By JOSEPHINE  IGBINOVIA
Evangelist(Mrs.) Elishama Ideh is the President/Founder of Christ The Ever-Present Ministry -CTEM,Lagos, a faith based organization that provides succor and hope for despairing souls. A widow and a mother of four,  she is also the initiator of Partnership For A New Nigeria -PFANN, a socio-advocacy group seeking to engender ethnical revolution in the polity and consequently enthrone the birth of a New Nigeria. Here she talks about her life and ministry and shares how poverty can be reduced in Nigeria.  Hear her:     

Background
I was born and raised in Lagos State to a police officer father and a businesswoman mother, both
of them are natives of Ewohimi (Ishanland) in Edo state, South-South Nigeria. Although we were not particularly affluent,  it was a closely-knit family full of love.

And as the only girl in the family, I was the centre of attraction and affection of not only my parents, but my siblings as well. I had my primary education at Mayflower primary school Ikenne, Ogun State, and secondary school education at the Federal Government Girls College (FGGC), Onitsha, before proceeding to study Mass Communication at Bowie State College, Maryland, USA. On my return from USA, I went into business and was doing wonderfully well. Consequently when the nudging began to go into ministry work, I conveniently ignored it.

Evang. Elishama...CTEM is creating awareness on the plight of the needy

However, a series of bizarre and soul-stirring experiences made me answer the Lord’s call to go into ministry. After four years, on March 11th, 2000, I finally succumbed to God’s call. Now, I am completely sold out for Him! I have carefully put this account together in my book: The Authority of a Believer.  As an Evangelist, my local assembly is

The Redeemed Christian Church of God, and my official parish is Mercy Land parish, Odulami Street, Lagos. My late husband, John Ideh,  was a member of the pastorate of this parish until he went to be with the Lord on February 7th, 2004. I was a worker in RCCG for years before I was called into the ministry.

CTEM
Christ The Ever-Present Ministries (CTEM) is not a church. It’s a faith-based organization founded solely with an audacious mandate: to reveal the love of Christ to the lost in our generation, to reach the unsaved, rejected, oppressed and destitute; those generally regarded as dregs of society, with the gospel of salvation and in the process, restore hope to them by sharing His love, not just by word of mouth, but by practical demonstration of the character of God, which is love.

Some believe that ministering to these people is difficult, but I believe that whenever God commissions you to do a task, He goes ahead of you and waters the ground for you to work on.

Ministering to area boys
When the Lord sent me out to the street, I did not envisage the area boys as an addition to my calling. I was just focusing on the abandoned, the destitute, the orphans, prostitutes and the widows. But it got to a season in my work on the street, that we now desired an office where people could meet with me for counseling because prior to that time, we would just carry our chairs and tables to the streets and under the bridges and that was where my office was as we moved along in the work.

But where the Lord eventually pointed out to be our office location was already inhabited with about 150 area boys, drug addicts and drug sellers and the Lord said “I have given you the land, take care of the giants in it”. That scared me to death because I was wondering why it should be an area occupied by armed robbers, drug dealers, miscreants that have to be our office location in Ogba area. Anyway, by faith, I stepped out to do the assignment. But on my first attempt to enter the land, my workers were beaten black and blue for trying to come in to possess the land.

This particular land happened to be a property I was working on before the Lord called me into ministry. I abandoned it because of all the problems associated with the land. I ran back to the Lord, and by His leading, I organized an all-night crusade in a motor garage next to the land. And that night, all the area boys, armed robbers, drug dealers that were inhabiting the land gave their lives to Christ, and that was how we were able to take possession of the land.

That was also how area boys were added to my ministry, in fact, they joined the workers to make sure that the construction of the property went on smoothly.

Unique style
God has given us wisdom on how to minister to this set of people. We make sure we come down to their level; we organize our crusades in such a way that it will not have a religious setting in order to catch their attention. The sort of music we play is the sound they are used to. We bring gospel music to them in the form of Apala, juju, reggae, alanta, generally street sound but imbibed with anointing of the Holy Ghost, then we feed them and clothe them, we identify what brought them out to the street.

The ones we can reconcile with their families back we reconcile, and the ones we can’t we give a new lease of life. A lot of people think that these group of boys called the area boys are a set of completely wasted people. This happens to be the people God called me to minister to and we have recorded tremendous testimonies. We have watched the lives of these young men transform dramatically in a very short space of time. Most of them have been empowered economically and are doing well.

Poverty in our land
In our land right now, poverty is on the increase, and this is because we’ve failed to understand that  poverty arises as a result of the mismanagement and failure to properly harness our God-given natural resources and the insensitivity of any government to the welfare of its people.

Thus, we are making conscientious efforts to educate leaders of churches on the importance of getting involved in the polity of the nation and why the walls of the church needed to be broken so that the light and the salt of the earth, which they have been called to be, will be extended to the exteriors of the nation since only righteousness can exalt a nation.

Why Christians should do politics
Using the platform of Kingdom Dimensions Series, under PFANN, we make Christians realize that as long as they distance themselves from direct or active participation in politics, ostensibly under the notion that politics is dirty, we will continually be under the rule and dominion of the kind of leaders we have unfortunately been saddled with since independence.

My plan for CTEM is for it to grow as an entity that will be able to create enough sensitivity and awareness in all the local government areas of the nation, in cities, towns, villages and everywhere apart from what we are doing in our little way as a ministry to effect changes in the plight of the poor and needy in our generation. Our plan is to create a lot of awareness on the plight of the needy in our society.

This is to make sure that there is provision, social security schemes and homes for the poor, misplaced, abandoned and afflicted, and that the government will adequately put schemes in place to make sure that the needs of these people are being met in the whole nation’.