fun because all the celebrities would be there.
In secondary school, I had this group of friends who would sneak out of school to go and watch porn, especially during school fee drives. And they’d come back to gist the rest of us. One day, I followed them and that was the beginning of the end of my “good boy” status.
Shortly after, I was introduced to masturbation. Since I was too timid to talk to girls, I held on to masturbation strongly. I also got involved with gambling and other vices at that early age.
TIMES AND SEASONS
During my third week here in God’s Lighthouse, I was seated in front as usual while Pastor was teaching, when I suddenly zoned out and saw written in front of me, my birth year. There was a red arrow pointing to 6 years from that date. I was wondering what that could be, then I heard “It’s that season again.” I couldn’t recall if any significant thing happened when I was 6, but shortly after, it came to me that I’ve been going round the same cycle every 6 years. Apparently, I was at that point again and it was up to me to decide if I wanted to go through another cycle. 2010 came to mind and I recalled I had given my life to Christ officially that year.
A little back story…
PHASE ONE — 2010
In my second year at the University, my roommate and I joined a particular ministry where we got born-again and baptized in the Holy Ghost. We became so serious that we were involved in almost everything happening in the church.
During that time, I would have very prophetic dreams (as I came to realise here in GLH that that’s what it is called). I would dream of things that would happen in my department the next day and it would play out accordingly. On one occasion, I healed an insane guy in a dream, and two weeks later, the same guy walked into my department and came straight to my table. My roommate encouraged me to pray for him, but I couldn’t find the courage to. He kept coming to me for about 3 weeks. Then one Tuesday during our evening service in church, he walked in while we were praying and hit my shoulder very hard. I opened my eyes and saw it was him. He walked to the altar, dropped a new pen, and left. That was the last time anyone saw him. Later, we heard that he was a final-year first-class engineering student at a University of Technology before he went mad. I felt really bad, I felt I had failed God. Then the enemy came to do what he’s good at: “Turn my attention away from God.”
FALLING AWAY
My roommate at the University was a very talented freestyle rapper. He would use everything around him to rap, so we decided to showcase it. I became his manager, and by 2013, we became popular all over the school and even in the whole state. My name was no longer known as Victor, I was now known as ‘Manager’. We attended Government shows and got very special invitations. Later that year, my artist was signed to a record label. We began having shows here and there and would go to 2 to 3 clubs per night, from Wednesday to Sunday every week. The label provided the cars and funds, my roommate brought the talent, while I organised the girls. Everyone had something to offer. From there, I started smoking all sorts of things, in addition to drinking and womanising. While all this was going on, we still attended church, paid tithes, and gave big offerings.
PHASE TWO — 2016
The next 5 years were full of lots of ups and downs. The following year, 2016, marked 6 years after my first encounter with God. I was preparing to leave for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program when I came across a book titled “Following God’s Plan for Your Life.” After reading it, I prayed that God would reveal my purpose in life. The following night, I had a dream where I saw myself in a strange land that seemed to be a Yoruba land, sharing sachet water. On it was written with red ink, ‘THE GOSPEL OF LOVE’. I didn’t get the message until my posting came out, and I was posted to Oyo State, which was not part of the four choices I made. And God, being God, made sure I had no money when my name finally came out, so I couldn’t live out my dream of enjoying myself during my service year.
Here I was after camp, without money to rent an apartment in a land where I knew no one. So I ended up in a Nigerian Christian Corpers’ Fellowship (NCCF) house where everything was regulated. Prayer and Bible study were compulsory. I started having dreams again and strange encounters. One day, a man whom I suppose was an angel came to my window at about 3 a.m. He told me that my father had a chest problem and was coughing up blood. When I got up to see who was talking, he was already gone. I called my father the next day, and he confirmed it. He never intended to tell anyone.
One day, I went to buy a sachet of water. On my way back to the house, I realised for the first time that the name of the water was actually written with red ink, just like in my dream. I also realised that I was standing at the same spot I had seen myself in that dream.
Well, I just let it slide as I didn’t intend to do anything with what I had been shown because I had always said, “If God calls me, it will be a missed call.”
FALLING AWAY
Again, the world came calling. But this time with a different tune — ‘Love’. Assistant Bible Study secretary and I caught feelings for each other, and since there was no room for expression in the house, we ended up leaving the house together. In our minds, it was a case of “us against the world.” Kai, foolishness is on levels. That was how we walked out of God’s path yet again.
After service, I went back to Lagos and continued with entertainment. I went to shows here and there and met many celebrities in Nigeria. Yet in all of these, I still felt very empty. In 2019, I tried committing suicide after I was overwhelmed with sadness over the state of my life. I was in debt due to betting and had no way to pay back. I had this pill I had purchased (which was used to treat an infection), but it was also a sleeping pill. I got a bottle of it as I was having issues with sleeping around this time, and would always take a pill after having dinner. To give context of how powerful the medication was, two pills were strong enough to knock me out instantly at the spot where I just finished eating.
That day, I sent messages to a few loved ones, though I didn’t include that I wanted to commit suicide, then swallowed the remaining pills in the bottle, which were about twenty or more in number. I took all of it, hoping that I would sleep and pass on from there. But I woke up sweating, and discovered I had only slept for 30 minutes! I got angry at God at that point and complained out loud, “You won’t let me live my life, You won’t let me die. Leave me alone!”. Then I heard someone calling my name, and the voice was that of my friend whom I was living with at the time. I thought he was the one calling me, so I ignored him, angry that he was even disturbing me. But I heard the voice a second time and went out to the balcony to see if he was there and find out why he was calling me. Surprisingly, there was no one there. I picked up my phone to call him and discovered he was at a faraway location. While walking back into the house, I heard my name again. This time, I called another friend of mine who lived opposite us, but he too was very far away.
Inside the house, I received a reply from one of the people I had sent a ‘goodbye’ message to. She was one of the godly friends I had, and she sent responses to my initial text as she had suspected what I was about to do. I decided to share what I had just experienced with her, and she told me that God wanted to talk to me. She counselled me to seek God. I was led to pick a book I had borrowed sometime ago to read, but had dumped in my room. The writer was in a similar situation to mine, torn between making a decision to follow God or his own ways. By the time I was done reading the book, I was convicted, packed my things, and went back to my father’s house. This led to my walking away from the entertainment industry, and I began to follow God again.
PHASE THREE — 2022
COMING TO GOD’S LIGHTHOUSE
The first time I heard the name ‘God’s Lighthouse’ was in a dream. In that dream, the whole world was dark, and all I could see was a tall building shining from a distance. Then I heard “God’s Lighthouse.” Later on in 2020, I reunited with Chiamaka, my neighbour from many years ago, who would later be instrumental in my finding and joining GLH. By this time, I’d started drawing closer to God and began having dreams, visions, etc. I went into ministry to fulfill what I had seen in a dream in 2019.
I joined a church group where I became the youth leader, then the choir leader, and finally the assistant to the pastor. I went ahead to start my own ministry while using the church venue. The meeting day was on Saturday at 3 pm. After some months, we moved the meeting to Sundays, at 3 pm. Things were going on fine; lots of young people would come around and hear the word, get born again, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Then connections started coming—one from the USA, another from my friend who had gone on to pursue his music career. I felt it was God repaying me for my labour, not knowing it was the opposite. I got so busy that I would fix a meeting and not attend it. Money was coming in. My friend gave me a Tokunbo Toyota Corolla car on hire purchase, which I started using for Bolt. Life was happening fast.
I do not recall quitting betting completely, but it took a different turn in 2020 when I started taking higher bets. Sometime in September that year, I won 1.4 million Naira from betting, and in return, I lost over 4.5 million Naira to the same betting! I even used the money sent for a business deal I was overseeing – the clearance of a newly purchased car, to bet. In a quest to get it back, I kept falling deeper and deeper into more debt. I was locked up for seven days in October by the owner of the car I failed to clear. I was only released after I had paid back his money from the refund of my rent.
I also used the car I had been given on hire purchase as collateral to loan money from a certain man. I still used this money to gamble! It led to my being locked up the second time for twenty-four days in December when I couldn’t make the required returns on the car. I had lost everything. The only people who visited me during the first 7 days and the other 24 days in police custody were my brother and Chiamaka, who would bring words gotten from brethren in this house (GLH) to me. No one from my church visited.
When I was released in January 2021, I had to start life afresh. Chiamaka would give me Pastor Ita’s messages, which sounded very different from anyone I had heard before — he kept confirming things I knew and explaining them better; things that, when I taught in Sunday school then, my pastor would come up and counter. Around this period too, I had a series of dreams that lasted for four days, with each new dream being a continuation from the previous night. I titled it ‘THE JOURNEY’ because it was four days of journeying to different points, and each night had a new destination. The last two days were the most interesting. I subtitled Day 3 “THE SETUP” and Day 4 “THE TRAINING CAMP”.
During these last two days, one face was highlighted — he was the person who spearheaded the ‘setup’ (an unplanned journey) and also the Camp Commandant in the military training camp I had seen in the dream.
After about two weeks, I was in church cleaning and waiting for people to come so I’d teach Sunday school when I heard, “Haven’t you realised that the man in your dreams is Ita Udoh?” The name sounded familiar – Chiamaka’s pastor? I paused, picked up my phone, and called Chiamaka to send me her pastor’s picture if she had it. And by the time she sent it, lo and behold, it was the same person.
Later that year, I got the leading that I was to leave Lagos. That was the period GAMKA classes started, which happened to be the setup in reality. My plan was to come for GAMKA, which would not last more than 6 months in my mind, then I’d move to maybe Port Harcourt or somewhere else to start life and ministry again. But God had other plans for me… It’s been two years and counting, and I am still here, enjoying God’s work and many deliverances in my life — anger, greed (which led to gambling), demonic oppression, fear of the future, lust, pride (this is still ongoing), and procrastination to mention but a few.
It is important to note that the majority of these deliverances came through long hours of sitting under sound teaching. I will be giving more details of these in subsequent parts.
17th October 2024
Bro V. O
Ⓒ God’s Lighthouse 2025
