Author: Ade

Chapter 3a – The day of the Stroke (Stroke Recovery Story)

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Ade Sobanjo - My Stroke Recovery Story

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The day of the stroke – the stroke itself. What happened? How did it happen?

So, in the last chapter I was talking about my life before the stroke so you kind of have an idea of what kind of life I had before the stroke and now, this is the story of the stroke itself and the recovery, how it happened and what really happened.

So, on Friday, I got to the office and I went to the baptismal tank that we were building and I noticed that my step was not really good. So I went into my office. I’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure long ago. My first trip to Canada, I had to do a medical check and that was when I was at the age of 25 – just about 25 and I had to check my blood pressure. It was a bit high and the doctor then prescribed medication. When I got to Canada, I went to the doctor’s and they gave me that medication and I was using it for a while. And after a while, I discovered that if I would do exercises, it will go down. I went to see my doctor, they looked at that and it was alright but I was still kept on the medication. And I was using the medication – very little. The medication was called … And I was having to use 2.5mg and I was using it once every 2 days and the pleasure was fantastic.

After a while, I just kept on improving my lifestyle and measuring my blood pressure from time to time. Whenever I’m fasting, I discovered that it will be low and if I took the medication, it will really go low so I usually wouldn’t take it when I’m fasting especially when I’m doing long fasts. But what I didn’t notice was that as I got to 40, some things may have changed. I didn’t really measure my blood pressure during that particular fasting in April. And I still feel that maybe if I had done that, I could have noticed that it wasn’t going down and I would have kept on the medication. But anyway I have the medication in my bag and I took my medication that day and just kept on working but I noticed that my legs had tripped and I wasn’t feeling too well so I called my wife and said, “You know what? I’m feeling weird. Maybe, you gave me the bug that you have.” We laughed and that was it. And I went over. I was able to get up, I went over to the other pastor and heard the story of how they were in the meeting the night before and the storms came and the roof started shaking and it caved in and everybody was safe. Nobody was hurt and I was happy and prayed with them. I went to my neighbor’s and we were doing their school work and just talk to them. But while I was walking, each time I had to walk, I was noticing that my legs were getting a little bit weird. But I didn’t know that this was a stroke. I’m sharing this so that if anybody is experiencing this at another time, they will remember that I heard this story and maybe it’s stroke and they will do something about it. I kept on going and I kept on and I came back to my office, laid down, rested for a while, just laid on my couch [I have a couch in my office]. I just laid down for maybe 30 mins or 1 hour. And as I was doing that, I just felt a little bit better and then I will get up again and do some other things and pray and do some other things. And I kept on doing things – walking around, praying and the more… It started after a while. After about maybe an hour or two, I began to notice that I wasn’t feeling well in my hands also – just lightly. That’s what is so weird. I have heard about stroke before. There’s nowhere you… I think stroke is something that many people have heard about and all I knew about stroke was that it would happen suddenly and it will paralyze [that’s what I thought then] one side of the face or one side of the body. But this was just gradual. I just started feeling weird in my hands. I couldn’t pick it – what it was.

By evening, we had a prayer meeting at 6 o’clock and I think we’d pray at 5. So my wife must have come into the church by 5 o’clock. By the time she came in, I was standing up, I went to see her. I think she looked at my face and she noticed that things were not right. She was talking to my sister who’s a doctor and wondering but for me, I just kept on feeling weird and I started praying. I was praying and declaring that my body is well, I’m healed, I have strength in my hands, I recover my strength and that’s what I was just declaring. I recover my strength. I recover my strength in my hands. By then, it was becoming more pronounced that something was wrong with my right leg and my right hand. I couldn’t hold my iPad the way I would hold it. Not that it was not possible but I couldn’t hold it. And I started feeling a bit weak also – just internally weak. As I was doing all that, I was praying. It was time now for me to come, the Prayer Meeting, I always lead some part of it some other people will lead some other parts of it. And so they were leading their own part and after a while, they called me to do my part and I was able to do my part but I couldn’t finish it. By the time I was done with some of the prayers, I was tired. I had to go sit down and left then to finish the prayer. So my wife really was worried about it and around that time, I began to feel that this is a stroke and I didn’t want to make my wife panic.She also began to think it was stroke and she was wondering if it’s going to make it worse if she says something like that. It was getting dark already at that time – it was past 7 and we were thinking of going to… We didn’t have any registration with any hospital here in Nigeria and we didn’t know what to do. But my dad knows a doctor who owned a private hospital and that was a good hospital.

So, anyway, to cut the long story short, we went home. You know, we went home! We should have gone to the hospital but we went home and we were just wondering, “Will this reverse? Is this just a TIA [Trans Ischemic Attack] at this age and it’s so slow? Maybe it’s just going to reverse after 24 hours.” And we were thinking of all that but you know what? It was getting worse. Around 3 o’clock in the morning of Saturday on the 8th of April, it was already really bad. And my sister said we should get to the hospital as quickly as possible. We called the doctor and he says okay, he’s going to be there. He will come down right away and so we got a friend of ours. So, I got up. I wanted to go to the bathroom to ease myself and I did that. I needed to change into something different from my pyjamas to something I could go to the hospital with. And as I was about to pull that, it just hit me that you know what? You are becoming paralyzed. And I didn’t know any person that had recovered from stroke. So, it just dawned on me that I’m becoming weak and helpless. And at that time, it was too much for me and I just broke down and I was crying. Just sobbing. And my wife came and I just broke down and that was the first time in years… I can’t remember ever ever being broken like that. Since my mom died, I was never broken. I didn’t cry like that even when my mum died.

So, I think something was restored to me that day. I really do believe that because now I feel even more emotional. Something has happened to me. I feel that. So that happened and I think this is going to be a bit longer than the other chapters. Anyway, to cut the long story short, I eventually was able to put my pants on and put on a shirt and I got into the car and I was taken to the hospital. All along the way when people would call to pray with me, I will just begin to cry and tears will just be rolling down my eyes. And all I was thinking was that you know what? I can’t believe I’m on this side of the prayer because I have always been the one from a young age, praying with people. And I remembered the first time I prayed with this guy in my high school – secondary school and he just woke up from his sickness. So, I’ve always believed in Divine Healing and I enjoyed praying for people and seeing them healed. Some, it takes long. Some, not long. Some, they don’t get healed but the joy of just being able to stand with them, pray with them; the joy of seeing them recover, I always enjoyed that. But right now, I was the one being prayed for. And it was breaking me and lots of things were happening in my life. So, we went to the hospital eventually and I was told that this must be something blood related or stuff. Inmet the doctors and one said maybe the blood is in your brain already and there is pressure or something. I felt as if I was nauseous so they put me on a wheel chair, I had to get a CT Scan and eventually, I got the scan done. I’d gotten… there’s a lot of drama that happened in the hospital but anyway, cutting all that off, it was eventually done and I’m grateful to God that there was no rupturing. There was nothing in my brain. It was just a normal attack – ischemic stroke. That means there was no rupture, there was no haemorrhage.

It wasn’t a moragic stroke but the strange thing is that when I got to the hospital, the doctor that was me around for the CT Scan, said I should just be making fists with my fingers. And I could make fists with my fingers but it still kept on getting worse. I was in the hospital. They were doing all they could do but it kept on getting worse. I was put on some IV fluids and all that. And it still kept on getting worse. All of Saturday, I think, it kept on getting worse. I don’t know when the last point was when I couldn’t make any fists anymore. I couldn’t move my right hand, I couldn’t move my left hand, I couldn’t turn on the bed. I think [I’m not too sure of that because I didn’t take note of it]… I think that it ended on Sunday morning but it could have ended in the middle of the night while I was sleeping but I know that I kept on wishing that it’d stop, getting weaker but it kept on getting worse.

I knew that I was praying and things were getting worse, worse and worse and worse. But there was good news anyway and that’s what happened while I was dressing up. While I was dressing up and things were getting worse, I heard in my spirit. I felt the Lord say to me, “You will go through this and you will recover but you will become a different man.” I felt that in my spirit man and that helped me. That’s what I held onto and that’s what I’ve been holding on to all this while. I felt the Lord say to me, “You will go through this…” and I just knew that I was going to go through it and I will recover. And I had faith that I’d recover and when I will be recovered, I will be a different person. I really have changed in my worldview. If you look at me, of course I don’t look so different and I may not speak so different but inside, some things have happened and I’m really grateful to God for all that has happened. I really am grateful to God for my wife. My wife was there for me. She stood with me, did everything. By myself, I couldn’t eat. I wasn’t used to using my left hand to eat, I had to learn to use my left hand. Dressing up was difficult; turning in the bed was difficult. People in the church rose up and started helping me. They were always coming in and visiting me, brought fruits, lots of things – money, help and help just kept on pouring in. The Lord has blessed us by giving the church and the people in the church helped a lot. And I think I started physiotherapy on the 3rd day in the hospital.

So, maybe I should cut this chapter here so it’s not too long. I’ll talk about my stay in the hospital and my recovery in the next chapter. So, let’s stop it here and just say thank you for listening so far.

The BiVocational Pastor Podcast – Introduction

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Show Transcripts

Hello and Welcome to the Bivo Podcast – the podcast for Bivo Ministers and Bivo Pastors. This is the very first episode of this podcast and I’m so glad I finally got to do this.

So, what is this podcast about? It’s about encouraging, equipping, networking and sharing resources with bi-vocational or multi-vocational ministers. Before I go further, let’s define what that is. Who is a Bivo Minister? Well, I’ll read first from 1 Thessalonians 2:9 just to give you a foundation for our discussion.

[Reads 1 Thessalonians 2:9]

This is the Apostle Paul writing to the Thessalonians, saying that “You know what? While I was with you, working with you, sharing the gospel with you, myself and my partner Apollos, we were working day and night. We were also doing our trade as well as preaching the gospel.” So, for the bi-vocational, we are talking of people who are in the ministry as pastors or leaders of ministries or even just leaders of a small groups who are doing the work of ministry. You have a heart for ministry and you also have to work hard to provide for your family in a secular job. For those people, we want to encourage you; we want to equip you – give you some more tools and materials to become a better minister. We want to network – we want to connect with fellow ministers. I discovered that there is a lot of increase in this area where many ministers are choosing to continue working and at the same time, ministering in the field and reaching out to people for Christ and building the kingdom of God. So if you are a part of those – if you are one of those, then this podcast is for you. So you have a strong passion for sharing the gospel or you just desire that, “You know what? I want to spend more time doing the work of an evangelist…” And you don’t want to be paid for that. You want to find a way to get money in to do that and you’ve found that or you’re doing that. Or you are just a pastor – you’ve been called to pastor a church and the church is just about 50 people. The money they have is not enough to pay you and you got another job to help in paying the bills, then you are a Bivo pastor and this podcast is for you.

So, I’ve tried to describe that in as large a group as possible. It’s not just for pastors. We are going to talk to lots of pastors because that’s where the ministry is. it’s difficult for people to balance those two. The work of a pastor can be so demanding and adding that with working outside can be a little bit intimidating.

I am myself, a Bivo pastor – I’ve been for most of my ministry and I know what it takes. We planted a church in Montreal, Canada in 2005 and that church now has grown to be a network of churches of about 6 branches in Canada, one in Nigeria and one in Cameroon. So, we have some experience in this field and I’m hoping to share some of my experiences, some of my frustrations, some of the things I’ve learned over the years, things that I did wrong, things that I did right. I want to share that with others and bring other people on who are in the ministry or in the field getting their hands dirty; Some of the challenges they are facing, some of the things they are discovering that is working for them. We are going to be talking about them. We are going to be inviting people who have ideas on what kind of business can you do, what kind of things can you do to help you in the ministry without distracting you from the work that God called you to do.

So as I said, my name again is Ade Sobanjo. I’m trained as an engineer in Electrical Engineering. I did my bachelors and my masters in that field. I started a business in Montreal, Canada and while doing that business, I felt a strong call of the Lord that it was time to plant the church that He’s been speaking to me about since my University days. So, I agreed with my wife and we started the church plant and 2 years down the line, I felt led to really put more into the church plant than my work. So, I had to close down the work and trust God and live by faith for a season. After a while, I got the release to keep doing some other businesses to supplement the income of the family and we kept on doing that. All these we were doing and the church was still growing and we were planting more churches.

So, these are the things that I want share with you on this podcast. The desire is that as many people that are listening in, they will get encouraged to put in all their heart in doing the King’s business and they will realize and see from experiences of others that they are not alone in what they are doing. I want to speak to you, You are not alone in this ministry and whatever you are going through, some other people have gone through it. And we know from the scripture, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, that Paul and Apollos were Bivo for seasons in their ministry. They’d work and in their work, they pay their bills and then they spend much time doing ministry.

What I’ve discovered as a Bivo, one of big advantage of being a bi-vocational minister is that you have time to do ministry and you can do ministry while doing your business. So your business becomes part of the tools with which you draw people into the kingdom. You are interacting with those who are yet to be saved on a regular basis and when you are standing with them, they realize that you also are doing your part in the community to do business and to develop the community, not just spiritually but also in the secular way. So, there is an advantage to that. There are other challenges. In this podcast, we are going to be talking about the different challenges, we are going to be talking about the benefits and we are going to be talking about strategies and practical steps that one can take in order to be a successful bi-vocational minister.

So, another group of people that I hope this podcast will be a blessing to is that in our church, we are a very small group based church. We call our small groups “life groups” and many of the leaders of these life groups are bi-vocational. You can imagine, nobody is paying them. We don’t pay our life group leaders for the work they do but they are pastors because they are called to pastor 10-12 people. They care about them; they share the gospel; they prepare ministry every week; they prepare discussions; they follow up on people that visit them; they help disciple men and women for Jesus; they take care of children in their life group and it’s a church on its own. We see the life group as a church and we have 36 or more of these people who we want to encourage. So, even if it is just our church members that are listening to this podcast, it’s already a blessing. Just to raise up issues and challenges that anyone who is into ministry – who is fully engaged in doing the work of the kingdom and at the same time, they have this need to of course, keep paying the bills. We don’t live in a world where you can pray and things will just show up on your table. Even when we pray, someone is still going to give you that stuff or you’re still going to get money to go and buy it. So, we need money and we need to bring the gospel to as many people as possible. So, if that’s you, you have a heart for ministry and you know that you still have to get to the workplace to do your work, I want to see a way that we can encourage you to understand that going to the workplace is ministry itself. It’s part of your call and you can use that to bring people to the kingdom. I want us as Bivos to see that we are being paid to do the work of the kingdom. We are being paid to do the work of the kingdom. So that’s the reason for this podcast.

I discovered that there is not enough material out there for people who are bi-vocational. Maybe just pastors who are pastoring little churches and those churches don’t have enough money to take care of them – those people don’t have enough support. And for all our members out there who are working and serving as life group leaders, a lot of them don’t have the kind of support and materials that they need so there it goes. That’s the reason for this and I believe that questions will come in. I hope this will be a community of people who will be giving back with questions and suggestions and comments so that we all will benefit from this.

So, if you want to reach me, you can always reach me at my email ade AT sobanjo.com or my Twitter @adesobanjo or you visit my website, adesobanjo.com. Any of these, you can always find me, send me questions, send me message or if you have my phone number, send me a WhatsApp message and we’d answer as many questions as we can. So the goal again once more, is to equip, to encourage and to share resources with those people who have a heart to build the kingdom but they also have a need to make ends meet – to pay the bills. The bills still have to be paid. I want us to begin to see that whatever ways we are paying the bills, is part of our ministry and we go out there and do it well and bring more people into the kingdom – not burden those who you are ministering to. The scripture that will be a foundational scripture for this podcast, is 1 Thessalonians 2:9. I’m going to read it in the amplified version.

[Reads 1 Thessalonians 2:9 AMP]

And that’s the key. We don’t want to burden the people or the church doesn’t have anything to give to us. Now, I want to remind us that this podcast is not to criticize those who being paid in ministry. I think there is a place for that. We need men and women who will devote their time to training the people who are going into the field to do ministry. And if they are given lots of time to train us, to equip the people, then we need them to focus on that. Prepare properly and deliver. So there is room for paying and giving a good income to our leaders. What we are saying is that for those who are not equipping or not training and they want to still do the work, then you can be Bivo. You can find a way to combine your secular work and your ministry and serve well. If you are there already, this podcast is to encourage you.

And before I wrap up, I’d like to pray with you and just trust God together with you for a great week. Let’s pray.Father, I thank you that you are our Father; you are the source of our life; you are everything to us. We know that the work you have put in our hands to do- to win the lost to you, is your work. You do it through us. We open our hearts to you and we ask that throughout this week and till we come again together next week, that you will move powerful through each of the ministers who are listening to me; that you will remind that you are our source and you are the one whom we are serving. We pray for great grace in our workplaces to bring men and women into the kingdom. And we ask oh Lord that you will take this podcast and bless many of the people who are there, who need encouragement, in the name of Jesus. Thank you Father. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Just before I go, I want to remind you we are just tools in the hands of the Holy Spirit. He does the work. So as long as we present – we show up and we are ready to listen to Him, we will see results. God bless you and till we meet again next week, prove to everyone – show to everyone that Jesus is real.

God bless you. Bye Bye!