40 year-old David Aderemi Oluwadare, an indigene of Ibadan, Oyo State did not bargain for what destiny had placed on him in the last 10 years or thereabout. Early in life his parents had gone their separate ways leaving him at the mercy of extended family members. But in the process his mother became ill and was hospitalized. During one of his trips to check his mother in the hospital something strange happened to him that altered the course of his life. But that strange development made him raise children who can now recite thousands of Bible verses off hand. The Children who are also part of Kidsinspiring International Network, another Lagos based body that hunts and grooms young talents; have been an inspiration to many children across the country.
Read below the dramatic story of David Oluwadare in an interview with Church Times and how he ended up training his children to memorise large portions of the Bible.
How was life in the beginning?
I’m from a Muslim background. My parents went their different ways early in my growing up years. But thank God they have now come back together. But when they were separated my siblings and I started living in family houses. We celebrated both the Islamic and Christian festivals depending on the faith of the family where we lived. I sat for my WAEC in 1994. I was not born again but I had a bit of God’s fear in me. I’m more of an inside person. After the exams something happened that altered my life.
My mother had a terrible sickness and was on drip for several days. Blood was being passed into her. But one evening as I was going to check my mother in the hospital I ran mad. This happened around Orita Aperin area in Ibadan. I heard a big bang on my head and something triggered in my brain and I went berserk. But as I was about entering the market that evening an Angel intercepted me.
Was it that you knew you were mad?
Not exactly. There was no way I would have known anything since I was not in my right senses. But in that state of madness I still remember I saw the angel after my healing. The angel stopped me and I slept in a field. I was there for about four days before my family came to pick me there. I was taken to the church and they began to pray for me. About four women devoted themselves to pray for me.
No drug was used for you?
I can’t tell if I was given any drug. But they knew straight on that it was not a medical case. So they kept praying for me every day for three months or even more before God intervened. I was eating and sleeping in the church but I was violent and was really aggressive. I was chained and put in one of the vestries of the church. They could not put cloth on me because I would tear the cloths and chase them away. I was placed on a 21-day fast at a point but that did not still solve the problem because demons were bringing things for me to eat. Ten men could not handle me. I became so violent that the only solution was to chain me to the ground. The women did not give up on me. One of the women praying for me later became my wife. I was told later that whenever she was around that I would be calm. Every mad person has moments of quiet and they usually have at least one person that they can relate and submit to. That is what I later discovered.
So how specifically did you become cured of your madness?
After about three months of praying. One night in a vigil in the church one of the women just started prophesying and said that the Lord wanted to heal me and make me a global evangelist and said they should go and bring me from where I was tied to. She was prophesying and the pastor summoned courage and brought me in front of the altar. The pastor asked the people to surround me and they wanted to start praying again. But the prophetess intervened again and said they should not pray rather they should start praising God. And that God was going to heal me. As she was saying it, I saw Jesus even in that state of madness. He entered the church. I saw him. His head pierced through the cloud. His entire body was shining. I could not look at him. He was holding a fiery sword. As he was being praised, he was moving around in the church hall. All of a sudden the pastor of the church placed the Bible on my chest because my chest had become swollen almost twice its former size. I was later told that the demons once spoke through me that they were 24,000. The mad man of Gadara had one legion. As the pastor placed the Bible on my chest, the Lord Jesus put the sword on my chest. As the sword touched my chest, a tortoise came out and walked out of the church. When it came outside of me it became a big rock and disappeared. When it became a rock I regained my senses and became calm. Usually there were moments that I would be calm in the course of the madness. But such times didn’t last. So people thought it was one of those times I was calm. They did not believe I had become healed.
So what now happened thereafter?
I began asking question and wondering why I was on the ground without cloths on me. And they started praising God. That was around late September in 1994. It was a Friday vigil. So on Sunday I was taken to the church and dressed in suit. When my mother saw that I had become healed the sickness that had been plagued her for months disappeared. She was healed. That same Sunday in Church I was baptized in the Holy Ghost and became active in the church. I was always in the church thereafter. I felt since I had been healed and there was a prophecy that I would become a global evangelist that the next thing to do was to devote myself to the work of God. I got some boys and girls together and we began praying. We would come together to pray every night. We ended up praying for almost three years from 10 pm to 7 am every night. We were praying that God would set us on fire and all kinds of prayers. It got to a time we were attending to spiritual cases in the church. I was not doing anything then. I was looking for admission and I did not get it. So I was busy in the church. It was in 1997 that I got admission to Ibadan Poly. I continued the prayer in the school but by the time I came back the prayer team had been disbanded. Eventually I left the church for Winners Chapel because I moved away from that area. But I am eternally grateful to God for the women and pastor that God used for me to effect my deliverance.
And the madness had not relapsed since your deliverance?
I remember that the pastor used to tell me to memorise the scriptures so that the devil will no longer get a foothold on me. I was doing that and it really helped. There was a time the demons came and told me to jump inside a well where I had gone to fetch water. I was about obeying the demon when the Lord intervened. When I got to school there was a time the tortoise came back and was pressing me to my bed spiritually but I stood up to it and commanded it to go. I have been used to having vigils since that time. I can’t recall ever sleeping before 12 midnight.
How did you now marry your wife who was one of those who prayed for you in the course of your mental sickness?
God told me she was my wife. She was in the team of the young people that were always praying every night. So we had known ourselves very well apart from the fact that she was one of those who prayed for me to get my healing. So when the Lord told me she was my wife I went to tell her and she agreed three days after. She said God had been telling her that I would be her husband. We got married in 2001.
What exactly did you study at the Polytechnic and how did you come about the present ministry of Bible recitation?
I studied Business Administration and went to WOFBI after my OND and one other Bible School. I did not know the area of ministry God wanted me to operate in. I was doing business and doing crusade and training churches on evangelism. The prophecy that I would become a global evangelist was always ringing in my head. So I concentrated on evangelism. I started with Insurance business and I did a lot of network marketing. I was doing quite well with the network marketing.
Something happened in 2007. I got married in a single room and I was saving money to put up my own building when I lost close to N2m to fraudulent people. I came back to square zero. My children were less than five years. They were the ones that pioneered the kingdom heritage school in Ibadan but when we could no longer pay we had to withdraw them from school and they stayed at home. It was in the middle of the crisis that the affliction that made me run man came back to the family this time it was on my first child.
What happened exactly?
My first daughter was always screaming at night. She would be screaming that she was seeing strange objects and different kinds of animals. At 1 am exactly she would begin screaming and she would scream till 5 am. I did not need anybody to tell me the affliction that left me was coming back. We prayed, fasted, poured anointing oil and did all kinds of things. Nothing happened.
You never thought it was a medical case?
Even if it was a medical case we had no money to pursue any medical doctor and seek help. So we were just praying. But one morning when it seemed nothing was happening I got angry with God. I said, God you must do something. I was confused and frustrated. The Holy Ghost spoke to me, go to the book of Hebrew 4v12…”the word of God is quick…” I began to dissect that scripture and discovered that it is saying the word of God is quick, powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, it’s a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So I called my daughter and began to challenge her with the scripture. I remember one of the pastors that taught us in Word of Faith Bible Institute (WOFBI) said “if you are wordless you are worthless” that sank into me. So I began to cherish the word of God. I believe if I had the word I had a worth. So I said to my daughter I want to test this scripture on you. And I said to her, repeat after me, God said “Let there be light and there was light’ Genesis 1v3. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want Psalm 23 v1, I shall not die but live to declare the goodness of the Lord. Psalm 118v17. So that day I made sure she memorized those three scriptures. By the time she memorized those three scriptures the affliction stopped. That night she slept without being troubled for the first time in three months. It was later I discovered that Jesus quoted three scriptures and the devil left him for a while. I got to know from Jesus’ experience that if you want to deal with the devil when he comes with temptations you must have at least three scriptures in your head that you can easily quote. I now remembered one of the scriptures I memorized shortly after my healing. It was 2 Cor 10v3-6. I remember I quoted those verses not less than three times in a day. My pastor encouraged me to keep quoting the Bible. So I got used to that. So I told my daughter and her younger one that she would be memorizing scriptures since she was not going to school. So I began to teach her Bible at home.
But you should have looked for a school that is very cheap to enroll her?
Things were so bad that we did not even have money to eat. The small money that my wife collects from the hospital where she worked was what we used to eat. It was our own wilderness experience. I just kept encouraging my daughter to memorise more scriptures. I told her she could do it. She began to quote more scriptures. Anytime visitors came to our house and asked if they were not going to school, I would tell them they went to school and I would ask them to come and recite what they were taught in school. She and her younger one would recite the scriptures I had taught them earlier in the day. Some of the visitors would ask: is it scripture they teach them in school? I would then tell them they are being taught scriptures at home since no money to pay school fees. My first child, a girl did not go to school for about three years and also her younger one. It took her two years to learn 30 Bible verses by heart.
How did they now resume school?
A woman saw what they were doing and decided to give them scholarship in her school. Another pastor saw what they were doing and invited them to minister in his school. They went to recite scriptures in some churches and the outcome was awesome. There was a particular church they went by the time they finished the recitation people were baptized in the Holy Ghost, the whole church was in pandemonium. That day they were given honorarium and they got home to share the testimony. The pastor of the church later called me and thanked me for the effort on the children. He said he was really blessed. By the time he was rounding off his conversation he said I should please help greet the divine reciters. That was when the name divine reciters stuck on me. So the group is called Divine Reciters International.
Did you now secure a job? How did you solve the issue with your domestic challenges?
When I began to give the ministry attention, I began to succeed in business and moving around doing my marketing thing again. But my wife held forte. She was the one doing all the training for the children. Later some journalists began to interview us and the Lord began to increase us in terms of the number of invitations we get. I asked the children to step up their activities and we have been moving from place to place reciting scriptures.
But in 2014, I lost another N2million again in my business. That was when the Lord spoke to me and said he was not against me doing business but that I should give him the first attention that business would come later. That was when I began to give the recitation business undivided attention. That started in 2015. It has been awesome. That was when God began to give us blue print on what to do. God spoke to us to raise 1million children that can memorise the entire Bible in Nigeria and minimum of 50 million globally between 2015 and 2025.
Today we have raised over 3000 children in Nigeria who can read a minimum of 50 verses of the Bible by heart. There are so many others. From next year we want to start having annual competition.
The least of them can recite 1000 scriptures by heart. The other ones that are 11 and 14 years can recite 8000 verses while the eldest can recite 10,000 scriptures. There are about 32,000 verses in the Bible. They have taken it as a ministry and they have bought into the vision.
But some people will think you’re forcing them and that may not be good for them?
It’s not that we are pushing them. And it’s not that they are just memorizing the scriptures. But they have become word addict. I tell people that we are raising word addicts. We are raising people that are sold to the word of God and who breathe God’s word. The Bible is part and parcel of them. By the time God sees that we were focused the Lord began to use them to do incredible things. There were many places they would be ministering and healings would be taking place. There was a time they were in school and a boy fainted the head teacher of the school just said they should call the children reciting the Bible and asked them to recite the Bible on the children that fainted before they were taken to the hospital. By the time they finished reciting the Bible the boy who fainted became normal. There are cases of people whose lives have been changed because of their ministration. People come to them to recite the Bible on them and the Lord has been working through them greatly.
What has the scriptures done to them?
It has changed them. We led them to Christ consciously but they got baptized in the Holy Spirit on their own. There was a day we were out and we got home and met them on the floor they were completely slain in the spirit. They were speaking in tongues and praying. Character wise it has changed them. They are composed. They are not restless. People wonder how we train them. When they wanted to recite at Canaan land the pastor who ushered my last child in to do the recitation thought he would not be able to cope because of the crowd. But he coped.
Those two to three years they did not go to school there was no TV for them to watch at home. We only had radio. There was no distraction. I tell parents anytime you want to get children its either you remove the television or reduce the attention they give it. If a child can cut off from phone and television for one year the brain of the child will be reconditioned to learn properly.
Some would wonder that with too many scriptures in their brain, it may affect them negatively. What do you think?
I read two books by Ben Carson. He wrote in one of the books that our brain has 14 billion cells and that the best of genius have not explored one tenth of the capacity. He said if one memorises all the books that have ever been written that the person would still be able to have space in the brain to take more.
What they are doing enhances them academically. One of my children was very dull when we started. But by the time he started memorizing scriptures his brain opened up. Now is the most intelligent of them. It is a lie of the devil that with too many scriptures you will run mad. Jesus said the word that I speak to you are spirit and life. Academically, all my children are bright despite the initial challenges we had to pay their school fees. They are doing well in school. All of them are now on scholarship. One has been offered scholarship at the Faith Academy of the Winners Chapel. You always create time for what you have passion for. That is what we do in our training. We stir them up to be passionate about what they are doing. They have composed more than 200 songs with the Bible verses they know. Angels appear to them to teach them songs. They learnt some musical instruments within three weeks. There are many things to be grateful for.
You have given time to this ministry since 2015 including your wife. Since you came into it what has been your field experience?
We are what we are by His grace. Even if you are not able, once God sees that you are available he will give you the ability. We just found out that God has found us and endowed us and also increased us with the ability to demystify the mystery behind memorizing the Bible. The challenge has been with the teachers of the children, their parents and some church leaders. Some of these people I mentioned have not seen the need for this concept. They see it as one of those things. Some places we go when they want to introduce us they will introduce us as ordinary reciters. Some people don’t what we are doing as important.
When the children see our seriousness they take us serious. I can recite about 1000 scriptures too. It got stuck on me in the course of teaching them. In some churches the children welcome us but the teachers don’t see the need. We are presently trying to move to schools to create awareness for children to memorise the Bible. We have training manual for parents and children on how to go about memorizing scriptures.
What are the basics in Bible memorisation?
We try to encourage them to catch a vision and develop passion for it first. We also try to encourage them by introducing them to the scriptures gradually. When I was training my children I started with three verses from there to 30 and then to 300 etc. It would take my first child 12 hours to recite the 10000 scriptures. It’s always the whole day when we train. We have got link with Children Evangelical Ministry but we have not reached a compromise on how to integrate our vision. I want to concentrate on our own strength. They use RSV we use KJV. But we work hand in hand.
People are so fixated on KJV?
You can’t force any version on people. But if you can learn with KJV it will help your brain. If you start with something complex, it becomes easier. Our children pick RSV easily. A woman watched one of videos form the US and was wondering how they were able to combine three difficult things: the Bible, KJV and the English language. God is asking us to have centres in schools. We are trusting God for about 10000 of such where we can train children in Bible recitation.
So what are your projections?
God opened my eyes to Heb 4v12: the word of God is quick, powerful sharper than any two edged sword. If the Bible were to be written these days they would have replaced sword with bomb. If we have the word our lives can’t be the same again. A child can’t know a minimum of 1000 verses and the child will go and join cults in the universities. One of my children was in primary 4 when he came to us and told us he had started a fellowship in school. He started the fellowship with 50 people. By the time he finished from the school, the fellowship had about 200 members. Muslim children were giving their lives to Jesus. There was one Imam’s child that gave his life to Jesus through the ministry of the children and it almost caused problem. Imagine the next 10 years and we have leaders who have scriptures in them. I see these children becoming leaders and professors in the future. Our nation will change and the world will change. I see what we are doing as our own quiet way of putting the church back on a glorious path.
I saw a trance where we were in a crusade and I was invited in that trance where I brought out 5000 children and they recited close to 1000 scriptures. Miracles started happening. The guest ministers came up and said these children have preached his message. And he made altar calls. We believe that the vision will come to pass. We were in Offa, Kwara State to minister and we challenged the parents and the children by the time we attended the church’s last convention in August there was a child that recited the whole of Ecclesiastics. We now have a curriculum that aids the learning and memorization process.
The challenge we have been funds. We want to have a boarding school where we can have children who will do secular education from Monday to Friday while Saturday will be for memorizing the Bible. By the time the child is through with secondary school we would have had children that can recite 20,000 scriptures.
Have you approached church based organisation for support?
The encouragement is not forthcoming yet. They have not seen the need for what we are doing. Some people thought it could not be done. When I was saying we could have children that could recite 5000 scriptures people thought it was impossible. We had an accident recently in front of the RCCG camp along Lagos Ibadan express road and the children picked various verses of the Bible and were reciting them when the vehicle we boarded somersaulted. By the time the vehicle calmed down nothing happened to us. Those who saw us did not believe we were in the vehicle. We were unhurt in the accident. We are training a generation of people that could memorise the Bible and also make use of it. The Bible ought to dwell richly in us.
Your first child is Wisdom, the second one is Chairman, the third is called Gifted and the last child is Richman. How did you come about the names?
Their names are prophetic. A day to the naming of Chairman I heard in my spirit, the Lord will give him the throne of his father David as I was meditating. I heard in my spirit Chairman. It was the last name on the list of his names. People began to call me Daddy Chairman. When I had another child after him I named him Richman. That name has been prophetic. When people hear the name Richman they give him money.
The Davids could be reached on 08132709385
