No compatibility in marriage, just make it work

For not wanting to marry a secondary  school certificate  holder, he opted for an undergraduate whom 10 other men had proposed to at about the same time. And on the flip side, she did not want to marry a man who would have a secular job aside the drama ministry. But how was the whole situation resolved? The love story that Adesunmbo and Kolade Segun-Okeowo of the Zionstones Media, producers of Christian movies, shared with OLUWAKEMI ABIMBOLA, completes the story. Excerpts:

How did you meet?
He: We met in 1993 to be precise. I joined a local branch of my church in Ile-Ife where I was sent as a student missionary from the campus fellowship. I was doing my master at the time. Then, we were to organise a crusade, so I led some youths to paste posters and do some awareness. Along the line, members of her local assembly and ours met. That was my first time of meeting her and I wondered about her. We greeted and that was it.

After a while, we started a drama group in my local assembly where I was a student missionary and invited people from the other local assembly. And she came with one or two other people from her assembly. Initially, we thought we were going to shoot films as young Christians but after a while, we realised we were not equipped in terms of skills. So, we decided that since we can't shoot a film, we should just be doing stage dramas and that was what forced her to stay put in the drama group.

And that was what gave birth to the ministry that we both operate today.

When she joined the group, one thing that struck me about her was her commitment to the growth of the group. She was willing to give her money. I remember there were times she took from her money and gave to me sometimes N70, N200 and sometimes N250.

Cuts in: that was a lot of money then?
Are you telling me? As a youth corps member in 1994, I was earning 300 naira per month. I just finished my youth service and proceeded for my masters that time. My last salary as a youth corps member was N350 and you can imagine somebody now bringing such amounts. She used to bring money and she made herself available for the work but there was a problem. I was running a master's program and she was just a school certificate holder. I had to battle with that for a long time in my mind. I wondered why God should give me a school cert holder when there were lots of graduates, post graduate and undergraduate students in my fellowship on campus out of whom I could pick from. For about six months, I had to settle that in my mind because I did not want to go ahead. In the course of those six months, I made a wrong proposal to another sister. Within that period, I knew that she should be my wife but I had to struggle with the fact that she was just a school cert holder. I went to another sister who was a 300- Level student and unfortunately, just as I came to propose to her, nine other brothers had come to do same around the same time. I was number 10 or 11! She was confused.  All of us must have been seeing wrong things.

The fellowship president stepped in and told me, “Bros, you are number eleven o! You are the eleventh brother that has proposed to her.” I was humiliated, I felt very bad as a spiritually-matured person and one of the leaders. A student missionary at that!

I had to wait for like three months before accepting that God was saying something here and I now went back to her. The testimony in this is that after I proposed to her, it took about one or two months before she got back to me. The very day she said yes was the day she got admission.  We had a vigil and in the morning, I called to ask her about what I told her. She now said yes, that she had prayed about it. We held hands and prayed over the matter and she left.

The following morning, a friend of her mother's who worked in the polytechnic where she was seeking admission called and said “tell your daughter to start coming right now. In fact, registration is almost over.” That day, she went to the school.

It dawned on me that I was the one delaying her admission. God simply wanted to test me by giving me raw gold. When you see raw gold, you are almost tempted to throw it all away. It is usually dirty and rough, you would not want to touch it in that state. If she had got the admission earlier, I probably would had jumped up but God waited until the last minute.

 What attracted you to him?
She: The only thing that I can say attracted me to him was the zeal for God in his life. He was ready to do the work of God. As at the time, I was not even thinking about marriage and I was ready to turn him down, if not that I was convinced that God wanted me to marry him. What made me to marry him was spiritual because I prayed and I was convinced that it was the will of God to get married to him. That time, the Holy Spirit had already made me understand that this drama ministry would be full time, nothing added to it. And this young man did not hold same belief as I did. He was even ready to get an appointment with Shell at that time. I wondered about how easy it would be to manage my being in drama ministry and him holding down a regular job. I had to pray that God should convince him.

He came to some of us in the group and said I think God is telling me to do this thing full time. And that was one of those things I presented to God as conditions. So when I heard that, I said yes as there was no more excuse that I could give.  His love for God and His work is the only thing that attracted me to him. He was not handsome.

(He murmured -Jesus Christ!) Look, he did not have anything! (Laughter) And God did it in such a way that everything that he had while on campus was kept in the church vestry and thieves came and left with all. So you see I married him as raw as it was possible to be. But since I know he was into full-time ministry, I decided to rest on God and trust him.

 Were there objections to your marriage considering he had no job?

She: Yes, my mother made a statement:  “Well If you say, you are ready to get married, no problem but  one thing I want you to understand is that you are not coming back to ask for food.” And I thank God, even while we were battling with storms, I did not go back to her.  I just rested on God.

 You work together and are always together every time, don't you get tired of each other's company?

She: Actually, it is a great thing. The way we work together makes us closer and closer. In fact, we don't have time to fight or quarrel for long. If we have a misunderstanding now, before one hour, we would have one thing or the other to do together. Somebody needs something in the office and I'm the one to attend to the person.

He: I might even need information from her and she needs information from me before she can go ahead and do certain things.

She: See, we don't have any choice but to settle the matter.

He: (Laughing), the truth of the matter is that we just have reasons to wind up quarrels on time. Or else, a lot of things will be grounded. It has become almost impossible for us to quarrel for 24 hours, maximum is 12 hours. And ever since we started our business, we do not keep our office outside the home environment. I'm not recommending it for others but it has worked for us. Even now that we have moved to the film village, we are building our office not far from here.

Maybe the reason why God engineered it this way is because the nature of our jobs demands that we are away from home many times on locations and evangelical outreaches. It would be bad, if after doing all that, I still come back and have to go to the office.  When my children come back from school, they find me at home and that helps a lot. It compensates for the times that I'm away. We have understood that our children come first in everything, even before the ministry. We do not hold the ministry higher than the children, because if we succeed in ministry and fail to take care of the children, there will be no point?

The ministry of every pastor, minister of the word or evangelist starts from the children. If I take other people to heaven and I can't take my own children to heaven, then I have failed. One day, one of my fathers in the Lord said if when I was alive, I was not able to win plenty souls, the only ones I won were those of my wife and children, God will say, “Welcome son, you have done well. At least, you brought your wife and children.”  He said but if I come with millions of souls and God asks, “Pastor, where are your wife and children?”  And I say, “God, I was busy winning millions of souls, I don't know where they went,” he said God would carry cane and beat me.

That is a guiding principle for us. If only the number of soul I can win is that of my wife and children, I'm okay.

 This reminds me of a message that says that God has no grandchildren. What are your thought on this?

He: It is true that God has no grandchildren. What I have discovered about getting children to relate with God directly is that parents should live a life without smokescreen.   A father preaches in church, 'thou shall not' and you know you cannot hide from the children, they come back home and see you do something else. In their minds, the God that Daddy is serving is a fake God because Daddy does not fear the God he preaches about. Daddy says, 'don't tell lies' but at home, daddy says 'tell the visitor I'm not around' there is a conflict.

So we must present to our children, what we claim to be, both inside and outside.  You can preach all you want, quote the bible to them, and spend all the money in the world but if that aspect is missing, forget it.  Because you are the God they see. The first impression about God they have is their father or their parents. Before they really know God, parents are the gods. So, if the first god has messes up, it will be really hard for the children to connect with the real God.

 She: I remember there was a day my daughter, when she was younger, took N20 from the room and went to buy biscuit without telling me. When I found out, I asked if she knew what she had just done. I was crying and she started crying. I told her God will not be happy with you, she told me to pray for her that God should forgive her. I hugged her and prayed with her. That shows that we need to communicate with them as well. So many parents are far away from their children and it won't help them.  Sometimes, when children ask for things or one of them tells me not to forget his laptop. I tell him, write a list of what you need in school and pray over it and put it in your bible and if God answers your prayers, He will provide for us to be able to provide for you. It is not even compulsory that your parents do. Somebody can come and say, 'take this'. The fact is, it has been provided for. Don't look at us, look up to God and He will use us to get you want is required.

 He: we also need to allow these children express their minds. We often force doctrines down the throat of these children without allowing them to ask questions.    My children ask me questions. When I say you must not do this, they ask me 'why?'  It would become erroneous when I now say: 'I say you must not do it because I'm your daddy.' I will break communication.

And then we must not break communication when they bring reports from outside. My boy will discuss with his mom about girls who are toasting him on Facebook. If my wife as a parent shouts, next time, the boy won't talk. We have created an atmosphere for them to talk even sexual things because we don't want them to be taught outside. My girls are freer with me and the boys are their mother's sons.

 She: Daddy will even tell them 'I love you.'

He: Yes because I don't want one stupid boy to help me tell them outside.  So if one boy tells them that, it is no big deal. My younger girl and I have a routine ever since she was born where I tell her I love her and she reciprocates the love.  As it is, if she can't find love with me, one boy with jeans will love her and carry her away.

 How did you react to his foray into politics?

She: When my husband first told me about politics, I was like 'anything wrong with you?'  He said,  he had prayed about it and was convinced, that was when he decided to share it with me. I said 'ah, don't talk about politics.' He urged me to pray about it. But I refused and told me, 'even if I pray the answer would be no.'

My father had warned us about politics, long time ago. I told him no and he could not go ahead. He told me I was delaying him but I told me 'I'm not delaying you, you can't do it.'

It was when I went for a leadership academy and Reverend Sam Adeyemi was teaching that day and was showing us some clips of places like Oshodi, Mushin and Ilorin. These were pictures of the places as he visualized them. That was his vision for Nigeria and said that God was raising a breed of people that would take Nigeria there.  I started crying and seeking for forgiveness and when I got home, I told him, 'you could go ahead.'

 He: The first time I had a revelation about politics, it came to me but I threw it away and what made me throw it away was what you just mentioned. What has a minister of God got to do with politics? I was going to make one or two move but met blockades which kind of confirmed to me that it was the revelation from God. In 2006, I was directing a film and also acting the major role. When the producer of the film said he wanted me to play the major role, I refused on the basis that it was not professional.   He left and came back insisting I was to play the major role. I agreed. In one of the scenes, we had to shoot a campaign convoy. I was inside the car, when I heard, 'what if this was you?' I said 'no way' and then he said, 'you are acting the part.' The part is that of a Christian young man who came back to Nigeria with tall dreams about transforming his state.

I came back home and told my wife. She said, 'no!!!' After I tried to convince her and she refused, I had to let it go. I knew election is 50/50, win or lose and I knew all supporters can go but she is the last supporter, I had to hold on.

In 2009, I had to ask how I will balance it with the ministry work.  In the last three years, I have been involved. I found out that it is paper tiger; the devil has so much scared us, so that his children can continue messing up the nation. I asked older Christians about the state of Nigeria back in 1960 and they said it was whao! Fantastic! Compare Nigeria then with now and they said it could not be compared. I asked if they were praying and they said they were.  And I said 1970, 1980 and things were getting worse. I concluded it is either of two things: either God was wicked or we were not doing the right thing and I admitted that were the ones that were not doing the right thing as God is not wicked.

In the last election, I asked myself, how many educated people were seen on the queue voting. How many doctors, engineers, professionals, did vote? We sit down in our sitting room, monitoring the election on our TV. We don't participate! The elite class is docile when it comes to politics. Who do you see on the queue? Market women, vulcanizers, carpenters, mechanics…. our leaders may not be illiterate but it is illiterates that determine who rules us.

 Word of advice for young couples from your wealth of experience after 18 years of married life.

He: Young couples are deceived by the devil that they need to be compatible with their spouses but the truth is the word compatible does not exist. No two people are compatible. They make themselves compatible.   You come from different families, we could not have been brought up in the same manner, and even identical twins have differences, so why would you be looking for compatibility.

You make yourselves compatible.  My wife and I have sharp differences we are still working on. First year after we got married was fire. At a point, we individually agreed that we had made a mistake but we later realised that our upbringings were different.

 She: If God is in your marriage, it makes it easier. I do tell women, if your husband is not womanizing, it is not because he is afraid of you but when a man has the fear of God, he will not act ungodly. For instance, if I have a quarrel with my husband, I won't be able to pray and he won't be able to pray either. Even if I try, the Holy Spirit will tell me to go back and settle the quarrel. It is God that makes the difference, as it is easier for him and the wife to adapt.

SOURCE: http://www.mynewswatchtimesng.com