James Emejo in Abuja
In the spirit of Christmas and giving, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), City of David, Abuja has conducted medical outreach, as well as provided food palliatives to over 2,000 households including widows, children and the elderly.
The intervention, which took place in Daki-Biyu community, Jabi district, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), witnessed the provision of wide-ranging medical services including testing, advisory and provision of medicines.
The outreach also witnessed the distribution of food items to the vulnerable.
The Pastor in Charge, Pastor Agbolade Okenla, said the intervention was carried out to ameliorate the sufferings of the needy considering the economic hardship in the country.
He said: “We realised that a lot of people lack basic amenities and facilities even food. We thought about how we could reach out to a community and the Lord laid it in our hearts to do something different.
“So, we decided to adopt this community – Daki-Biyu in the city of Abuja to lift over 2,000 households. We would be providing rice, chicken, spaghetti, maggi and salt, among others.
“And this is just to show the love of Christ and that’s why we say Christmas meal on Jesus. We’ve been doing this, especially the medical outreach and we’ve been doing cooked food, particularly along the Mararaba axis, but this year, we said let us give raw food.”
According to him, “We also thought we should reach out to the widows as well and so, we gave them financial liftings and we gave them food items as well because that is probably the only way we can show that we love them, especially at this point in Nigeria where everybody needs help and we thought the widows should not be left out.”
He also disclosed plans by the church to unveil a scholarship scheme for 20 youths in January next year, as well as visit the prisons to help people pay their fines to enable them to regain their freedom.
Okenla further told THISDAY: “We have what we call City of David Foundation which we have started and we will be giving over 20 young people scholarships and we will be unveiling that in January.
“And apart from that, next year as well, we will be going to different prisons and helping people to pay fines so that they can regain their freedom.”
He also assured Nigerians that the interventions would be sustained by the church going forward.
“This programme will be sustainable, and the good thing is that the members of the church came together to do all these. All those who gave are members of the church.
“We didn’t have to go outside the church to raise funds; we got the funds within and so I must also appreciate the members of the RCCG City of David for the selfless sacrifices they made to make sure that this is achieved,” he stated.
Also speaking with THISDAY, the Consultant Haematologist/ Leader of the church’s medical team, Dr. Ado Theophilus, decried the sordid health conditions of people as well as the ravaging poverty in the community.
He said: “We come here twice a year to organize medical outreach with the people here, and every time we come here, we find new challenges and new situations and we find out that we need to help the people the more.
“The more we do, the more we find out there’s more to do. So, this time around; for the second time of the year, we’ve come to Daki-Biyu, having done the requisite advocacy visits to the community leader and the people around.
“We have come with a team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, vaccination teams, optometric; we’ve come with free medications and free testing, among other things.
“So, we are just trying to see how much we can do to help the people. This time around, rather than staying with the medical aspect alone, we are also doing the social welfare.
“In the spirit of Christmas and giving, and the celebration of the birth of Christ, we have come here to give some palliatives – food, and clothing to the less privileged.
“There is no single government presence here in terms of healthcare to the people. There is no drainage system and if you go around, you see there is surface water everywhere. And the people here suffer from a lot of poverty.”
