The movie begins when Mr Adeboye’s father buys an umbrella. It is a very rare thing, not unlike when the colonizers came to Africa and dazzled the folks with mirrors and gin.
Then Enoch tells his father that he wants to attend high school. The father doesn’t have the money. Enoch refuses to eat for three days consecutively.
The mother then tells the father of Enoch’s refusal to eat. The father decides to sell his ram so that he can pay Enoch’s school fees.
Enoch resumes school and he stands out as a brilliant pupil. A case is when the teacher asks him to calculate the area of a trapezium, the teacher does not expect him to get the answer. But he disappoints the teacher by getting it.
Being from a struggling background, he is not able to afford a pair of school sandals. When it’s time for graduation, he encounters some “problems,” according to him.
His problem is that as the winner of most of the prizes, he is to be called out to receive them. However, he knows it will be unthinkable for him to go barefoot.
An uncle solves the problem by giving him a pair of sandals and a pair of trousers.
He is then admitted to the University at Nsuka. He is just like any other University student. He has many girls but he is very good at his studies.
Another thing is that he has good dress sense. His style is between dapper and dashy.
He meets his future wife, Foluke, at a friend’s house. Foluke happens to be his friend’s niece. A winsome damsel, Enoch is so attracted to her that when the handshake is becoming a wrestling match, it’s the friend that separates their hands.
Even when she is going home, Enoch is focused on her movement so much that his friend has to nudge him.
He manages to get Foluke’s address from his friend and he soon pays her a visit. During the visit, he invites her to his birthday party. After the party, Enoch and his friends while looking at the presents discover that only Foluke has presented him with a bible.
He visits Foluke later. Foluke does not fail to remark on her seeing all Enoch’s girlfriends at the party. He then uses that opportunity to toast her.
Foluke is so surprised that she asks him to repeat the lines. He repeats them so perfectly that Foluke asks if he crammed the lines.
Their case is not that of an actor meeting an actress, “and they lived happily ever after.”
They encounter some initial problems which Enoch hopes to solve by patronizing various babalawo. The first one he visits gives him some things to put in his vehicle so that he will not encounter any accidents. He soon encounters an accident.
The second one he visits asks him to go buy a goat. Coming back from the market, he finds his “saviour” lying down with an illness.
Someone then takes him to Redeemed Church at Ebute Meta and the presence of God in him is acknowledged by the pastor. But the snag is that Enoch has been recalcitrant to the call.
On another day, the pastor says God has directed every member to withdraw their savings for the advancement of the gospel. On the following Sunday, the pastor discovers that only Enoch and his wife have done so.
He is later ordained as a pastor against his will.
When the senior pastor dies, he leaves a message that Enoch should succeed him. This does not go well with some of the pastors.
My own question is why should Enoch be the favourite? He went to the United States with the senior pastor Akindayomi. He then succeeded him when he died.
Was it because he and his wife were the people who obeyed the “empty your account’ instruction?
But as the Bible says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” – Romans 9:15
The movie is a must-watch. I love it because it does not present Pastor Adeboye as someone who had been with the Christian God since he was born. It is also a lesson to those who “despise little beginnings.”
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