Having laid his hands on many
jobs in Nigeria, Brother Samuel Akinbodunse travelled to South Africa for
greener pastures and for a better standard of living. As a typical young man,
he toiled and suffered just for him to have a leeway, but things seemed not to
favour him at the initial stage.
It was so difficult for him that he had to lay
his heads under flowers and also had to go through severe pains on different
occasions. But with his call to the Lord’s vineyard, Bro Samuel soon realised
that he was only wasting his time looking for jobs to do whereas God had
already prepared him to be His servant.
Today, the story of Bro Samuel has
changed as his ministry, the Freedom for all Nations Outreach, FANO has not
only carved a spiritual niche for herself but also won many souls into the
Kingdom of God and he is also planning a 50,000 capacity auditorium . In this
interview, Bro. Akinbodunse, a native of Ondo spoke glowingly on his experience
and how he hearkened unto the voice of God and why he wants to build a 50,000
capacity auditorium
Excerpts:
People believe South Africa is
not a conducive environment for Nigerian Pastors to establish a church, what
would you say distinguishes FANO TV from every other ministry?
That is a very good question and
it is something I should break for you, pastors in South Africa, especially
Nigerian pastors, before leaving Nigeria they carry heavy anointing but
immediately they arrive they attach themselves to things that will extinguish
the fire of their anointing, so many of them now have been corrupted, God said
to me that I should separate myself. Separation is what distinguishes me, I do
not do what they are doing, if you look at them now, running after women and
rich people, all kind of frivolities and vanities, I do not do that, since I
came to South Africa, it has been only my wife, you see pastors duping people,
going to clubs and hangouts, engaging in fraudulent activities, I do not engage
in all that, even when I started, some people know me then and made comments
that they know I will be a pastor because I have never done the illegal things
they do there and that is it. In my Church now, I can say only ten percent of
my congregants are Nigerians, I have 80% South Africans, 10% of other
nationals.
Q- A lot of people raise allegations
that all churches are just interested in money, this is a strange one, can you
tell us more about your ministry in terms of giving?
A- This is one of the things I
also teach my fellow pastors especially some that submitted to me. Ever since I
started Freedom For All Nations, I have never touched the church’s money,
we have some treasuries and there is accountability, so what we do is whoever
is in need, we give and pay our bills and from my own, I have a covenant I do
not usually say it, 80% of whatever comes in , I return it to the ministry,
I am only left with 20% so if I want to travel or go anywhere, it should
be the church responsibility but I do not put burden on anyone, I do it myself
and I have Sam Akinbodunse Ministry where we help people, there are some funds,
like the scholarship I am giving out is not from the purse of the church, it is
from my own account, we have very strong welfare committee that takes care of
the needy through the account of the church.
Q- We learnt there is a programme
you do where you feed those who are hungry, tell us more about it?
A- Operation Feed the Nation came
to being when I thought deeply and I saw that in those days when I was hungry
and there was no food, there are some white people who brought food to us,
bread and tea every morning, I remember I take it up to thrice in a deceptive
way because I don’t have hope until they come back the next morning and there
are some people in that situation now, so we are feeding 150 people every week
Q- Within 5 years, your ministry
has grown so big and the auditorium is becoming too small, what is your plan
for expansion?
A- Actually, where we are now
isn’t the vision, the vision God gave me is to build 50,000 capacity and you
know we have to start from somewhere, the 8,000 capacity we have now, we will
start from there, that is why if you come to our church, we put it far extreme
so that it will not disturb the main auditorium and where we are now, as time
goes on, we will leave it for the youths. The main auditorium is coming soon and
we have targeted that by 2019, if it is not fully finished, it must have gotten
to somewhere. We have acquired the land, structures are on it, we are just
waiting for the date to start and also support, actually the people have
estimated it and it costs 300million Rands.
Q- A lot of people are scared
when it comes to prophecy and that is why they speak in parables, but we
noticed something about you that you say it as it is like the issue of Cape
Town and Zuma Prophecy, what gives you the boldness?
A- I know that people have
bastardized the prophetic ministry and actually it has been known to everyone
that wherever there is original, you will always see fake, and another
challenge is that people cannot differentiate because devilish people also
prophesy, the only thing that can make people differentiate Is character, the
Bible says by their fruits you shall know them, I have a logo, I told my people
that any prophet without the character of Jesus is fake, if it comes to
prophecy and revelation, I am gifted to be sincere, I remember one of my
fasting, what I asked God for was his power so my only prayer for those 40 days
was his power and he gave it to me, power of revelation, knowledge, he gave it
to me, like what you just mentioned, it came in the service, I was just
ministering and I saw something just flashed on my eyes, when I looked, I saw
flood coming out in Cape Town, I saw flood coming out of the Western part of
South Africa that we should pray, who knows, if we didn’t pray, it could have
been worse and sure, Zuma must go, I’m a man that devoted himself for South
Africa, if you watch our programme, every Sunday we gather we pray
for South Africa and Africa continent so as I was praying that time, God said I
should go and warn President Jacob Zuma that he must not do re-shuffle or else
he will mess up the country, I spoke and told people, he didn’t listen, he did
it and up till now, the crisis are still there, we’ve not gotten over it and
that is bringing forth different problems, to me, I am a man who isn’t afraid
of anything when it is spiritualism, you can’t find me in a dirty place so when
I speak and if it’s God that revealed and said I should speak, why should I be
afraid, I am not afraid of anybody no matter who you are
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