Obembe (middle) with other ministers and youths during the event

Mary Ekah

In a bid to address the social malice plaguing the Nigeria society in the recent times as well as re-direct the focus of the teaming youths in the nation, a serving judge with the Lagos  State High Court and a minister of El-Shaddai Bible Church, Dolphin, Ikoyi Lagos, Pastor (Mrs.) Yetunde Adesanya, has reiterated the need for youths to remain focused and close to God while they keep away from any adventure that would get them into trouble.

Speaking during the grand finale of the 2012 youth convention of the Church with the theme “It is Possible”, Adesanya said there was an urgent need for every youth who have been perpetuating evil to change.
She said specifically that, “trouble does not get anyone any where. You can only get away with it for so long but the long hand of the law will definitely catch up with you.”

Giving a note of advice to the youths, Adesanya said, “All things are possible for them that believe and if you can dream it and believe God for whatever that it is, it will surely come to pass.” She however reiterated the need for the youths who are pronto committing one crime or the other to change their ways, knowing that with God all things are possible. “Know that there is no short cut to success but hard work, divine opportunities, diligence and excellence will take you there”, Adesanya added. The Founder El-Shaddai Church, Bishop (Dr.) Olarenwaju Obembe said this year’s programme has been better organised with greater impact on the lives of all those who participated.

“This year’s activities were generated to meet the needs of the youths because we recognise that the youths in any setting are the working population and in our church, we are so blessed with so many vibrant resourceful and creative youths who are never idle, and for you to keep them, you must recognise the fact that so many things are likely to engage their attention. So, this year’s programme has been tailored to minster to them socially, economically and spiritually”, Obembe said.

On what informed the theme for this year’s convention, he said, “recognising the heterogeneous environment of people being depressed by so many things that happen, I have come to realise that when you work with God, you are bound to succeed in life. We want the youth to realise that whatever dream God has given them and whatever target God has set for them, within the divine factor, their dreams and expectations are possible.”

The church has also gone beyond its four walls in developing the society, particularly the youth through its newly established foundation, El-Shaddai Youth Empowerment Foundation.
“Looking at the working population of the church made of youths, we felt that once we develop their talents, they can now do so many other things.

Now we have a foundation that has just been inaugurated that would take care of those who are in need as well as the less privileged within and outside the church. The scope of our assignment as a foundation is not limited only to members of the church, we are privileged by the structure to have people with the flair and passion to help the needy in such a way that the Foundation will have mileage in reaching out to different categories of people”, Obembe said. Obembe said the church realises the fact that the youths are the future of any generation and once they are not developed, then “we are raising another set of wasted generation.” He said therefore “we don’t want to leave a legacy of not developing the youths who basically are the future leaders because a nation that has no successors has been classified as a total failure.”

Obembe who advised the youth to get closer to God, noted, “even though we know that government has the responsibility to provide employment and create networks within the various sector of the economy to absorb the qualified ones but as a church we consider it our own act of social corporate responsibility to reach out to the youth, so that they would not be involved in nefarious activities nor perpetuate unnecessary unrest in the society.”

The Youth Pastor, Emmanuel Godfrey said the programme was a huge success, noting that this year’s event went beyond expectation as it brought about another dimension to the annual youth event.

“In spite of one challenge or the other, God was with us, stimulating our youths and our leaders in the church gave us all the moral, financial and spiritual supports that we needed and today the event culminated in the launch of El-Shaddai Youth Empowerment Foundation”, Godfrey said.