By Danjuma Auta
A newly installed Trustee of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Professor Umaru Kiro Kalgo, has revealed that he was born into the family of herdsmen but accepted Jesus Christ as his savior who transformed him into what he is today.
He disclosed that, his parents were both Fulani cattle herders and that he grew up raring cattle in the bush until he met a missionary who converted him, adding that he was the only one that accepted Christ in his family which led to his total transformation.
Professor Kalgo said that, God is love and wants everybody to come to His saving power that is why He was still using the church to bring many into salvation, including Fulani herdsmen.
He made these known during the installation/ Send-off ceremony of newly elected trustees of the church to replace the one who died and another who had completed his first tenure of 10 years.
The ceremony, which was held at the ECWA International Conference Hall, ECWA Headquarters, Jos, was attended by guests from within and outside Nigeria.
He advised Christians to stop looking at the Fulani as a difficult people that cannot be converted as they are open to the gospel if the right approach is used and called on the church to secure them for Christ instead of discriminating against them.
On his part, the other trustee, Elder Peter Nathaniel Tsado said that even though he considered himself unworthy of the high calling, he was optimistic that God would see him through.
While calling on ECWA to continue praying for them to succeed, he assured that he would join hands with the other members of the Board to move ECWA towards advancing the work of the Great Commission.
The outgoing trustee, Dr. Peter Shehu Abdu, thanked God and ECWA for giving him the opportunity to serve for ten years, noting that, so far,
ECWA had kept the vision and mission of its founding fathers and pledged to support the church to fulfill its mandate of reaching the northern part of the country with the gospel of Christ.
ECWA President, Rev.(Dr.) Stephen Baba Panya, said that administration is one of the Christian Ministries and those called to be leaders must demonstrate responsible character in all they do, adding that ECWA had demonstrated oneness by doing everything possible to carry everyone along.
He explained that ECWA had developed a blue print for equally distributing appointments and positions of leadership and would do everything to ensure equity and fairness.
Guest speaker at the event, Rev. Dr. Friday Sule Kassa, said that the moral climate in Nigeria was so dark that doing the right thing had become a crime, which had also entered the church.
He regretted that, Nigeria was witnessing the growth of religion without the fear of God as a result of which evil was on the increase in the society despite the expansion of the church.
He stressed that having the right people in church leadership was the only panacea towards addressing social ills and called on the church to rise up to its responsibility of correcting the abnormalities in the country today.
He decried the manner the church was engulfed by what he described as, ‘copy and paste’, and world religion, not minding the danger it poses to its growth.
He advised on the newly installed trustees to ensure that ECWA does not derail from the vision of its founding fathers by keeping the fire of the gospel burning.