Why my mother is my greatest preacher. || Apostle Abeiku Okai

 I was recently asked who my greatest preacher with the greatest impact on my life is. As long as the list should be for me I couldn't settle on any other name except to mention my mother's name. 

As far back as I can remember, as a very little boy, in the heat of the Liberia war, she ignited in me the need to work for the Lord. At the time I didn't know anything about God, Jesus Christ, etc. I didn't know even a single verse. All I knew was that we went to church every Sunday and I had my place at the children's service. I don't remember anything I learned from there except playing all the time - and I was that type of playful and forgetful kid.

But I remember very well one day a little girl of my age came to the church and she stood behind the pulpit to preach to the senior congregation. It was so beautiful to me that I wished I could also do the same. After the service, my mom gave me some good insinuations and insults for being stubborn, careless, and playful while other kids commit to the Lord. 

Another time there was a robbery in one of the shops under the storey building where we lived. And one of the robbers, who lived in our neighborhood, ran onto our floor, the first floor. Unfortunately, the robber had snatched a kitchen knife from me earlier and the knife was one of the weapons they used to enter the shop. And it had already been mentioned that that particular knife was taken from 'Abeiku'. 

My mom became so frightened because during the war anybody can face death by anyone for any or no reason. Being associated with an act of robbery also meant danger for me. It didn't matter my age because no kid is a kid in war zones. So my mom began to verbally discipline me. I was careful not to get anywhere near her shivering hands, which were ready to grab me for good beatings. But I remember very crystal one of her statements: "Little kids of your age are preaching the word of God and you are always fooling." 

While she poured out her verbal wrath upon me two Ghanaian missionaries to Liberia, from the Divine Healers Church, entered. They were members of the church we attended and had just been posted to Liberia for mission work. They counseled my mom to be patient and quit talking. One of them pulled me over and they began to speak with me from the Bible. That was the first time I had my first Bible verse and was made to recite:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which  is the first commandment with promise: “that  it may be well with you and you may live long on  the earth.” (Eph. 6:1-3).

This scripture triggered in me a big change and from that day I began to grow into a lad everybody would admire as obedient and respectful.

To cut a long story short I returned to Ghana as the war kept intensifying and my life had been in danger a couple of times during curfew.

 Years later, while in Ghana,  in primary 4 at Gbawe Methodist Primary School, Accra, I heard a pastor, Apostle Samuel Mensah, a Sabbatharian, preaching at the Mallam lorry station (Mallam is a suburb of Accra). I became glued to his message for the whole week as I always ran there to listen to him every night. That was when I surrendered to the Lord and became a Christian. 

I pulled my mom and my other siblings to the church and we became very zealous and active members. It was at the church I learned how to read the Akan Bible and to preach, from the age of 13. At age 14 I received my baptism and continued to preach the gospel all over, at market squares, in busses, at schools, on streets - wherever man is found. 

Today I am a full-time preacher of the gospel of Christ, with my mother being an ordained evangelist and the senior-most worker in the church I pastor as General Steward. Her most pressing sermon I always remember was in 2015. She said, "We need to carry the gospel to everyone because people are dying and going to hell. Why don't we think about those who don't have Christ as we have Him?" 

I celebrate you, Maa Comfort Esi Bonney. 

Apostle Abeiku Okai

Anathallo Chapel Int.