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He’s Alive Chapel Berachah Centre celebrated her 20th Anniversary May 27-29, 2022. The Church is one of the Church Centres of He’s Alive Chapel with her International Headquarters in Amuwo-Odofin area of Lagos. Berachah Centre is located directly on Badore Road, in Ajah, Lekki area of the Lagos metropolis.
The Anniversary kicked off on the evening of Friday, May 27, 2022 with a time of testimonies of God’s faithfulness over the past 20 years. Several members shared testimonies of the impact of the Church in their lives and families, and some of their recollections of the early days of the Church in what they called the “Upper room” where it all started – a two bedroom flat in the Irish Plaza, Signboard Bus-stop almost opposite where Access Bank stands today which was converted to a worship centre. Some members who later relocated and now in diaspora shared short video recordings of their testimonies.
They all testified to the grace and goodness of God evidenced in their lives by virtue of their connection to the Church. It was also a night of in house presentations from the Children, Teens, Youth and Hausa Church.
Saturday May 28, 2022, was an evening of worship tagged “White worship”- members were adorned in all white dressing to worship the King of Kings. The Berachah Choir, the Paraclet Group – a wonderful acapella worship team and Pastor Muyiwa Israel led a glorious time in worship and celebration. It was an awesome night of worship.
Sunday, May 29, 2022, was the grand finale. There was an overflow outside into the Church premises as the Church Hall could no longer contain the people. The General Overseer of He’s Alive Chapel Worldwide, Pastor Austen Ukachi, led the service and delivered the sermon. His message was titled “Jesus: The Barrier Breaker” and he took his message from the Bible passage in Micah 2:12-13.
He challenged the younger generation of the great opportunities that the emergent IT world has availed them as more and more global prime IT firms and personalities like Google, Elion Musk and others are eager to dominate the Tech space in Nigeria and encouraged them to cease the moment to excel. It was indeed a refreshing time.
After the message, the Resident Pastor and one of the Deputy General Overseers, Pastor Fabian Aleke shared on the essence of living a life devoted to giving back to the society. He challenged the congregants to turn away from living for themselves only but to commit to working together with others to make out a better community as obtains in the western world.
To further buttress this, the Church Centre as part of the 20th anniversary recognized and gave out awards to some members of the community who had carved a niche for themselves in community service and were worthy of honor. He identified four persons and read out brief citations of each of them before calling them out for the General Overseer to present them with the award. The awardees included:
-Etim Ironbar Bassey: a National and African Gold medalist in Weightlifting at the 1981 Lagos Sports Festival and also at the Pan- African Weightlifting Championship respectively.
A muscle rupture ended his weightlifting career and denied him of a scholarship in the USA. He has committed his life to community service through traffic controls, fixing bad spots which he does regularly through the year without any salary or allowance from anyone except irregular voluntary support that people give him at their discretion.
– Hon. John Campos Ogundare – the current Executive Chairman, Eti -Osa East LCDA – for exemplary Leadership skills in public office
– DSP Stephen Abolarin, DPO LANGBASA Police Division – for outstanding Commitment to Community Security and Policing.
And finally the Peaceville Estate Resident and Landlord Association- who willingly raised over a million Naira to underwrite the medical bills of a security staff of the Estate who was shot by armed robbers in course of his duty. Unfortunately, he died and the Estate still underwrote entire cost of his burial and transporting the corpse and his family from Lagos back to Kaduna State.
This security personnel was a member of the Hausa Church in Berachah Centre. That was so exemplary of the Estate in Community service as the deceased had no such guarantees in his employment and the Estate could have looked the other way without any legal implications.
The Hausa Church members had a brief moment of performing an Arewa cultural dance and Pastor Fabian spoke about the Church involvement in Missions and showcased this ministry involvement in Benin Republic through a video recording of all the different Mission Centres. There was much more worship sessions led by Pastor Muyiwa Israel and Seyi Amos who played the saxophone. It was such a wonderful service that was difficult to bring to an end.
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