“My sister told me to go back to village to wait for my death”

My name is *Samuel E. I am from Ondo State in Nigeria. I am 35 years old. I went into a relationship with a man some years back and we had a son. A Few months later the child and I became sick, and my son died. I later learned the man I was seeing was already married so I had to leave him.  I moved in with my relatives. One day I had an attack, and I became mentally unstable-, and became normal some days later. Some years later, I joined another church and I was able to meet the coordinator of the RCG Foundation, who was my church member. Around that time, I was diagnosed with HIV positive. I was devastated and my sister told me to go back to the village to wait for my death. I could not tell anyone because it was a dreadful sickness in my community that time, and people would not want to open up because of the stigma attached to the sickness. To my surprise, during a prayer session I had with the  coordinator, God ministered to her concerning my sickness and I had to confirm it and opened up to her. This turned to a new era in my life, she took up the case, went to hospital with me and along the way I was also diagnosed positive to tuberculosis. The Foundation was responsible for all the expenses incurred throughout, though the drugs were given to us free in the hospital. After several appointments with doctor, I was first placed on 6 months treatment for tuberculosis, thereafter I have been taking drugs to suppress the effect of HIV. Though, I still intensify prayer for permanent divine healing, but my hope has been restored. Having the feeling and understanding that some people somewhere care about me has given me a new thought of life. I do not see life as a lonely place again, I see it as beautiful.  My approach to life has changed, my energy has been restored, I am gainfully employed and I am doing well and I am no more hostile towards people but having good relationship with them. *Full name withheld to protect privacy of...
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WHATEVER IS NOT OF FAITH IS SIN

I knew sin to be disobedience to God’s commandments.  But from the day I read from the scripture that whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23) and I meditated on the verse, I had another dimension to my Christian journey.  I was able to know the difference between self righteousness and works of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1).  Faith is believing or trusting God, and it is not a one off thing, it is a process that plays out all our fruit of the Spirit- faith, love, joy, meekness, gentleness, goodness, temperance, patience and peace.   Believing and trusting God which is a process entails a lot of things, it entails all other fruit of the Spirit.  While we are believing and trusting God, we need to be patient (Heb. 6:12, 10:36), we need to persevere, endure and tolerate difficulties and hardships that come our way.  We need to have peace with God, ourselves and neighbors (Heb. 4:3, 12:14).  Our actions and reactions must edify others (Rom. 14:19).  While believing God which is our faith we must love God and our neighbors (Matt. 22:37-40).  In a situation where a person is trusting God for a car and he does not see anything wrong in defrauding his employer to buy the car and still claiming to be of faith.  This is not faith but sin.  Faith entails loving, being patient, gentle, joyful, peaceful, having self-control, being good, and being meek.  Whenever you fall short of any of the fruit of the Spirit while believing God, you are not faithful, but sinful.  It is either you are faithful or sinful, you cannot be in between. More reason when you have one fruit you have all. Our faith which is our believing and trusting God is the substance (part and pieces) of what we hoped for. We need to understand this faith very well so that we will not be sinful while we are waiting for its establishment (Isa. 7:9).  Take for example, I am a bachelor hoping for a wife, evidence of having a wife is my faith, that is believing and trusting God is the part and pieces (substance) of the wife not yet seen, and all I can show for my hope now is my faith (believing and trusting God).  Therefore, all that is of faith...
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YOU CAN DO ALL THINGS

I remember some years ago, during one of the periods of fuel scarcity in my country, I had no fuel in my car, I used the reserve to get to work in the morning and after work I sat in the car not knowing what to do. My CEO was passing by also closing for the day, he got near my car and asked why I was downcast, and I told him I had no fuel in my car to take me home.  Then he directed my attention to a sticker on my car dashboard which quoted Philippians. 4:13 which says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He looked at me and jokingly was referring to the sticker ‘this should take you home’, and he left. I did not get his joke, all I could say to myself was,“how could a sticker take me home?” As at that time I had not really known God, though I used to go to church but His words had not penetrated into my hearts the way they are now. Moreover, I never had personal relationship with him. So, I kept on looking at the sticker, reading those words aloud and it got to a point that I had the courage to start my car and believed that the car will take me home even if there was no fuel in the car.  I got home after spending more than 4 hours in heavy traffic! From that day I knew there is power in His words all what we are required to do is to believe in them. Faith is believing God (2 Corinthians. 5:7), and Faith is a substantial and real thing (Hebrew 11:1).  Every of God’s promise or blessing needs faith to activate it, your own is not to keep on thinking how He is going to do it but to believe that He who has promised has the capability to fulfill His promise. Faith is not a one-time action, it is a continuous process. Put your faith in action!Has God called you into an assignment and you do not know how to start it, and you are now having sleepless night because time is flying away and you have not really done anything about the assignment? He who has called you will also empower you to do that thing He has called you to do. You...
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LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

Have you ever thought of why God made you who you are, why you were not made a stone, an animal, and a tree or not even made you at all? Now you saw yourself as a very beautiful young lady or man, or you were born blind, lame, deaf or even dump, has it ever occurred to you that it is not your making? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so we are in the hand of our God (Jer. 18:6). Some people have forgotten God’s factor in their lives, and they believe that they have the right to do whatever they like with it, even to the extent of taking the life they did not create.  We have a lot of murder or even suicide cases everywhere, where people feel some people deserve not to exist or some people’s time should be up on the face of the earth. When do we assume the duty of God; when did you turn to God? Or in your own case you cannot hurt a fly, but in your heart you wish that person contesting a position with you dead. We are the clay, and our God is our potter and we are all the work of His hand (Isa. 64:8). So, why are you destroying or do you intend to destroy God’s work? Have you ever thought about how beautiful this world could be if we would just accept God’s work, leave everything the way God has made it?  Starting from accepting who we are, do things the way God has commanded us, no adjustment and no discontentment.What a beautiful place this world would be if only we could all have a mindset of embracing life the way it has been fashioned and have tolerance for others who we have been cohabitated together. So why is it that we experience different types of discriminationand marginalization in our society?  Ranging from age, sex, religion, race, disability, and so on and so forth, we keep on killing ourselves just because we do not share the same belief, value, ideology, or even background. We seem to forget that it is not our making that we have such differences, right from sex, no one in this world made him or herself who he or she is today, we grew up to know who we are.  So why are we humiliating others...
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“God has used the NGO to put an unending laughter in my face”

My name is Okolie Chinaza Favour, I hail from Enugu State in Nigeria. I came from a broken home. My parents never lived together in harmony. We are just two, my elder sister and I. After giving birth to my sister, my parents broke up as a result of unbearable beating my mother received from my father every night because my dad was always under the influence of alcohol. Consequently, my mother went insane, she was left to wander in the bush and in the streets. She was pregnant, gave birth to a baby but lost the baby in the trauma. When she was 19 years old she became a bit normal, and went back to my father.  She gave birth to me a few months she reunited with my father. Few months after I was delivered she could not cope with hardship and beating from my father, my mother moved to her elder sister’s house. After going insane, my mother has never been her real self. I was nursed by my mother’s sister together with her six children. She took care of us. My sister was living in our cousin’s house, and had no opportunity to go to school. My father died ten years ago. When I was seven years old, my sister got married I went to live with her. I became a babysitter whenever she gave birth, I would not go to school for the period of nursing the baby. It continued I finished my primary school with wasted years of babysitting. I went back to Enugu and stayed at my cousin’s place and I had my junior secondary school there. Things were not buoyant for my cousin and he could not finance my education again, I had to move back to my sister’s place who arranged with one of her church members who was in need of someone to look after his children while at work. So I was taking care of the children, and the family in return sent me to school. I had my senior secondary school class 1 with them, and because of some issues I left the place. I was 17 years old then and decided to get a job to finance my education. During that time, I came across a poster looking for people interested in acting. Because I have passion for writing and acting, I called the contact person...
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