By Tony Eluemunor

A day at the medium-sized hall of the Pool of Redemption Assembly,
Zone B, Nyanya, an Abuja suburb, presents you with two stark choices;
total belief or total skepticism. On Saturday morning
inter-denominational prayer meetings, Mrs
Chinyere Ifeanyi, popularly called Pastor Chi, from Afikpo, Ebonyi
state, would encourage the congregation: “open up to God, obtain your
deliverance today or it might be too late. Close your eyes, close your
eyes, connect to God, free yourself and let the Holy Spirit do His
work, pray yourself out of your problem, this might just be your day,
this prayer point may just be especially for you. If you like, just
keep looking at me, you will be cheating yourself,” the encouragement
would flow on and on from Pastor Chi as she would raise one prayer
point after another for the benefit of the individuals, the society
and the country. Was the “if you like keep looking at me” admonition
directed at me? I had opened my eyes not knowing she was just steps
away from me; the microphone in her hands sent her words to the
loudspeakers without pinpointing her position.

The high point approaches when people would begin to “manifest”.
Apparently taken over by forces greater than them; some would jerk
uncontrollably, shriek, talk in guttural or other worldly voices,
while others would even laugh and talk in a cool and untroubled
conversational way. Many would roll on the floor. As manifestation
means appearance, exhibition or demonstration, those actually
manifesting are the spiritual entities that have taken control of the
affairs and lives of their victims.

The peak is reached when Pastor Chi would begin the deliverance,
especially on those that manifested. Perhaps, to prove that the
display was not staged, she would ask the entity manifesting in the
victim to state its, his or her name…for it could be a demon, a man or
woman. She would obtain as much information as possible (dates,
relationships, situations, etc and she would often ask that anyone who
could confirm or refute the information supplied during the
deliverance be called and the phone placed in the speaker mode for all
present to hear the answers) to relay to the victims when they come
back to their senses. Some people are oppressed by several entities.
On rare occasions, she would just walk up to a person who didn’t
manifest and deliver a message; “I saw the spirit of death hovering
over you”, and a deliverance session would begin – to set the person
free. Sometimes, this unusual interview becomes protracted as the
spiritual entities would refuse to confess, especially to mention
their names and they have to be forced by “Holy Ghost fire” or the
“name of Jesus”.

Yes, this is where the Pool of Redemption Assembly stands out. It is
powered by prophecy and deliverance. To get a feeling of how it has
been in the ministry over the years, I got three persons to narrate
their experiences.

Pastor Ekenedilichukwu Sunday Uduekwe, from Umumak, Orumba South, met
Pastor Chi for the first time fifteen years ago in 2009. One Ejiofor,
a drugstore owner on Road 4 Phase 4 Plot 415, facilitated that
meeting- a female co-tenant had introduced Ejiofor to Pastor Chi for
prayers. Impressed, he in turn introduced Pastor Ekene.

Pastor Ekene said: “I met her, loved her grace, was ‘whaoed’, so, from
that time I started going to her house because the ministry started
from there. I would often meet her at home and we would chat, or she
would give me Bible verses to study or to pray with.

I was already attending Bible school by then. Later, she told me that
God had given us a place through a Bishop and two of us came to the
hill there. The Saturday prayer was just for deliverance then, and it
was held just once in a while, as announced on Tuesdays which was
strictly for counselling.

We had different workers there, they even summoned my wife to say she
was using my star. We have the same spirit. After the Tuesday
counselling, the workers would bring out all the offering and all
would share it. I kicked against such and those workers were against
me. Even the church where I was ministering asked me to leave her,
start a Friday deliverance service to compete with her. I refused. I
saw that God was working through her.

I love the deliverances we conduct here. You see a demon or another
human being manifesting within a human being. And when later the
people delivered come to give their testimonies, I love that people
are set free and their lives have improved. I remember a carpenter
manifested in a lady. He had worked for long, on a N20,000 contract
and used all the money to do a charm to tie down the brother’s
children that they would amount to nothing. That is wickedness for
you.

Only a few that were delivered ever come to say thank you. Many just
walk away. There was the case of a lady who met us in a market and
threw a child at Pastor Chi, saying, “this is your child”. How? She
had come for prayers, Pastor Chi asked all those who wanted children
to come with apples, which she blessed and the woman ate …and boom,
she became pregnant. But she never came again. That is life for you.

We met one man who said there was no demon. He had returned from
Israel and started a business which began to go down gradually. I kept
warning him to come for prayers but he wouldn’t listen. When things
got really out of hand, he came for counselling and when told what the
problem was, that the person he was helping financially was the enemy
bringing him down, he broke down and cried. I couldn’t cry with him
but gave him my handkerchief to dry his eyes.

In 2012, when mummy returned from a trip to the village, the owner of
the place we were using for prayers said we should be paying N500,
000. I was mad because we put the place in order, floored it and the
man had asked us to build offices there. The ground was dusty. But
Pastor Chi said God had asked us to buy a piece of land … one day the
man asked us to pack out. And we came down and built this place”.

Madam Lydia Oniya has been with Pastor Chi since 2011. She said: “One
former worker, one lady, Idahosa, invited her. Prayers held on the
hill, then. I first came for counselling and then for prayers. The
lady has since stopped coming. I remained because since then my life
and those of my children have changed for the better. If I had known
here one month earlier, my husband would not have died. It was after
his death that I located this ministry…and everything she told me was
true. I have remained and will remain with her until I receive God’s
call.

There is truth here, she is a mother and a blessing to me. She will
foresee a problem even before it hits me and pray for me. We had a
bacha (meaning: makeshift wooden structure) before we built this
place. The place has been demolished, no longer in usage. She is a
woman of God. If she tells you anything, please take it seriously. She
is a mother; you know a mother will disdain her own problem and face
the children’s problems.

She takes special care of widows. She gives us clothes, rice, oil,
etc. If not for her, my daughter would have died. And my son would not
have been a university graduate.

This is my first prayer ministry. I’m from Deeper Life. On my first
visit she just shook her head and bewailed the death of my husband…and
I had not said anything to her. I thank Jesus for showing me the Pool
of Redemption Assembly, for allowing me to know Pastor Chi. Don’t play
with her words. She may jokingly say go and pray against this or pray
for this. Take it seriously. It may take five years but whatever she
has prophesied will come to pass. Her anointing is that serious.

Faith Onaze, from Benue state said: “I met her in 2006 or 2007 in her
house. A friend brought me for counselling. She would give us prayer
to say against problems or attacks.

We were three ladies, one is dead now, because of the negligence of
prophecy. How? She gave the lady some directives which she neglected
and she died. Some people don’t believe or follow the instructions to
the end, then you are on your own. When you receive a prophecy, good
or bad, you must follow up with prayer and pray it into manifestation
or cancel it. You just don’t go and relax. You must believe and pray
it out.

The house wasn’t big; just a room and parlour then. Even then, people
were much…on my first counselling, there were 35 people. Then she
would take us for deliverance…on any day of the week in Karu mountain.
To be sincere, not many people have tagged along. PORA is a spiritual
hospital, you get your deliverance and zoom off. Even the friend that
brought me has stopped coming. I love the way mummy says her prophecy
the way it is; the raw word; serving God as a minister, you don’t have
to please people.

That my friend; she didn’t follow instruction. Even now, she is still
struggling. But all that mummy told her came to pass. Then the third
one died. She told her about it and gave her prayers and what to do to
stave off the death. That was my older sister. That year we lost a
cousin. The prophecy came; Don’t attend the burial because I see you
falling sick after it…and I see the spirit of death around you after
that burial. So, don’t go. She gave the prophecy through me, and I
told my older sister what mummy said. They didn’t listen and went for
the burial on April 9th, 2012. September that year, my elder sister
came down with fever…and two weeks later, she died on the 2nd of
October. We buried her that same month. The same with the second born.
She was in a relationship with a man, who asked her to get pregnant
first before they would marry. So one day, I had come for counselling,
for my own personal issue but mummy began to tell me of my sister. She
asked if my sister was pregnant and I said I didn’t know. Mummy said
I should find out. I called her afterwards and she said she was
pregnant but had just suffered a miscarriage.

On the next counselling day, I told mummy what happened and Pastor Chi
rejoiced, saying she should thank God for the miscarriage because,
one, the man would not marry her, second, she didn’t see her alive if
she would go ahead and be impregnated by that man. She didn’t obey but
became pregnant again instead of leaving the man. She gave birth to a
baby in March the following year, 2015. The man took her to one quack
doctor in Masaka and her family members didn’t even know. After that
she was sick for about a year and died in the end in April 2016; two
years after that prophecy. That was the negligence of prophecy.

Believe me, if I didn’t listen to her, I wouldn’t be alive today. But
because I believed in God, in His servant, Pastor Chi and in His
words, I’m alive”.

Saturday September 21st 2024, PORA will celebrate Pastor Chi’s
birthday. Two weeks earlier, I had interviewed her: Question: Are any
of your children after you? Are you about to push or encourage any to
follow you?

Answer: I will not want to push them, I will only want to encourage
those that have the grace because going by my experience, the task is
not easy. But all my children, especially my second son and my
daughter, are highly gifted when it comes to prophecy. God speaks to
my daughter through dreams and they are very accurate. My second son
is like that. My first son, too, is also called. In fact, during his
dedication he was not only dedicated but ordained as a pastor…as a
child. The reverend that ordained him, now dead, said that God
instructed that he should actually ordain him as a pastor instead of
just dedicating him.

Truly, he was growing on that line, but at the university, he
experienced some distractions. But he is still a “Chineke pikin”
(God’s own special child).

She thanked PORA members: “I really want to appreciate them. They are
amazing, and are my source of encouragement. My Pastor, my brothers,
my family, honestly they are very good. I thank God for the kind of
members that I have. Many of them fully understand me, support me and
pray for me”.

About Nigeria, she said: “this country belongs to Nigeria. God loves
Nigeria. I believe that God will perfect everything that concerns
Nigeria. It is just for a while and things will turn around by the
grace of God”.

Q: How? If God loves Nigeria why is there so much hardship?

A: “He, whom the Lord loves, He chastises. There must be a turn
around. There was a time when things were terribly difficult, the
Bible said there was famine in the land of Israel. Even when they were
in Egypt, they were not enjoying themselves. They lacked freedom. Yes,
there is hunger in Nigeria but we thank God there is no war in the
country. So, we have to say glory be to God. It has been my earnest
prayer, I always pray: “God, whatever happens in Nigeria, please, let
there be no war”.