He is blind but he is a pastor; and not just any pastor but the senior pastor of a zonal headquarters of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), under Lagos Province 69. The story of Pastor Adegoke Lawrence Arowosegbe, the shepherd in charge of RCCG Light of God Zona Headquarters, is proof to the Bible’s assertion that, while men look at the outer appearance, God looks inwards. It’s also a testament to the fact that God can use anyone to expand his kingdom, irrespective of their situation or condition.
In this
interview with Lagos Today Extra!, Pastor Arowosegbe speaks on issues bothering
the church and persons with disabilities and other related issues. It’s a must
read for all Christians and all persons with disabilities as both parties have
one or two lessons to learn.
How does
it feel being the visually impaired senior pastor of an RCCG zonal headquarters church?
How
does it feel? Well, it has its own challenges. The society where we dwell has very
little or no regards for persons with disabilities, especially those with
visual impairment. So, there has been one or two challenges. However, since it
is the work of God, God has always proven himself and we are able to handle
most of the situations that come our way, at least as far as church is
concerned.
How do
the members of your church respond to you, especially during healing
ministrations? Do they say “Pastor heal yourself first before you think of
healing us”?
We have
taught the people, through the Word of God, that it's God who does the healing,
not the man of God. And he does it in whichever way and manner he wants. Because
one is visually impaired does not mean that God cannot propagate his kingdom
through that person. Our God can do anything through anybody. He does his things
the way he wants it and when he wants it. For instance, in the book of Daniel chapter
1, verse 21, the Bible tells us that God controls times and seasons. And so, if
we have that understanding, that he controls times and seasons, we can also
understand that he does things whenever and in whatever way he likes. That the pastor
is visually impaired is not a factor here because the people can see the work of God manifesting
in him. In view of this, they cannot deny the power of God operating through
him despite the visual impairment.
At what
point in your life did you give your life to Christ, was it before or after the
impairment?
The
truth of the matter is that I started having visual challenges right from
childhood. The visual impairment did not come up in the course of church
appointment. I did all my education as a blind student in the blind school. So,
at what point did I give my life to God? I gave my life to Christ in 1998; to
be specific, the last Sunday of January 1998. Prior to that time, I was just
like the regular boy in the neighbourhood: going to different parties, carrying
girls and all the rest of it. But at the point when we needed to surrender to
God, we surrendered. Old things passed away and all things became new in the
new life in Christ.
Looking
at inclusivity in the church, especially in the Nigerian setting, do you think
we are there yet or more still needs to be done?
More
still needs to be done. We are Far from there, far from being there. Very, very
far. I'm not too sure at what level we are in this country in terms of inclusion
of persons with disabilities in church activities. If I say that we have not
even started, it would be like one is not optimistic even though that is the present
reality as far as Nigerian churches are concerned. So I will say that we have
started but we are not there yet. Maybe with time, we will gradually build it
up. For example, many churches, whether Redeemed or other denominations, don't
have facilities that can really, really accommodate persons with disabilities.
They don't have them. If we look at accessibility as a case study, you will
agree with me that we are not there yet. But we do hope that with some of us now
getting involved and doing advocacy, Maybe the church will get to know and do
the needful to achieve inclusion of persons with disabilities in its activities.
Can
you be more specific about these accessibility facilities? We know about ramps.
Are there other facilities that the church needs to put in place to achieve
this inclusivity for PWDs?
The
facilities are different in nature. You talk about ramps, right? Ramps are essential modifications that provide
significant benefits to wheelchair users by improving accessibility, safety,
and independence. But
even if you look at the staircase, where PWDs that are not on wheelchairs walk
on, a lot of those steps cause more harm than good to persons with visual
impairment. I was supposed to minister on a particular Order of Reading in a
particular church. But to climb to the altar was a big challenge. The staircases
in most churches are in zigzag form and as a blind person, you are sometimes
confused whether to go to the left or to the right. It might be accommodating
to persons with sight; but for the visually impaired, that's a big challenge.
So, to access the church environment itself, A lot of work needs to be done, a
lot of advocacy needs to be made.
In the
area of Bible literature, do you also look in the direction of brailing Bibles,
Sunday school manuals and other literatures so that blind persons can actively participate
in church activities?
Fortunately
for us, if I take the Bible as a case study, I have a Bible here which is
braille. And to a very good extent, it was not supplied by the church. I have
the complete Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, on braille and I ordered all of
them from abroad. But in fairness to the Nigerian Bible Society, they have
great Bibles there. And I think to a very good extent, they give them out free
to those who approach them. And churches should find a way of partnering with
them. For other literatures, churches are gradually coming up. I remember what
happened with the Redeemed Sunday School manual. I wrote to the church to let
them know that We have some visually impaired people in the church and these
people need to read the Sunday School manual just like other members of the
church. And they have taken that as a responsibility. So, as a case study that
I know, the RCCG produces Sunday school
manual in Braille for the benefit of visually impaired people amongst us. and I
think other denominations should follow suit.
What advice
would you give to some men of God who keep their distance from persons with
disabilities?
If I
refer back to my message on love preached somewhere last month, we say love
accommodates. If we are using love as a parameter in church, then pastors have
no reason to distance themselves from people with disabilities. We must
understand that even in disability, there is ability. If we have that
understanding, we should give everybody a platform, just to test drive. I did
not become a pastor overnight. Something happened. Far back in Ebute Meta,
between 2004 and 2005, the church I was attending, the pastor saw me and
spotted me out. Before then, I was the one writing for the "Excellent Men",
a group in the church. I was their secretary. And I was always the one writing
the minutes of our meetings. I was also the one writing the Pastor's Desk, a
column on the church bulletin. I was carrying out these two assignments simultaneously.
And one day, the pastor said, "Arowosegbe, please prepare to minister for 20 minutes next
week Sunday". That was the first time I was being given a platform to
minister the Word of God to the congregation. So, pastors have no reason not to
allow persons with disabilities to work in the church.
That’s
one part of the conversation. Another part of it is that persons with disabilities
must also be able to prove themselves. Recall that I said I was writing the
church bulletin at the Pastor's Desk, the pastor's corner on the church
bulletin. That was what the pastor was supposed to do but I was the one doing
it. And I was also the secretary to the Men's group then. So, people with
disabilities must be able to convince our society that they can really do what
people think they cannot do on account of their disabilities status. Without this,
the society, both inside and outside of the church environment, will see you as
not able to do those things. You should be able to prove to them by doing those
things, and not just doing, you should be able to go the extra mile. That’s
what I always do and it has been working for me.
You are
married to a sighted wife. How did that happened? How did she fall in love with
you despite your visual impairment?
I was
working in an oil company and she, at that time, was working with Ikeja Hotels.
Ikeja Hotels happened to be the caterer supplying our lunch in the office. And
so she, being one of their staff, I got to meet her on one occasion because she
was the one that attended to me at the restaurant. But beyond the food menu,
beyond the food level, when I was losing my sight rapidly, connecting with the staff bus was becoming a
challenge. So she offered to be helping me to navigate to the staff bus. This was
also made possible because she, too, wanted to join the staff bus to enjoy the
facility of transportation. She would come and pick me from my office and we
would walk together to the staff bus. So, it all started with the staff bus, not
even with the restaurant. From there, we started talking. She saw me as a big
brother at the beginning. I must say that she had somebody she was dating then and
she would come to me for advice about one or two things. And I always gave her
my candid, unbiased advice. Yes, unbiased because the idea, at first, was not to go into a relationship with her; but
along the line, we began to develop interest in each other. And something
happened that For whatever reason, she fell out of the relationship with the
brother. So I saw that as an opportunity to win her heart. That's how we got to
meet and we started courting and it worked out to be a marriage at the end.
Some blind
persons married to sighted spouses have tales of woes about their in-laws in
terms of verbal and psychological abuse. What has been the relationship between
you and your in-laws, is it cordial?
Fortunately
for me, that seemed to be working out well, to the glory of God. Her mother knew
me very well even before I met her. Her mother also worked where I was working.
She’s late now. But we both worked in the office. I didn't know her then but
she said she knew me. As a matter of fact, she was always the one telling everyone
about "Ah, one boy in our office. He's a special fellow. He's a genius."
And because of that, maybe because the mother knew me very well and had decided
to market me to her family, I became very safe with the entire family. When she
was alive, she was closer to me than to her daughter. We were so close that She
could confide in me rather than with her daughter. But of course, I am aware of
the situations in-laws of persons with disabilities treat them horribly and
that should be discouraged. But I think it all depends on how you carry
yourself as a PWD. If you present yourself as a loving, caring spouse who is
able to meet with the demands of a matrimonial home, whether as the husband or
the wife, there is every possibility that your in-laws will treat you well. We
must be able to convince them beyond the ordinary. I had an experience when I
was doing my Mass Communications program at Laspotech, which has now become a
university. A lady, who was being proposed to by a visually impaired man, told
me that if I was the one proposing, she would accept the proposal but that she
could not accept it from this other fellow because he fell short of her
expectation. The point I'm making is that we must be able to prove to the
society that we are able. We must bring ourselves out of This beggarly attitude
which has made the society to believe that the blind person can do nothing but
to beg.
