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The Most Revd. Dr. Olusegun Adeyemi recently retired as the Archbishop of The Province of Kwara and Bishop of Kwara of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). He was one time Chief Medical Director of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. He shares some of his life testimonies with our correspondent Adekunle Adewunmi. Excerpts:
Dr. Segun Adeyemi Archbishop
Congratulations on your retirement sir. What are the things you would like to thank God for having put in so much in the service of God in the Anglican Communion?
God has been so wonderful. If in this ministry God does not answer your prayer, you need to go to another location. This is not what He has called you into. But that can’t be true because I know God answers prayers if only we can pray.
God has been so magnanimous to work on my behalf as if I was the one working. That was what I experienced in my last 23 years of ministry – in parish work, diocesan work, in the work of the province, God has been mighty. In spite of the turbulence, resistance I met, or challenges in the ministry, God is faithful, God is capable, and He’s still impeccably holy.
My greatest joy is that I have a relationship with Him. His unfolding assignment is enough for me, of which this one is just terminating as a formal retirement.
You were the CMD of LASUTH, how was it easy for you to leave the job for the work of ministry?
It’s a calling. Humanly speaking, some things will look impossible but God supplies grace always. He has given me the grace. When you know Jesus Christ, you don’t even know when you’re walking on water. I’ve known Jesus Christ since I was in medical school so, it’s a matter of what he is saying now because, even as Chief Medical Director of the Lagos State Teaching Hospital, I saw the mighty hand of God in my surgery, in my administrative work, and the same thing is true of the church. You see, ordination is a formality, when you have a relationship with God, wherever you work, wherever you are, you will find that He is a God who is faithful.
Sir, how can you differentiate between divine healing and medicine as a pastor and doctor?
Let us take it one time after the other. Divine has to do with God. Healing is a restoration of working parts. When you use a tablet, it will take 30 minutes to cure your headache. When you take it through the injection, it takes 3 minutes. When you put it in the blood, it takes 23 seconds to circulate round the body.
God can work through the normal process, He can work through the extraordinary which we call the miraculous. So, divine healing is what God brings about by His power of anointing. These things happen when you go to church, it even happens when we don’t see it as divine. The challenge is that we only look for some physical signs like somebody blind, lame receiving their healing. God is still in the miraculous, working every day of our lives.
I saw a lot of miracles in my surgery; 44 and half years ago. It is amazing how God can work through the miraculous, the ordinary and how he can work through men. So when you’re talking about divine, it’s a compendium of all.
What we must also appreciate is that to wake up from sleep is a daily miracle. I’ve seen people who could not wake from sleep and there was nothing wrong with them until they were prayed back to life. So, God is divine, although He remains invisible, He’s still in the everyday aspect of human life.
Sometimes, he reaches you through men. Sometimes, like some people who don’t have access to medical treatment; He visits them in the miraculous and sometimes, He combines both. When you have a relationship with God, miracle is a matter of what He did a few minutes ago not years ago.
What is the next thing after retirement? Are you returning to Lagos?
I will wait upon the Lord but Lagos has been my base as you could see, they were heavy here for the retirement service. I have so many assignments that it takes God to tell me which one to do at the particular time. But I will not be idle.
