November 25, 2025 • 56 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host, Brian Perez,
and we've got a very special episode of Pastor's Perspective today.
We might take your phone calls a little bit later on, but, uh,
right now we want to introduce our special guest. First,
let me introduce our not so special guest. I'm kidding.
It's because he's here all the time. He's a great guy.
We love him. If I didn't think he was special,
(00:38):
I wouldn't say that, but, uh, Pastor Brian.
Broderson, the pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. He's
now involved with Echoesof Mercy.com. Also here today is Richard Cimino,
who is one of the assistant pastors at Calvary Chapel
Costa Mesa. I guess you can say today Richard is
assisting the pastor emeritus. That's what's going on. That's right, yes, yes,
we are, we are teaming up. Yes, perfect. And our
(01:00):
special guest, oh boy, I've been practicing this all day.
Oh man, I already messed up. Hold on, Olawe my man, Oluwafemi.
Is that good? OK, you can speak into the mic there.
I don't, yeah, Oluwafemi, and then the last name. I'm
not sure about them, but it's close to that. Olawahesi.
(01:22):
Shesi Olawahesi Olawafemi Olahesi. OK, I'll keep practicing. I'll get
it right by the end of the hour. He complimented you, Brian,
so you did, you did OK.
But it's not perfect. I wanted to hear perfect.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Uh, we just started yesterday. We started learning that yesterday. Yes, yes,
you did.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, thank you, sir. All right, so Olawafemi was, um,
a member of our congregation here at Calvert Costa Mesa
with his family for some years. And what was it
like 2 years ago that you guys moved to the
Inland Empire? Yeah, 2 years ago, 2 years ago, yeah.
So they moved out to the Inland Empire.
And they're going to Victory Cover Chapel, right, with Pastor
Josh Black. Yes, and your wife told me you guys
(02:03):
are loving that, which is great. We love Josh. He's a,
he's a great guy. And so anyway, um.
Oluwafemi is from Nigeria.
And so
He called me recently to talk about, you know, Nigeria
has been in the news a lot lately with the different, um,
(02:26):
you know, incidents of of Christian persecution and so forth.
And of course, many people would remember that President Trump has,
you know, put some sanctions, I think, on Nigeria, as
well as even said, we might send some people there
to kind of protect Christians.
And then the Nigerian president has also come out publicly
(02:49):
and said, we don't have a persecution problem here that
is blown out of proportion. And Oluwafemi, that's where you said,
wait a second, um, because you know firsthand about the
reality of what is happening there. So.
Um, that, that was our conversation that led to you
(03:12):
coming on the program today. So, so great that you're
here and um, why don't you tell us your story
and then we'll kind of go from there. Well,
Speaker 2 (03:23):
um, before I, um, give you a brief about my
story based on the time we have in our hands,
I want to thank, uh, my dear pastor. He has
been not just a pastor, he has been a friend.
He has been a father. My kids loves him. My,
my wife loves him so much and um we
Talked about you wherever we go. And I'm glad we
took a picture which um I would always remember. I
(03:45):
love that picture. having said that, I equally want to
thank the President of the United States of America, President Trump, uh,
for what he's doing lately concerning Nigeria and concerning Christians. Um,
we in the United States, I'm talking about we Christians
in the United States. We may not know what God
(04:05):
has given to us, and that is freedom to worship.
Our God, and the only way you can accept Christ
is for you to know who He is and to
have the opportunity to worship Him. You have the opportunity
to listen to sermon that will not change your life
to accept Him as your Lord and personal savior. Now
you can imagine a country where you don't have that freedom.
(04:28):
And Christians have been killed. Yes, you may tell me, oh,
what about the martyrs of old? They were also martyred.
They were also killed for their faith in Christ. My
being here today is just to encourage Christians here, to
know that their brothers and sisters who don't have the
freedom they have. This is what they're going through in
(04:50):
terms of denial that there's no genocide in Nigeria.
It really pricks my heart.
And it's kind of opened fresh wound again to remember
how my late wife was brutally murdered. When I mean
brutally murdered.
It's not something I always want to remember because each
and every time I remember it, I
(05:10):
You know, I cried and I got beat up, like revenging,
you know, to revenge a dead. But when I think
deep again.
Revenge is not of mine.
It's the Lord that will revenge whoever must have taken
his life. So when I heard about this, I had
to call Pastor Abraham. I said, look, this is what
(05:30):
I felt is that I I have to speak out
to talk about what happened to me. I'm a victim.
My children, who Pastor Brian knew the boy was just
10 months old when the mom was killed. She doesn't even,
he can't even recognize the mom. The mom was killed
in his presence because he was still breastfeeding and he
(05:51):
was in a creche within the school premises where the
mom was killed. They equally went after the boy.
To also kill the boy, but thank God for my
friends that I had to call.
But this is what my wife called me.
Um, in the morning of 21st of March 2007, she
gave me a call.
(06:12):
I said,
There's a lot of riot going on in the school.
And I guess from her voice I knew she was
really under threat. So I guess at that point, the
Muslim in the class, she was to invigilate and examine
the class.
And unfortunately, it may surprise us that the exam in
(06:32):
question is Islamic religious language. And I asked myself, how
can you tell a Christian to invigilate Islamic religious language?
He only understand the Bible. He knew the Bible is
a Christian and you want him to kind of, you know,
invigilate an exam that is
An Islamic exam. If the children in the course of invigilating,
(06:53):
they have issues, how does it help them?
I believe it was a calculated plan.
And my wife is somebody as a Christian. She's very disciplined,
more than I. She's much more, you know, spiritual than me.
And she was before that time, before her death, she
was the disciplinary mistress of the school.
And of course you know the role of disciplinary mistress
is to attain discipline in the school. And the cost
(07:15):
of doing that, they look at how you are a Christian.
And 90%, if not up to 95% of the students
in that school are Muslims. Now you are coming as
a Christian to instill discipline. Of course, the authority that
gave her that position knew what she has in the
virtues she has as a Christian, even though some of
them may not want to accept us as being a Christian.
(07:38):
But she's someone that is very disciplined. She stood her ground,
and in that very exam, she told each of the students,
Bring out your bags before the exam commenced, and one
of them refused.
A lady, so she went to the to the lady's seat.
Why are you refusing to bring out your bags? She
didn't say anything.
My wife is someone that doesn't take nonsense. That's why
she's very disciplined. She took the bag.
(08:01):
To the front of the class, that was our offense.
And then after that incident, they said there was a
Quran in the back. And as a Christian, according to them,
it's a taboo for a Christian to pick up.
A bag that contains Koran. I had never heard of
that anywhere, but that was our offense, and she know
that the Koran, she never knew. She never knew, you know,
(08:21):
she doesn't know. She just went there, picked the bag,
she knows that she touched the Koran actually, and they
started shouting hallah akbar, hallah akbar, and the next thing
is they say it's a flabbin blaspheming to the Quran
that a Christian touched the Koran. I mean, even not
even touched the Koran.
Took the bag that contains the Koran, but the investigation
later found out that there was no Koran there. But
(08:43):
it was a calculated plan. And how did I say so?
Because I was in the north 21 days after I
moved to the west, the western part, southwest part of Nigeria.
And the reason why I did that was because there
were clamor that look, there are a lot of security
concerns in this area. There are a lot of hostility
against Christians and my family in the West, were not
(09:06):
really OK of staying there.
So they have to be clamoring that we need to
come back home. So in the process of that, I
was looking for a job. Fortunately for me, I got
a job in the West, and I can't just take
them immediately. I had to go there, prepare everything. That
was what I was doing for that 21 days. But
within that 21 days of my departure, this incident happened.
(09:27):
And um what really get me upset was that they
went after her, they chased out of out out of
the class, the students. After that, she ran to the
principal's office and the principal took her in to probably
hide her in the restroom where she was. They came
after towards the office of the principal shouting that she
(09:50):
must die. They must stone her to death.
If the principal does not bring her out of his office,
they're going to set the office ablaze.
Of course, they came forcefully into the office of the
principal and I learned they hit the principal with a
big stone on his head and he collapsed and that
is how they got my wife out of the office.
They scrapped her naked.
(10:10):
They tied a rope on her neck.
And they started drawing her in the compound just like
what you have is plain compound. They started drawing her
and each and every one of them that were with knives,
they started cutting her. I have the pictures, everything that
I'm talking. I have the document here. They started cutting
her from her breast and the whole of things from there.
Then they invited somebody who is a Boko Haram leader
(10:32):
or a commander who came with a knife, and I
was told that my wife was leaning the begging her.
You know, at the end of the day, it just
slit her from the throat, and that's how after her death,
the spits fight on her.
They call her a lot of names infidel, you know,
they call her a lot of things through and put
(10:52):
some mats on her and, you know, petrol and set
her a place.
Now, when that incident was going on, it may surprise
us that within that premises there were security posts there.
They didn't do anything. Within that premises, there was this
emir of that state who was residing in that just
(11:12):
about 1 mile from there. They couldn't do anything.
Until she was dead. And um.
There was after that they took her to the
Hospital. I did to the hospital and um fortunately for me,
my friend, it was, it happens to be the hospital
I was working before I left to the west and
(11:33):
I have a friend who is a doctor who was
in the mortuary who knows her very well. So I,
she was the one that did the autopsy, did everything.
So when I came after the incident and um they
sent the phone number, they sent, they sent a message
to me.
I had to summon the courage to come down to
the north to pick her corpse. The only thing that
(11:56):
made me recognize her that she was my wife was
the head, the braid she did on her head. I
couldn't recognize her. But luckily for me, the friend who
was in the mortuary took the picture and gave a
copy to me. So I have a copy with me,
and um we took our corpse to the west and
we did all the necessary buried her and you know, uh,
but I just
(12:19):
Like I said, I must confess when I got to
the north.
What I was planning to do was very deadly. I
was also planning to revenge, to get something to burn
one of the Muslims up, but a pastor of mine
just told me, don't do that. And that was how
I had to forget about that and came back and
(12:41):
I started taking care of a boy who was just
10 months. Unfortunately, this boy was just breastfeeding. I didn't
know what to do. And unfortunately for me, I was
an orphan. I don't have a father or a mother
who will have helped. Nobody.
So we were, you know, just moving on with both
of them. The girl who is in Rice University now
will be graduating next year, was 1.5 years. The other
(13:02):
boy is in Santa Barbara now.
So each and every time I try as much as
I can.
Not to let them know what happens to their mom,
but I knew one day they will know. But one
thing that got me worried was Victoria. That's the girl,
my daughter.
Each and every time we talk about this, she always
had this trauma. And I told her, look, whether you
(13:25):
like it or not, it's a story you have to know.
It's a story, even if I don't tell you, you
go to the internet, you are mature, you'll see everything.
But the only thing I try to tell them, and
I thank God each and every time we come to
the church.
We try to instill a spirit of forgiveness in them,
trying to encourage her and the other boy, though the
boy doesn't even know the mom. He's not really bothered,
(13:45):
but the girl is, you know, so somebody was telling me,
I think you need to take her for counseling for
her to get out of it, otherwise this is going
to repeat and continue to repeat. So I really appreciate.
The opportunity given to me to say little about this
because there's a lot of things because after the incident
there was this court case, um, there was this organization
(14:07):
known as Macedonia Initiative. They reside in Nigeria and they
came up when they heard about the issue. They were
so supportive both financially and otherwise, and they took the
the they got the service of a senior advocate of
Nigeria who is a lawyer to sue the government and
in the process of suing the government.
They went after me, threatening me that I should withdraw
the case or they're going to kill me, kill my kids.
(14:30):
So I was the opinion that look, even though I
did not agree that the case should be withdrawn, I
just asked myself what is the best thing to do.
And unfortunately, I also look at this is just my
own assessment that keeping the children in the country where
their mom was murdered, the psychological trauma, and the impact
it's going to have on them in the future.
(14:50):
I think they had to get out of that place
and that was how we left Nigeria for the US
and I have no regret for ever being here because
even though they still remember.
But when they look at that back at the life,
the things they've achieved academically and otherwise, at least it
reduces the trauma that has, you know, that I've been there,
(15:13):
especially my girl, they said, I don't know what I
will have been if I'm not here. So I just
want to thank um the opportunity to be in the
United States, and I want to thank Pastor Brian for
giving me the opportunity to encourage our fellow, you know,
brothers and sisters in Christ.
That they should continue to pray for the country. I
don't want to dwell in the political issue that there's no,
(15:33):
but denying the fact that there's no genocide, that Christians
are not being persecuted, even though we know it's part
of our, as a Christian, it's part of what we
will face if you are a genuine Christian. You even hear,
some people still face persecution, but the persecution may not
lead to death, killings and all sorts just like what
you have in Nigeria.
(15:55):
But I just tell myself, look, the only thing I
can do to this woman is to tell her story
and um also I always pray to God that God
give me the grace to see her. I want to
see her again. And the way I can see her
is to remain firm.
In the gospel which I knew the only gospel I know,
and that is, uh, Christ, and I also want to
use this video to plead with as many that are
(16:17):
hearing me today. All we need is your prayers because
each and every time I remember about that, that bitterness
keep coming, you know, keep coming, especially the denial that
we're having today that Christians are not being persecuted. It's
still happening. There are kidnappings, there are persecutions. There are Christian,
gruesome murders of Christians.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I'm looking at
a story here from today that uh there've been children
right now there's uh what, over 300 children from one
school were kidnapped. Uh, they're being held hostage right now.
50 of them managed to escape, but that's, that's going
on right now.
And there are people who are trying to make this
a political issue, but it goes beyond that. This has
(16:59):
nothing to do with
that.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Even in the church just about two days ago, I
don't know if you heard that, they were praying about
starting the service.
These guys just came into the church and started shooting sporadically.
Instantly 3 people died in that church. They call it
CAC Christ Apostolic Church. 3 people died.
I think there was an old woman who was also
running very, I think she should be in her 80s.
(17:23):
They took all of them away, but recently I was told,
probably yesterday that the government got all of them back
without arresting anybody, but you got them back. How did
you get them back? There are questions that were that, OK,
they pay ransom because they were asking for 1 million
naira per per individual. That's about, um, $30 billion naira
(17:44):
we are requesting for, and these people just brought them back.
Without arresting those who were involved, so this thing is
just a recycle. It's going to continue, you know, if
we say it's not going to continue, we're just deceiving ourselves. Um,
I want to use this medium finally to plead with
the President of the United States to please continue with
(18:06):
what he said he wants to do for that country,
country of particular interest. I learned some people were saying,
why did they call him a disgraced country? Of course
he said disgraced country. I'm sorry to use that.
Because if you continue to kill, kill people, these are
people that God made in his own image. And because
they are serving God, you are killing them. I mean,
I don't think it makes any sense as far as
(18:28):
I'm concerned. So, uh.
If the president is hearing me, I want to encourage
him not to give up. He should do what he
says he wants to do, to deliver. I don't know,
maybe associate just like they told, uh, who was, who
was that prophet that told Esther that maybe you're here
at such a time.
So if you don't deliver these people now, you may
not have the opportunity. He has the time, he has
(18:50):
the opportunity to do that now. Let him use it.
I believe it's God that is speaking with him or
people are telling him that you need to do this.
I'm also adding my voice to those voices that what
you intend to do, please go ahead and do. If
Nigerian government cannot deliver the Christians, if you can, please
do it. And I believe God will bless you doing that.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So
Do you, you still have family in Nigeria?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I have, um, my sisters are there even though they
are married, two of them.
Those are just I don't have parents anymore. So those
are the two that I have in Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So in your, in your contact with them, um, are
they believers? Are they Christians?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Uh, they are Christians, even though one of them looks
like a vagabond. When I mean vagabond, someone who was
once in the Christian jumble because of pressure, because of
circumstances of life, decided to turn back. We're still talking
to her and um each and every time I call them,
I tell them,
Speaker 1 (19:50):
yeah, yeah, you know, we, we have a friend in Abuja, um,
Prince is his name, Prince Lawrence, and he
Um, we, we met him. He was a refugee years
ago in Eastern Europe and was in a refugee camp.
And then he ended up, um, meeting, um, some Christian
(20:12):
friends in the refugee camp, and then he came out
and then he went to the Bible college that we
had in Hungary at the time.
And you know, he had basically fled from Nigeria because
of persecution and so the very last thing that he
ever wanted to do was go back and yet the
Lord sent him back and he in the last, um,
(20:35):
you know, 10 years, maybe, maybe a bit longer, he's
planted 11 churches.
And yet, um, you know, he's always living with the
risk of these guys coming in and doing this kind
of thing in these churches. And so, um, yeah, every,
(20:57):
every time I, you know, read anything online or I
hear something in the news, I, I always think of
Prince and I always think, you know, Lord, continue to
protect him because it is a, it's a dangerous situation
that he's in.
And you know, I mean, this is.
This is one of those kinds of stories. It's, I mean,
(21:19):
it's so traumatic. It's so, um.
I, I mean, it's true, but it's like you can't
even imagine something like that happening.
And so, um.
You know,
God bless you and your family and, and Victoria. So
how's she doing? Do you think she's, you think she's
(21:42):
kind of moving beyond the, the trauma?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, I don't think she is, but um, I believe um.
God's willing, we'll continue to talk to her. I try
as much as I can. I didn't even want her
to know I'm coming here for this meeting because if
she knows, that thought will also be fresh again. And
um I try as much as possible to take things
(22:07):
that will bring that memory back, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
How how old is she now?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
She's 21
Speaker 1 (22:11):
now. She's 21, yeah, she's
Speaker 2 (22:13):
21.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, so anyway, for our listeners today, um,
you know, maybe, maybe there's some that are listening that
are familiar with this, maybe some, um, Nigerians are listening
today and, um, and maybe some, you know, maybe somebody
else is listening that actually has, um, more.
(22:39):
Or a different form of media access that you would
like to continue the conversation. Um, how, how do you
think would be the best way if, if people want
to follow up on this with you, what would you
think would be the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, apart from what I've just done today, what I
have in mind is that as much as we don't
remember the dead.
As Christians who believe they are gone, we meet at
the coming of the Lord when we meet them. But
the thing is, I just thought of, I want a
memory in terms of, uh, having like a foundation for
(23:16):
her to remember her for what she did. She was
trying to instill.
A future, a good future for these children. This, this
is their teacher for crying out loud, and they killed
their teacher because she's trying to instill discipline.
It's it's trying to make them adhere to the to
the to the to the uh policies of the school.
It's not a homemaking and um, they decided that the
(23:40):
judgment that is best for her is for her to
die in a very gruesome way. So, uh, um, whoever
the Lord is leading, uh, and see that, OK, he
wants to fall in line with this for us to,
for us to put a memory of Christina Uluwahii Uluwasu
to put a memory that.
This is how women should be, not just women. Every Christian,
(24:04):
no matter what it takes, said, what will separate me
from the love of God? Is it persecution? No. She stood,
she would have said, OK, I'm ready to be a Muslim.
Just don't kill me. I have a boy who is
just 10 months old. But no, she stood her ground.
Each and every time I remember that, it gives me
that courage that I also need to work hard. If
a woman can do it, I can do it. So
(24:26):
that is what I'm telling my daughter. She's just a
replica of her of her mom. Everything facial, everything is
just a replication of her mom. So I used to
tell her that the best thing you can do for
your mom.
Is to hold tight to God. That is nothing. That
is the best thing. That is the best service you
could render to her. So I just felt it would
be a pleasure of mine to have a kind of
(24:46):
uh foundation in her name based on what she believed
or based on what she did before her death, you know, because, um,
that is just what I, I, I, I.
I desire and I hope that as many that the
Lord puts in their hearts, we can come together and
talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and I think Brian, I think with, um, you know,
with our
What YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is, you know, what,
what I think what we would do is, is if
anybody listening wants to get more information or get in
touch with you directly, then the best way would be
(25:27):
just to communicate that through the social media. And then we'll,
we'll do what we can to, to pass that on
to you and you can, you can take it from there. I,
I do have one question.
About this in regard to the, the people that killed her,
was there ever any justice? Did they go to trial?
Did what, you know,
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I have, I have, I came, I came with a bag, yeah,
the bag contains all that you may know, every document,
each and every word I say, yeah, there's a document
to back that up because, um, the reason why we came,
we came on asylum and
Uh, seeking asylum in the United States, you must be
able to prove your case. So I have all those
documents apart from if you go to the internet, you
(26:08):
type her name, you will see more than enough things
you want both in Canada, Voice of Christians, Mathia Canada, um,
there's a lot of them. There's a lot of organizations
who really stood for us then, Christian organization.
There's another one in Canada. I don't know if she's
a Christian. I mean, if the organization are Christians, but
they stood, they really stood up. I was in Holland, um,
(26:29):
voice of Christian Mathias in Holland. I was there to see,
speak about Christian persecution. I was also in the UK, uh,
Christian Solidarity worldwide. I was there to speak about Christian persecution.
The same thing I was in Belgium to speak about
it just to raise the awareness, and that was about
we're talking about.
Victoria is 21. That's about 21 years ago and I
(26:49):
still look fresh. The same thing is still happening today.
So what gave us the assurance that it's not continue
to happen? I told people that look.
Nigeria is a country that there's another there's there's a
verse in the book what can two work together without agreeing?
I stand to be corrected on this. They believe that
we believe as Christians that we shouldn't kill. If you kill,
(27:09):
you know where you're going.
Except you, except you seek for genuine mercy from God
and God had mercy on you. But the other side,
the Muslims, they believe that when they kill the jihad war,
they believe the kill is an opportunity for them to
go to heaven. So how can these two people do
that together?
Someone was saying, if we say you should divide the country,
(27:31):
what about our brothers and sisters in the northern part?
They can move to the west where they are accepted.
But because if 21 years ago, situation, I mean 21
years ago, situation still remained the same. Government change, government
is government go and government come, yet the same thing.
Are we saying the other government that when they don't
have the wisdom to know what to do and you
(27:52):
are coming, you saw everything, and yet you don't know
what to do. Up till now they still don't know
what to do that. No wonder Donald Trump called them
disgrace country, shithole country, because we have people who don't
know what.
That tells me that they are they they they they
are they are like it's like they are cooperating with
these guys or they're getting something out of it from
the killing of Christians and that has to stop. So
(28:15):
if we don't speak, it will continue and the blood
of our Christian brothers and sisters.
If you are privileged to hear about this and you
do nothing, their blood will be on you. And that
is why we're speaking today. That is why we're talking
about it today because we are not accepting it and
we shouldn't accept it. And as the president does not
also does not, you know, accept it, it has to stop.
(28:38):
I don't know how many have been killed in Saudi Arabia.
That is the house of Muslims. How many Christians have
been killed? I don't know if you've heard. I've not heard.
So why is it Nigeria where you have 51% Muslim, 49%, 49%,
I may be wrong, um, you know, Christians. Why can't
we dwell together? The reason why we cannot dwell together
is because our beliefs are different.
(29:00):
That's just my own thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, OK, so, so number one, obviously prayer. That is,
that is the call today. And then 2, again, you know,
through social media, I think is the best. And, and
perhaps even, uh, O Wafimi, I'm gonna throw you out there.
Maybe some pastors are listening today and they would say,
we need you to come to our church and talk
(29:25):
to us about this, and I know you would be
willing to do that. And so if, if anyone wants
to communicate through social media.
Um, let us know and we will pass that on.
Thank you so much, our dear brother, for coming on
and sharing this with us, and we'll continue to pray
for you and your family.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
God bless you, sir.
You're listening to a very special edition of Pastor's Perspective,
and uh we're gonna open up the phone lines now.
If you've got questions about the Bible, the Christian faith,
we would love to hear from you. 888-564-6173, 888-564-6173.
(30:19):
We're back on Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez. If you
just joined us, you want to go back on our
archives later today, Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, look for
the November 25th episode. We just got done speaking with
our very special guest, Olawafimi Olawahasin, and uh he shared
his story of his wife being martyred for her faith
(30:42):
21 years ago in Nigeria.
And uh there's people saying that there is no persecution
of Christians in Nigeria, but you know that's like when
they say, oh yeah, there's there's no crime in Chicago.
What are you talking about? Nothing. It's, it's beautiful here.
Come live here. Yeah, I mean it is the same now. I've,
I've been to Chicago, so I, I, I get that
(31:04):
there are places just like New York City and just
like LA where you could go and be completely sheltered
from much of what's going on, right?
You know, the million dollar mile or whatever that is
in Chicago, you know, where they have all the, all
of those shops, and yeah, I mean they're all, yeah, that's,
that's great, but you don't have to go far to
(31:24):
find a completely different story, which, but you know, you
think like who.
When you think of politicians that are like there's no
problem here. We don't need like who thinks that somebody
who thinks that should be the mayor of their city.
Like, uh, you know, people are getting killed on the street. Well, that's,
that's not a problem. That is a problem. I would
(31:46):
think that.
You would want somebody that would say that is a problem,
and we need to fix that problem. Yeah, that's crazy.
It's very crazy. It is. All right, 888-564-6173 is the
number to call today if you wanna talk to Pastors
Brian Broderson or Richard Cimino. You can also send in
your questions online. That is what Stacy in orange did. So, uh,
(32:09):
let me read her question and then we'll get to
the phone. Stacey listens on the Kwave app. Thank you, Stacey,
for downloading the app.
Uh, hi pastors, I was wondering if you could explain
the significance of the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4.
I believe this may have been part of his preparation
for ministry, but when I read the three temptations in Matthew,
I can't understand how these were very tempting propositions for Jesus.
(32:32):
It's described a bit differently in Mark and Luke, which
seems to provide that Jesus was perhaps tested throughout the
40 days' duration.
In the wilderness, in any case, I just wonder how
Jesus could have been really tested when He's God and
knows not to fall for Satan's lies. What was it
that Jesus wanted so much that it could have tested
(32:52):
him to throw off the pinnacle of the temple? I'm sorry,
tested him to throw him off the pinnacle of the
temple or worship Satan? What do you think?
What do I think? Well, yeah, I think there's just
a lot more going on than apparently meets the eye,
you know. I mean, what, what's the big deal of
(33:13):
take these stones and turn them into bread? I mean that,
you know, OK, Jesus, why just do it. Just show.
Well, first of all, we have to remember that Jesus,
although he is both God and man simultaneously, here on earth,
he is living as a man, he's not living as God. So, um,
(33:37):
these are very real temptations to him, you know, if,
if Jesus was, was living as God at the moment,
then of course not. It's like, yeah, get out of here,
devil this, you know what a joke, you think that.
But he, he's, he's living as a human being and um.
So the temptations are basically temptations to.
(34:03):
In a sense, sort of take charge himself, don't.
Submit to the Father. Don't depend on the Father. Look,
you're the Son of God. Just.
You're hungry, just do it. Just take this, you know,
this stones and make them into bread. I mean, prove it,
you know, prove who you are. Well, Jesus is here to,
(34:26):
he's actually here on a mission, and one of the
missions is to show what human beings are intended to do,
and that's to live in dependency on God. So the
devil's saying don't depend on God, depend on yourself. So
that's one. But the, but the big one is, um,
shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says.
Look, I will give these to you. They, uh, they've
(34:48):
been given to me. All you gotta do is bow
down and worship me and, and they're yours.
Well, Jesus has come to actually take back the kingdoms
of the world, but he's, he's got to go through
the cross to do it. The devil's saying, you don't
have to go through the cross. I can just give
it to you because it's mine.
(35:08):
Just do what everybody else has done, bow down and
worship me.
Get behind me, Satan. So, Richard, um, ditto, right on it.
That's it.
Yeah, I mean, when you really, you know, again, not,
you know, criticizing the question.
(35:29):
Or the questioner, but when you start thinking more deeply
about what's going on, there's, there's like deep, deep, deep,
deep stuff happening in this temptation, because also remember Jesus is.
Um, the second Adam.
So from the first human being Adam, all the way
(35:51):
through to Jesus, everybody has fallen.
For the temptation of the devil, everyone.
And so here's now the 2nd Adam and the devil's like,
watch this, I'll get him like I've gotten everybody else.
But he didn't. Are we tempted with the same things today?
I mean, obviously the devil doesn't come to us and say,
(36:13):
Here's a stone, turn it into bread. But what, what
kind of things are, are we tempted with that you
think Satan would say? Or do we all have, do
we each have our own proclivities and stuff that one
person might get tempted by bread, but somebody else wouldn't?
Yeah, I, I think at the core of that question is.
(36:33):
Um, am I going to, Brian touched on this, am
I going to be dependent on God, or am I
gonna put something else in the place of God?
And um what that's I mean those things face us
every day you know what will I what will I
choose to do here? um am I gonna leverage everything
(36:53):
to my own advantage? I mean you think and if
if we're looking at Jesus and you think of when
did he when did he exercise power.
Always to the advantage of others, never to the advantage
of himself, and I think that's a, a beautiful thing
for us to see as he's going, I, I'm just
gonna lean on my father here. I, I'm not gonna,
(37:15):
I'm not gonna turn.
These stones into bread for me. My father's gonna take
care of me. I think there's a lot of times
when we, when we wish we could turn stones into
bread rather than depend on God. So, or turn stones
into cash or something, yeah, Bitcoin or the other kind
of bread, the other kind of bread.
But you know, Richard, that just reminded me of um.
(37:38):
Of Char's message on Sunday morning where
You know, part of what he was talking about was
in this section of scripture, all through scripture Jesus is
doing stuff for people. That's his whole.
MO he does stuff for people and now in this
section of scripture people are doing stuff to Jesus and he,
(38:02):
like you said, he is letting them do it because
this is the way God has planned it, yeah.
OK, Stacey, thank you so much for sending in your
question today on the, uh, pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com.
Let's go to the phones now, beginning with Peter in
San Diego listening on FM 107.9 Kwave. Hey, Peter, what's
(38:23):
your question for the pastors today? Oh yeah, hi Brian.
Is Brian Broderson there? You were my ex-pastor. Um, my, uh,
question is my addiction to outside, uh, help sometimes from
Landmark Education. I had been doing for decades to try
to produce.
results. I've been a tracking cross country coast for decades
for high school and junior college. That's been my ministry
(38:45):
and a special ed teacher. However, at times I do
these self-help programs. Should I stop? I know my pastor,
my new pastor said rely on God fully. What do
you think of those as an addendum to church because
they're always saying, well, you can do this and be
a part of your church. I've always wanted to get
your perspective on this. Tell us what you mean by
(39:07):
a self-help program.
Uh, Landmark Education is a very worldwide program now. I
started in the 80s. Um there used to be the
S training, so I've kind of had a crutch or
a dependency on those outside, you know, to produce certain
results in my life other than just completely relying on God.
I just, you know, OK, so, so this is Peter,
(39:30):
this is for you. This is, you're not asking the
question like, hey, I'm a coach and I'm using this
stuff for my, um, you know, the people I'm training.
This is more just that too, yeah, it does go
into that also, yeah, OK, well, I think, you know,
I think it's, it's simply, you know, I mean if
you think of like the term self-help, um, you know,
(39:53):
there's some places where we do need just to exercise self-help, right?
I mean there are certain things.
Unless you do it, it's not gonna get done. You
can't just say, well, um, I, I'm not gonna look
for a job. I'm just gonna trust God to get
me a job. Uh, I'm not gonna lose weight. I'm
(40:14):
just gonna trust or try to lose weight. I'm just
gonna trust God to get me in shape, uh, you know,
things like that. So you, there has to be a
mutual cooperation, right? So I think it's just, just simply
self-help is necessary.
But we need more than self, right? We, we need
God's help too. So, I think in, in some cases, you, you,
(40:37):
of course, you know, of course, you're gonna, at the
end of the day, you know that this program isn't
gonna be the ultimate thing for you. Just like the guys,
you know, nowadays, there's so many athletes who are believers
these days, and they're phenomenal athletes, you know, whether they're
football players or basketball players or baseball players or soccer
players or whatever.
(40:57):
And then, you know, and then they're saying like, you know,
I just want to give thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ.
They're acknowledging that, you know, of course I'm talented. I'm
the MVP but
I'm, I'm trusting in the Lord too, so I think it's,
it's not an, it's not an either or.
It's a both end.
What do you think, Richard? What do you think, coach,
(41:20):
Coach Richard? No, I just think that, yeah, I'm, I
don't wanna go on off territory with my reliance on
that stuff more than God. That's my struggle, yeah, and I, I,
I mean it doesn't sound to me like you're doing that,
but Rich, what do you think? Because you actually were
a coach, yes, and, um.
You know, I think there's, there's a distinction that you
(41:41):
have to make like what is the prescription, the prescribed
self-help methodology? What is the, what is the, um, what
are the disciplines within it that you're supposed to apply
to your life and you have to ask yourself, well,
how do these go along with my faith?
And I believe that as as we are disciples we're
(42:03):
followers of Jesus and Paul, you know, Paul said hey
I I I train like an athlete here, you know,
um I I I discipline my body so that I
can be more effective for God and when we think
of like uh there are spiritual disciplines that have been
used by people throughout um the history of the church.
And sometimes we feel like, well, those are just things
(42:26):
that people did and you know they they might have
been nice habits for them, but what about me? Um,
I think there are disciplines we should be applying to
our life spiritually, things that enhance our relationship with the Lord,
but that doesn't mean that help that you're like certain
disciplines within the athletic domain.
Um, that those things are like antithetical to your faith
(42:48):
in Jesus. You always have to go, is this working
against faith in Jesus? Is there something literally that's being
said that I'm supposed to do that God would go, no,
that is not what you should be doing as a
follower of Jesus. And then if not, then you can
look at those things and kind of go, well, is
this going to help me like the, you know, like
(43:08):
being a coach, you know, in the offseason there's training,
there's lifting, there's conditioning.
Um, there's all sorts of stuff that goes on. Um,
if I'm, if I'm gonna try to implement those things into,
into the lives of, of the athletes that I'm coaching,
then I think I, I would wanna be a part
of it with them. I think I would want to
encourage them in it. You have to step back and go,
(43:30):
are these things that I'm gonna ask these kids to do,
are they healthy things for them to do? And if
they're not healthy things, um, you gotta watch out because
there are some big organizations that they got stuff that
they're doing and really what they wanna do is just
make you.
You know, some mental puppet, but, but don't, so you're
gonna go, no, I don't think that's where I'm gonna,
I'm not gonna dedicate my mind to that stuff. But
(43:52):
there are other things like some people would say like, Well,
can you go to a therapist as a Christian? Can
you go to a therapist? Um, well, there's some things
that the therapist, some, some behavioral training and disciplines that
they would want you to do that mitigate against things
like anxiety. Well, I would say that's not an unhealthy
thing to do.
And also at the same time I wanna lean into
(44:14):
scripture words. Jesus is saying, well, don't let your heart
be troubled. And but the reason that you're doing that,
it's not like I'm gonna get into this positive mental attitude,
but you're thinking, no, here's the King of kings who's
saying in when he was greatly troubled in John 13,
it says he was greatly troubled, and then he tells
his followers, Don't let your heart be troubled.
And that was, that's just something I think like that
(44:36):
wasn't a positive mental attitude thing he's just thinking like
no don't be troubled because you know who I am
and so I would encourage you to never, never venture
into some practice that you feel like this is, this
is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, um, it's antithetical
to faith in Jesus and if you can't, if, if
they're not compatible, don't do them so I, I was
(44:57):
doing this thing a while ago, um.
Called chair yoga. Ever heard of I've seen that.
Well, as you can see, looking at me, it's tremendous progress.
You know, they show this guy, he's like 69 and
he's all just buffs all over the rock, you know,
(45:19):
flat stomach, and they're like, in 10 days this will
be you. Well, I did 30 days and, uh, still
got a ways to go, but I'm getting a little
bit off track. But then there was also, uh, this
tai chi thing that was kind of connected to it,
you know.
These exercises right? And so, you know, I was doing
the tai chi thing, but then it's like that it's
(45:39):
telling you to do, you know, like this stuff, you know,
think this and say this and they give you a little,
a little Hindu chant, you know, and you're just like, yeah,
you're like, you know, no, I, I actually I'm not
going to do that. I, I'm, I will, I will
do the stretch, but
I, I'm not gonna do that. And so I think
that that's, you know, you just have to be wise
(46:01):
and like Richard said, anything, obviously anything that's antithetical to
your
Walk with Jesus, your discipleship, whatever. No, I'm not going
to do that, but you can.
It doesn't mean you have to necessarily exclude everything. I mean,
I did all the exercises of the chair yoga. I
just didn't do the home part.
(46:22):
You did the owl part, but not the part. The
owl part, yes, I did. It's painful. All right, Peter,
thanks for your phone call today on Pastor's Perspective. And
now here's Anthony in Long Beach. Welcome to the program, Anthony.
Thanks for calling 888-564-6173.
Hi, thank you.
Um, you know, I'm calling today just because I have,
(46:44):
I guess I'm taking some advice. Um, I've been having
some issues with my family recently. I had a big
blowout with them about two weeks ago that just kind
of brought up a lot of things for me that
I've yet to deal with in terms of my own
healing and, uh, moving forward in my life. And so
the holidays coming up. I've decided to not.
(47:05):
Take part in their celebration. I don't want to be
with anybody right now. I kind of just want to
be on my own and work on myself, um, but
I do feel a little like a hypocrite because I'm
also trying to walk right with God, and I don't
want it to be like I'm choosing on forgiveness. Um,
I don't want it to be like I'm doing anything
(47:25):
that's not Jesus-like. I mean, I know the scripture says
something about, you know, they slap you on one cheek,
you know, turn to the other.
And I just feel like I've run out of cheeks
to slap, and I just need some time to heal
before I can be around them again, and I don't
know if that's the right thing to do or should
I just put myself in that situation again and just
pray for the best. Anthony, do you mind telling us
(47:46):
what maybe part of the feud is about?
Um,
It's just my, my family's pretty chaotic. I've
Dealt with a lot of uh isolation, being like a
black sheep almost. There's a lot of favoritism in my family, um,
and all those things kind of got brought up for me.
(48:09):
The issue isn't so much what the blowout was, it's
what the blowout brought up inside of me and things
that it made me think, you know, I was getting
messages from my mom like you need to repent, you
need to, um, seek God and, you know, everybody's wrong
in the house, including.
And just felt like a lot of guilt was being
pushed on me, uh, instead of asking, hey, are you OK?
(48:30):
because I end up leaving that night. Um, I didn't
go back at all. I've, I, I've gone back once
to go pick up my things, but essentially that night
I moved out. What, what does your mom want you
to repent of?
I don't know. I don't know. She hasn't said anything.
There's
Nothing you think that she might be.
Uh, I think, I don't know, honestly, I really couldn't
(48:51):
tell you. She just told me I need to repent
and search my heart. So, so your mom, obviously your mom,
your mom's a believer, right? I mean, yes, my whole
family is. Oh, your whole family is OK, yeah, and, um,
I mean.
Yeah, this, this is a a really just straightforward question.
Um, are the things that they're saying to you, are
(49:14):
they right? Is it, is it true that, you know, whatever,
whatever it is, are you gonna say, um, no, they're,
they're wrong about all that, or you, are you saying, yeah,
I own, you know, maybe not all of it, but
I own some of it.
Yeah, I could definitely take ownership and part of it,
and I have done so. Um, I've, I've sent messages
(49:35):
out taking accountability, um, hoping that it was reciprocal and
it wasn't. It just seems like, uh, there's a lot
of the thing is, in my family, a lot of
things get swept under the rug. Um, I have a
brother who
He was abusive to his girlfriend physically and I called
it out and I said it's not OK and for
(49:58):
whatever reason everybody wants to tiptoe around it and it's
just ridiculous to me. Uh, my sister, her boyfriend has
laid hands on him and I mean laid hands on her,
and it's a pretty toxic thing there as well, and
I'm the one that brings it up and like, hey,
like why is this guy allowed back into our house?
Why is this guy allowed into our family, like knowing
the things that they've done and why is my brother
(50:19):
doing these things and
You know, nobody's saying anything like he has to know
this isn't OK. And uh when I confronted him about it,
I got threatened with violence, and it just kind of
felt like, why am I the bad guy because I'm
calling out what's happened. I'm trying to find healing for
all of us. I'm going to show us all we
need to do better. And what, so yeah, this kind
of goes back to that question and you know, like
(50:42):
when your mom says you need to repent, do you
think she's saying you need to stop stirring up trouble.
By I think that that's the way that I feel.
I do think that I come off as a bad
guy in all of these scenarios, um, and like I, I, I,
I took accountability. I'm like I, I can only do
what I can, but at the same time you can't
(51:03):
put it all on me when these things are actually
happening around us. Yeah, yeah, well, listen, because this is
specifically asking about, you know, the, the holidays coming up, um, I,
I think just simply if, if you anticipate.
That the holiday gathering is going to turn into this
(51:25):
intense moment of conflict between, you know, yourself and and
your family members. Um, I, I wouldn't want to go
to that myself and it sounds like you've done a
little bit of you, you put forth a bit of effort, maybe,
maybe even more effort, um, to try to get some resolution.
(51:48):
Um, but, but nothing is resolving at this point, so
I don't think it would be a bad thing to
just say, you know, like I'm gonna just kind of
skip out this year on this, on this gathering. Um,
I think the only thing I would just say is
don't isolate yourself, um, you know, you, you don't wanna
(52:08):
just be sitting around on Thursday all alone.
That that's not gonna be good for you either. So I,
I would just say, um, yeah, maybe, maybe just hit
the pause button on.
On Thanksgiving this year and see if the dust maybe
settles between, um, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe, maybe
(52:31):
it'll be a different story by then. But, but I
don't think there's any.
Wisdom and just walking into a toxic situation that you
know is more than likely gonna go south. And are,
are you seeking counseling or therapy for any of this, Anthony?
Uh, I had a therapist for a long time, but
she actually recently passed away. Uh, she was also a believer.
(52:52):
She was a family friend. She's known me for many,
many years and was very helpful and has validated my
feelings and all this stuff. So right now I'm kind
of just focusing on, uh.
My walk with God, um, trying to make new friends
that are Christian Mike. I've been trying to volunteer and,
and do what I can just to get out in
the community within the church. Yeah, that's awesome, you know,
(53:13):
keep doing that. Focus on, focus on that, and then.
You know, pray for your family and you know, maybe
there will be a time where you guys are all
able to kind of have a a.
A helpful conversation. A conversation that moves things forward, but
it doesn't sound like that is this moment. It's probably that.
So like I said, it's got 4 weeks to, yeah, yeah. So,
(53:35):
so God bless you on Thanksgiving. Um, I wanna pray for, um,
Oluwafimi and just the whole thing that we talked about
the first half of the program as we finish up today.
So Father, we, we thank you that you, um.
Just brought about the opportunity for Olawafimi to be with
us today to share that just unbelievable story, the heartbreak
(53:59):
and all that he lived through, and we pray, Lord,
that you continue to bless and, and bring healing where
healing is needed, and we think of his daughter who
is still traumatized by this, uh, all these years later,
and Lord, we ask you to, um.
To just heal her heart through the process of time
(54:22):
and Lord we do pray that you would raise up
against this satanic evil force that is bent on destroying
lives uh in Nigeria and many other places. Lord, we
pray that you would um.
God, just protect your people and Lord, we know that
(54:46):
we're we're appointed to some degree to suffering because you
suffered and we, we will suffer with you. But Lord,
we just pray for mercy and deliverance and help, um,
and exposure to, um, the facts like we were able
to do today. And Lord, we pray for any that
listened and heard, uh, the first half of the program
(55:07):
that that have a contribution to make, something to
Uh, connect with Oluwafimi about just, um, help them to
take that step, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And
a good organization to check out is Open Doors, Open Doors.org. They, uh,
deal with Christian persecution around the world, and you can
sign up for their newsletter and check out their resources
(55:28):
and they'll let you know. I mean, there's parts of
this world that are so deadly, so
Man, I mean, we think we have it bad here
in the US sometimes, but, uh, you know, because the,
the pews at church, the, the benches aren't cushy enough, and, uh,
that's nothing that, well, it is, but compared to this,
you know, open doors.org is the website. All right guys,
(55:50):
that's it for today. We will be back tomorrow. Call
us between 3 and 4. Yes, we will be live
for the last time this week, tomorrow on Pastor's Perspective.
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host, Brian Perez,
and we've got a very special episode of Pastor's Perspective today.
We might take your phone calls a little bit later on, but, uh,
right now we want to introduce our special guest. First,
let me introduce our not so special guest. I'm kidding.
It's because he's here all the time. He's a great guy.
We love him. If I didn't think he was special,
(00:38):
I wouldn't say that, but, uh, Pastor Brian.
Broderson, the pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. He's
now involved with Echoesof Mercy.com. Also here today is Richard Cimino,
who is one of the assistant pastors at Calvary Chapel
Costa Mesa. I guess you can say today Richard is
assisting the pastor emeritus. That's what's going on. That's right, yes, yes,
we are, we are teaming up. Yes, perfect. And our
(01:00):
special guest, oh boy, I've been practicing this all day.
Oh man, I already messed up. Hold on, Olawe my man, Oluwafemi.
Is that good? OK, you can speak into the mic there.
I don't, yeah, Oluwafemi, and then the last name. I'm
not sure about them, but it's close to that. Olawahesi.
(01:22):
Shesi Olawahesi Olawafemi Olahesi. OK, I'll keep practicing. I'll get
it right by the end of the hour. He complimented you, Brian,
so you did, you did OK.
But it's not perfect. I wanted to hear perfect.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Uh, we just started yesterday. We started learning that yesterday. Yes, yes,
you did.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, thank you, sir. All right, so Olawafemi was, um,
a member of our congregation here at Calvert Costa Mesa
with his family for some years. And what was it
like 2 years ago that you guys moved to the
Inland Empire? Yeah, 2 years ago, 2 years ago, yeah.
So they moved out to the Inland Empire.
And they're going to Victory Cover Chapel, right, with Pastor
Josh Black. Yes, and your wife told me you guys
(02:03):
are loving that, which is great. We love Josh. He's a,
he's a great guy. And so anyway, um.
Oluwafemi is from Nigeria.
And so
He called me recently to talk about, you know, Nigeria
has been in the news a lot lately with the different, um,
(02:26):
you know, incidents of of Christian persecution and so forth.
And of course, many people would remember that President Trump has,
you know, put some sanctions, I think, on Nigeria, as
well as even said, we might send some people there
to kind of protect Christians.
And then the Nigerian president has also come out publicly
(02:49):
and said, we don't have a persecution problem here that
is blown out of proportion. And Oluwafemi, that's where you said,
wait a second, um, because you know firsthand about the
reality of what is happening there. So.
Um, that, that was our conversation that led to you
(03:12):
coming on the program today. So, so great that you're
here and um, why don't you tell us your story
and then we'll kind of go from there. Well,
Speaker 2 (03:23):
um, before I, um, give you a brief about my
story based on the time we have in our hands,
I want to thank, uh, my dear pastor. He has
been not just a pastor, he has been a friend.
He has been a father. My kids loves him. My,
my wife loves him so much and um we
Talked about you wherever we go. And I'm glad we
took a picture which um I would always remember. I
(03:45):
love that picture. having said that, I equally want to
thank the President of the United States of America, President Trump, uh,
for what he's doing lately concerning Nigeria and concerning Christians. Um,
we in the United States, I'm talking about we Christians
in the United States. We may not know what God
(04:05):
has given to us, and that is freedom to worship.
Our God, and the only way you can accept Christ
is for you to know who He is and to
have the opportunity to worship Him. You have the opportunity
to listen to sermon that will not change your life
to accept Him as your Lord and personal savior. Now
you can imagine a country where you don't have that freedom.
(04:28):
And Christians have been killed. Yes, you may tell me, oh,
what about the martyrs of old? They were also martyred.
They were also killed for their faith in Christ. My
being here today is just to encourage Christians here, to
know that their brothers and sisters who don't have the
freedom they have. This is what they're going through in
(04:50):
terms of denial that there's no genocide in Nigeria.
It really pricks my heart.
And it's kind of opened fresh wound again to remember
how my late wife was brutally murdered. When I mean
brutally murdered.
It's not something I always want to remember because each
and every time I remember it, I
(05:10):
You know, I cried and I got beat up, like revenging,
you know, to revenge a dead. But when I think
deep again.
Revenge is not of mine.
It's the Lord that will revenge whoever must have taken
his life. So when I heard about this, I had
to call Pastor Abraham. I said, look, this is what
(05:30):
I felt is that I I have to speak out
to talk about what happened to me. I'm a victim.
My children, who Pastor Brian knew the boy was just
10 months old when the mom was killed. She doesn't even,
he can't even recognize the mom. The mom was killed
in his presence because he was still breastfeeding and he
(05:51):
was in a creche within the school premises where the
mom was killed. They equally went after the boy.
To also kill the boy, but thank God for my
friends that I had to call.
But this is what my wife called me.
Um, in the morning of 21st of March 2007, she
gave me a call.
(06:12):
I said,
There's a lot of riot going on in the school.
And I guess from her voice I knew she was
really under threat. So I guess at that point, the
Muslim in the class, she was to invigilate and examine
the class.
And unfortunately, it may surprise us that the exam in
(06:32):
question is Islamic religious language. And I asked myself, how
can you tell a Christian to invigilate Islamic religious language?
He only understand the Bible. He knew the Bible is
a Christian and you want him to kind of, you know,
invigilate an exam that is
An Islamic exam. If the children in the course of invigilating,
(06:53):
they have issues, how does it help them?
I believe it was a calculated plan.
And my wife is somebody as a Christian. She's very disciplined,
more than I. She's much more, you know, spiritual than me.
And she was before that time, before her death, she
was the disciplinary mistress of the school.
And of course you know the role of disciplinary mistress
is to attain discipline in the school. And the cost
(07:15):
of doing that, they look at how you are a Christian.
And 90%, if not up to 95% of the students
in that school are Muslims. Now you are coming as
a Christian to instill discipline. Of course, the authority that
gave her that position knew what she has in the
virtues she has as a Christian, even though some of
them may not want to accept us as being a Christian.
(07:38):
But she's someone that is very disciplined. She stood her ground,
and in that very exam, she told each of the students,
Bring out your bags before the exam commenced, and one
of them refused.
A lady, so she went to the to the lady's seat.
Why are you refusing to bring out your bags? She
didn't say anything.
My wife is someone that doesn't take nonsense. That's why
she's very disciplined. She took the bag.
(08:01):
To the front of the class, that was our offense.
And then after that incident, they said there was a
Quran in the back. And as a Christian, according to them,
it's a taboo for a Christian to pick up.
A bag that contains Koran. I had never heard of
that anywhere, but that was our offense, and she know
that the Koran, she never knew. She never knew, you know,
(08:21):
she doesn't know. She just went there, picked the bag,
she knows that she touched the Koran actually, and they
started shouting hallah akbar, hallah akbar, and the next thing
is they say it's a flabbin blaspheming to the Quran
that a Christian touched the Koran. I mean, even not
even touched the Koran.
Took the bag that contains the Koran, but the investigation
later found out that there was no Koran there. But
(08:43):
it was a calculated plan. And how did I say so?
Because I was in the north 21 days after I
moved to the west, the western part, southwest part of Nigeria.
And the reason why I did that was because there
were clamor that look, there are a lot of security
concerns in this area. There are a lot of hostility
against Christians and my family in the West, were not
(09:06):
really OK of staying there.
So they have to be clamoring that we need to
come back home. So in the process of that, I
was looking for a job. Fortunately for me, I got
a job in the West, and I can't just take
them immediately. I had to go there, prepare everything. That
was what I was doing for that 21 days. But
within that 21 days of my departure, this incident happened.
(09:27):
And um what really get me upset was that they
went after her, they chased out of out out of
the class, the students. After that, she ran to the
principal's office and the principal took her in to probably
hide her in the restroom where she was. They came
after towards the office of the principal shouting that she
(09:50):
must die. They must stone her to death.
If the principal does not bring her out of his office,
they're going to set the office ablaze.
Of course, they came forcefully into the office of the
principal and I learned they hit the principal with a
big stone on his head and he collapsed and that
is how they got my wife out of the office.
They scrapped her naked.
(10:10):
They tied a rope on her neck.
And they started drawing her in the compound just like
what you have is plain compound. They started drawing her
and each and every one of them that were with knives,
they started cutting her. I have the pictures, everything that
I'm talking. I have the document here. They started cutting
her from her breast and the whole of things from there.
Then they invited somebody who is a Boko Haram leader
(10:32):
or a commander who came with a knife, and I
was told that my wife was leaning the begging her.
You know, at the end of the day, it just
slit her from the throat, and that's how after her death,
the spits fight on her.
They call her a lot of names infidel, you know,
they call her a lot of things through and put
(10:52):
some mats on her and, you know, petrol and set
her a place.
Now, when that incident was going on, it may surprise
us that within that premises there were security posts there.
They didn't do anything. Within that premises, there was this
emir of that state who was residing in that just
(11:12):
about 1 mile from there. They couldn't do anything.
Until she was dead. And um.
There was after that they took her to the
Hospital. I did to the hospital and um fortunately for me,
my friend, it was, it happens to be the hospital
I was working before I left to the west and
(11:33):
I have a friend who is a doctor who was
in the mortuary who knows her very well. So I,
she was the one that did the autopsy, did everything.
So when I came after the incident and um they
sent the phone number, they sent, they sent a message
to me.
I had to summon the courage to come down to
the north to pick her corpse. The only thing that
(11:56):
made me recognize her that she was my wife was
the head, the braid she did on her head. I
couldn't recognize her. But luckily for me, the friend who
was in the mortuary took the picture and gave a
copy to me. So I have a copy with me,
and um we took our corpse to the west and
we did all the necessary buried her and you know, uh,
but I just
(12:19):
Like I said, I must confess when I got to
the north.
What I was planning to do was very deadly. I
was also planning to revenge, to get something to burn
one of the Muslims up, but a pastor of mine
just told me, don't do that. And that was how
I had to forget about that and came back and
(12:41):
I started taking care of a boy who was just
10 months. Unfortunately, this boy was just breastfeeding. I didn't
know what to do. And unfortunately for me, I was
an orphan. I don't have a father or a mother
who will have helped. Nobody.
So we were, you know, just moving on with both
of them. The girl who is in Rice University now
will be graduating next year, was 1.5 years. The other
(13:02):
boy is in Santa Barbara now.
So each and every time I try as much as
I can.
Not to let them know what happens to their mom,
but I knew one day they will know. But one
thing that got me worried was Victoria. That's the girl,
my daughter.
Each and every time we talk about this, she always
had this trauma. And I told her, look, whether you
(13:25):
like it or not, it's a story you have to know.
It's a story, even if I don't tell you, you
go to the internet, you are mature, you'll see everything.
But the only thing I try to tell them, and
I thank God each and every time we come to
the church.
We try to instill a spirit of forgiveness in them,
trying to encourage her and the other boy, though the
boy doesn't even know the mom. He's not really bothered,
(13:45):
but the girl is, you know, so somebody was telling me,
I think you need to take her for counseling for
her to get out of it, otherwise this is going
to repeat and continue to repeat. So I really appreciate.
The opportunity given to me to say little about this
because there's a lot of things because after the incident
there was this court case, um, there was this organization
(14:07):
known as Macedonia Initiative. They reside in Nigeria and they
came up when they heard about the issue. They were
so supportive both financially and otherwise, and they took the
the they got the service of a senior advocate of
Nigeria who is a lawyer to sue the government and
in the process of suing the government.
They went after me, threatening me that I should withdraw
the case or they're going to kill me, kill my kids.
(14:30):
So I was the opinion that look, even though I
did not agree that the case should be withdrawn, I
just asked myself what is the best thing to do.
And unfortunately, I also look at this is just my
own assessment that keeping the children in the country where
their mom was murdered, the psychological trauma, and the impact
it's going to have on them in the future.
(14:50):
I think they had to get out of that place
and that was how we left Nigeria for the US
and I have no regret for ever being here because
even though they still remember.
But when they look at that back at the life,
the things they've achieved academically and otherwise, at least it
reduces the trauma that has, you know, that I've been there,
(15:13):
especially my girl, they said, I don't know what I
will have been if I'm not here. So I just
want to thank um the opportunity to be in the
United States, and I want to thank Pastor Brian for
giving me the opportunity to encourage our fellow, you know,
brothers and sisters in Christ.
That they should continue to pray for the country. I
don't want to dwell in the political issue that there's no,
(15:33):
but denying the fact that there's no genocide, that Christians
are not being persecuted, even though we know it's part
of our, as a Christian, it's part of what we
will face if you are a genuine Christian. You even hear,
some people still face persecution, but the persecution may not
lead to death, killings and all sorts just like what
you have in Nigeria.
(15:55):
But I just tell myself, look, the only thing I
can do to this woman is to tell her story
and um also I always pray to God that God
give me the grace to see her. I want to
see her again. And the way I can see her
is to remain firm.
In the gospel which I knew the only gospel I know,
and that is, uh, Christ, and I also want to
use this video to plead with as many that are
(16:17):
hearing me today. All we need is your prayers because
each and every time I remember about that, that bitterness
keep coming, you know, keep coming, especially the denial that
we're having today that Christians are not being persecuted. It's
still happening. There are kidnappings, there are persecutions. There are Christian,
gruesome murders of Christians.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I'm looking at
a story here from today that uh there've been children
right now there's uh what, over 300 children from one
school were kidnapped. Uh, they're being held hostage right now.
50 of them managed to escape, but that's, that's going
on right now.
And there are people who are trying to make this
a political issue, but it goes beyond that. This has
(16:59):
nothing to do with
that.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Even in the church just about two days ago, I
don't know if you heard that, they were praying about
starting the service.
These guys just came into the church and started shooting sporadically.
Instantly 3 people died in that church. They call it
CAC Christ Apostolic Church. 3 people died.
I think there was an old woman who was also
running very, I think she should be in her 80s.
(17:23):
They took all of them away, but recently I was told,
probably yesterday that the government got all of them back
without arresting anybody, but you got them back. How did
you get them back? There are questions that were that, OK,
they pay ransom because they were asking for 1 million
naira per per individual. That's about, um, $30 billion naira
(17:44):
we are requesting for, and these people just brought them back.
Without arresting those who were involved, so this thing is
just a recycle. It's going to continue, you know, if
we say it's not going to continue, we're just deceiving ourselves. Um,
I want to use this medium finally to plead with
the President of the United States to please continue with
(18:06):
what he said he wants to do for that country,
country of particular interest. I learned some people were saying,
why did they call him a disgraced country? Of course
he said disgraced country. I'm sorry to use that.
Because if you continue to kill, kill people, these are
people that God made in his own image. And because
they are serving God, you are killing them. I mean,
I don't think it makes any sense as far as
(18:28):
I'm concerned. So, uh.
If the president is hearing me, I want to encourage
him not to give up. He should do what he
says he wants to do, to deliver. I don't know,
maybe associate just like they told, uh, who was, who
was that prophet that told Esther that maybe you're here
at such a time.
So if you don't deliver these people now, you may
not have the opportunity. He has the time, he has
(18:50):
the opportunity to do that now. Let him use it.
I believe it's God that is speaking with him or
people are telling him that you need to do this.
I'm also adding my voice to those voices that what
you intend to do, please go ahead and do. If
Nigerian government cannot deliver the Christians, if you can, please
do it. And I believe God will bless you doing that.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So
Do you, you still have family in Nigeria?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I have, um, my sisters are there even though they
are married, two of them.
Those are just I don't have parents anymore. So those
are the two that I have in Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So in your, in your contact with them, um, are
they believers? Are they Christians?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Uh, they are Christians, even though one of them looks
like a vagabond. When I mean vagabond, someone who was
once in the Christian jumble because of pressure, because of
circumstances of life, decided to turn back. We're still talking
to her and um each and every time I call them,
I tell them,
Speaker 1 (19:50):
yeah, yeah, you know, we, we have a friend in Abuja, um,
Prince is his name, Prince Lawrence, and he
Um, we, we met him. He was a refugee years
ago in Eastern Europe and was in a refugee camp.
And then he ended up, um, meeting, um, some Christian
(20:12):
friends in the refugee camp, and then he came out
and then he went to the Bible college that we
had in Hungary at the time.
And you know, he had basically fled from Nigeria because
of persecution and so the very last thing that he
ever wanted to do was go back and yet the
Lord sent him back and he in the last, um,
(20:35):
you know, 10 years, maybe, maybe a bit longer, he's
planted 11 churches.
And yet, um, you know, he's always living with the
risk of these guys coming in and doing this kind
of thing in these churches. And so, um, yeah, every,
(20:57):
every time I, you know, read anything online or I
hear something in the news, I, I always think of
Prince and I always think, you know, Lord, continue to
protect him because it is a, it's a dangerous situation
that he's in.
And you know, I mean, this is.
This is one of those kinds of stories. It's, I mean,
(21:19):
it's so traumatic. It's so, um.
I, I mean, it's true, but it's like you can't
even imagine something like that happening.
And so, um.
You know,
God bless you and your family and, and Victoria. So
how's she doing? Do you think she's, you think she's
(21:42):
kind of moving beyond the, the trauma?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, I don't think she is, but um, I believe um.
God's willing, we'll continue to talk to her. I try
as much as I can. I didn't even want her
to know I'm coming here for this meeting because if
she knows, that thought will also be fresh again. And
um I try as much as possible to take things
(22:07):
that will bring that memory back, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
How how old is she now?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
She's 21
Speaker 1 (22:11):
now. She's 21, yeah, she's
Speaker 2 (22:13):
21.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, so anyway, for our listeners today, um,
you know, maybe, maybe there's some that are listening that
are familiar with this, maybe some, um, Nigerians are listening
today and, um, and maybe some, you know, maybe somebody
else is listening that actually has, um, more.
(22:39):
Or a different form of media access that you would
like to continue the conversation. Um, how, how do you
think would be the best way if, if people want
to follow up on this with you, what would you
think would be the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, apart from what I've just done today, what I
have in mind is that as much as we don't
remember the dead.
As Christians who believe they are gone, we meet at
the coming of the Lord when we meet them. But
the thing is, I just thought of, I want a
memory in terms of, uh, having like a foundation for
(23:16):
her to remember her for what she did. She was
trying to instill.
A future, a good future for these children. This, this
is their teacher for crying out loud, and they killed
their teacher because she's trying to instill discipline.
It's it's trying to make them adhere to the to
the to the to the uh policies of the school.
It's not a homemaking and um, they decided that the
(23:40):
judgment that is best for her is for her to
die in a very gruesome way. So, uh, um, whoever
the Lord is leading, uh, and see that, OK, he
wants to fall in line with this for us to,
for us to put a memory of Christina Uluwahii Uluwasu
to put a memory that.
This is how women should be, not just women. Every Christian,
(24:04):
no matter what it takes, said, what will separate me
from the love of God? Is it persecution? No. She stood,
she would have said, OK, I'm ready to be a Muslim.
Just don't kill me. I have a boy who is
just 10 months old. But no, she stood her ground.
Each and every time I remember that, it gives me
that courage that I also need to work hard. If
a woman can do it, I can do it. So
(24:26):
that is what I'm telling my daughter. She's just a
replica of her of her mom. Everything facial, everything is
just a replication of her mom. So I used to
tell her that the best thing you can do for
your mom.
Is to hold tight to God. That is nothing. That
is the best thing. That is the best service you
could render to her. So I just felt it would
be a pleasure of mine to have a kind of
(24:46):
uh foundation in her name based on what she believed
or based on what she did before her death, you know, because, um,
that is just what I, I, I, I.
I desire and I hope that as many that the
Lord puts in their hearts, we can come together and
talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and I think Brian, I think with, um, you know,
with our
What YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is, you know, what,
what I think what we would do is, is if
anybody listening wants to get more information or get in
touch with you directly, then the best way would be
(25:27):
just to communicate that through the social media. And then we'll,
we'll do what we can to, to pass that on
to you and you can, you can take it from there. I,
I do have one question.
About this in regard to the, the people that killed her,
was there ever any justice? Did they go to trial?
Did what, you know,
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I have, I have, I came, I came with a bag, yeah,
the bag contains all that you may know, every document,
each and every word I say, yeah, there's a document
to back that up because, um, the reason why we came,
we came on asylum and
Uh, seeking asylum in the United States, you must be
able to prove your case. So I have all those
documents apart from if you go to the internet, you
(26:08):
type her name, you will see more than enough things
you want both in Canada, Voice of Christians, Mathia Canada, um,
there's a lot of them. There's a lot of organizations
who really stood for us then, Christian organization.
There's another one in Canada. I don't know if she's
a Christian. I mean, if the organization are Christians, but
they stood, they really stood up. I was in Holland, um,
(26:29):
voice of Christian Mathias in Holland. I was there to see,
speak about Christian persecution. I was also in the UK, uh,
Christian Solidarity worldwide. I was there to speak about Christian persecution.
The same thing I was in Belgium to speak about
it just to raise the awareness, and that was about
we're talking about.
Victoria is 21. That's about 21 years ago and I
(26:49):
still look fresh. The same thing is still happening today.
So what gave us the assurance that it's not continue
to happen? I told people that look.
Nigeria is a country that there's another there's there's a
verse in the book what can two work together without agreeing?
I stand to be corrected on this. They believe that
we believe as Christians that we shouldn't kill. If you kill,
(27:09):
you know where you're going.
Except you, except you seek for genuine mercy from God
and God had mercy on you. But the other side,
the Muslims, they believe that when they kill the jihad war,
they believe the kill is an opportunity for them to
go to heaven. So how can these two people do
that together?
Someone was saying, if we say you should divide the country,
(27:31):
what about our brothers and sisters in the northern part?
They can move to the west where they are accepted.
But because if 21 years ago, situation, I mean 21
years ago, situation still remained the same. Government change, government
is government go and government come, yet the same thing.
Are we saying the other government that when they don't
have the wisdom to know what to do and you
(27:52):
are coming, you saw everything, and yet you don't know
what to do. Up till now they still don't know
what to do that. No wonder Donald Trump called them
disgrace country, shithole country, because we have people who don't
know what.
That tells me that they are they they they they
are they are like it's like they are cooperating with
these guys or they're getting something out of it from
the killing of Christians and that has to stop. So
(28:15):
if we don't speak, it will continue and the blood
of our Christian brothers and sisters.
If you are privileged to hear about this and you
do nothing, their blood will be on you. And that
is why we're speaking today. That is why we're talking
about it today because we are not accepting it and
we shouldn't accept it. And as the president does not
also does not, you know, accept it, it has to stop.
(28:38):
I don't know how many have been killed in Saudi Arabia.
That is the house of Muslims. How many Christians have
been killed? I don't know if you've heard. I've not heard.
So why is it Nigeria where you have 51% Muslim, 49%, 49%,
I may be wrong, um, you know, Christians. Why can't
we dwell together? The reason why we cannot dwell together
is because our beliefs are different.
(29:00):
That's just my own thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, OK, so, so number one, obviously prayer. That is,
that is the call today. And then 2, again, you know,
through social media, I think is the best. And, and
perhaps even, uh, O Wafimi, I'm gonna throw you out there.
Maybe some pastors are listening today and they would say,
we need you to come to our church and talk
(29:25):
to us about this, and I know you would be
willing to do that. And so if, if anyone wants
to communicate through social media.
Um, let us know and we will pass that on.
Thank you so much, our dear brother, for coming on
and sharing this with us, and we'll continue to pray
for you and your family.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
God bless you, sir.
You're listening to a very special edition of Pastor's Perspective,
and uh we're gonna open up the phone lines now.
If you've got questions about the Bible, the Christian faith,
we would love to hear from you. 888-564-6173, 888-564-6173.
(30:19):
We're back on Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez. If you
just joined us, you want to go back on our
archives later today, Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, look for
the November 25th episode. We just got done speaking with
our very special guest, Olawafimi Olawahasin, and uh he shared
his story of his wife being martyred for her faith
(30:42):
21 years ago in Nigeria.
And uh there's people saying that there is no persecution
of Christians in Nigeria, but you know that's like when
they say, oh yeah, there's there's no crime in Chicago.
What are you talking about? Nothing. It's, it's beautiful here.
Come live here. Yeah, I mean it is the same now. I've,
I've been to Chicago, so I, I, I get that
(31:04):
there are places just like New York City and just
like LA where you could go and be completely sheltered
from much of what's going on, right?
You know, the million dollar mile or whatever that is
in Chicago, you know, where they have all the, all
of those shops, and yeah, I mean they're all, yeah, that's,
that's great, but you don't have to go far to
(31:24):
find a completely different story, which, but you know, you
think like who.
When you think of politicians that are like there's no
problem here. We don't need like who thinks that somebody
who thinks that should be the mayor of their city.
Like, uh, you know, people are getting killed on the street. Well, that's,
that's not a problem. That is a problem. I would
(31:46):
think that.
You would want somebody that would say that is a problem,
and we need to fix that problem. Yeah, that's crazy.
It's very crazy. It is. All right, 888-564-6173 is the
number to call today if you wanna talk to Pastors
Brian Broderson or Richard Cimino. You can also send in
your questions online. That is what Stacy in orange did. So, uh,
(32:09):
let me read her question and then we'll get to
the phone. Stacey listens on the Kwave app. Thank you, Stacey,
for downloading the app.
Uh, hi pastors, I was wondering if you could explain
the significance of the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4.
I believe this may have been part of his preparation
for ministry, but when I read the three temptations in Matthew,
I can't understand how these were very tempting propositions for Jesus.
(32:32):
It's described a bit differently in Mark and Luke, which
seems to provide that Jesus was perhaps tested throughout the
40 days' duration.
In the wilderness, in any case, I just wonder how
Jesus could have been really tested when He's God and
knows not to fall for Satan's lies. What was it
that Jesus wanted so much that it could have tested
(32:52):
him to throw off the pinnacle of the temple? I'm sorry,
tested him to throw him off the pinnacle of the
temple or worship Satan? What do you think?
What do I think? Well, yeah, I think there's just
a lot more going on than apparently meets the eye,
you know. I mean, what, what's the big deal of
(33:13):
take these stones and turn them into bread? I mean that,
you know, OK, Jesus, why just do it. Just show.
Well, first of all, we have to remember that Jesus,
although he is both God and man simultaneously, here on earth,
he is living as a man, he's not living as God. So, um,
(33:37):
these are very real temptations to him, you know, if,
if Jesus was, was living as God at the moment,
then of course not. It's like, yeah, get out of here,
devil this, you know what a joke, you think that.
But he, he's, he's living as a human being and um.
So the temptations are basically temptations to.
(34:03):
In a sense, sort of take charge himself, don't.
Submit to the Father. Don't depend on the Father. Look,
you're the Son of God. Just.
You're hungry, just do it. Just take this, you know,
this stones and make them into bread. I mean, prove it,
you know, prove who you are. Well, Jesus is here to,
(34:26):
he's actually here on a mission, and one of the
missions is to show what human beings are intended to do,
and that's to live in dependency on God. So the
devil's saying don't depend on God, depend on yourself. So
that's one. But the, but the big one is, um,
shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says.
Look, I will give these to you. They, uh, they've
(34:48):
been given to me. All you gotta do is bow
down and worship me and, and they're yours.
Well, Jesus has come to actually take back the kingdoms
of the world, but he's, he's got to go through
the cross to do it. The devil's saying, you don't
have to go through the cross. I can just give
it to you because it's mine.
(35:08):
Just do what everybody else has done, bow down and
worship me.
Get behind me, Satan. So, Richard, um, ditto, right on it.
That's it.
Yeah, I mean, when you really, you know, again, not,
you know, criticizing the question.
(35:29):
Or the questioner, but when you start thinking more deeply
about what's going on, there's, there's like deep, deep, deep,
deep stuff happening in this temptation, because also remember Jesus is.
Um, the second Adam.
So from the first human being Adam, all the way
(35:51):
through to Jesus, everybody has fallen.
For the temptation of the devil, everyone.
And so here's now the 2nd Adam and the devil's like,
watch this, I'll get him like I've gotten everybody else.
But he didn't. Are we tempted with the same things today?
I mean, obviously the devil doesn't come to us and say,
(36:13):
Here's a stone, turn it into bread. But what, what
kind of things are, are we tempted with that you
think Satan would say? Or do we all have, do
we each have our own proclivities and stuff that one
person might get tempted by bread, but somebody else wouldn't?
Yeah, I, I think at the core of that question is.
(36:33):
Um, am I going to, Brian touched on this, am
I going to be dependent on God, or am I
gonna put something else in the place of God?
And um what that's I mean those things face us
every day you know what will I what will I
choose to do here? um am I gonna leverage everything
(36:53):
to my own advantage? I mean you think and if
if we're looking at Jesus and you think of when
did he when did he exercise power.
Always to the advantage of others, never to the advantage
of himself, and I think that's a, a beautiful thing
for us to see as he's going, I, I'm just
gonna lean on my father here. I, I'm not gonna,
(37:15):
I'm not gonna turn.
These stones into bread for me. My father's gonna take
care of me. I think there's a lot of times
when we, when we wish we could turn stones into
bread rather than depend on God. So, or turn stones
into cash or something, yeah, Bitcoin or the other kind
of bread, the other kind of bread.
But you know, Richard, that just reminded me of um.
(37:38):
Of Char's message on Sunday morning where
You know, part of what he was talking about was
in this section of scripture, all through scripture Jesus is
doing stuff for people. That's his whole.
MO he does stuff for people and now in this
section of scripture people are doing stuff to Jesus and he,
(38:02):
like you said, he is letting them do it because
this is the way God has planned it, yeah.
OK, Stacey, thank you so much for sending in your
question today on the, uh, pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com.
Let's go to the phones now, beginning with Peter in
San Diego listening on FM 107.9 Kwave. Hey, Peter, what's
(38:23):
your question for the pastors today? Oh yeah, hi Brian.
Is Brian Broderson there? You were my ex-pastor. Um, my, uh,
question is my addiction to outside, uh, help sometimes from
Landmark Education. I had been doing for decades to try
to produce.
results. I've been a tracking cross country coast for decades
for high school and junior college. That's been my ministry
(38:45):
and a special ed teacher. However, at times I do
these self-help programs. Should I stop? I know my pastor,
my new pastor said rely on God fully. What do
you think of those as an addendum to church because
they're always saying, well, you can do this and be
a part of your church. I've always wanted to get
your perspective on this. Tell us what you mean by
(39:07):
a self-help program.
Uh, Landmark Education is a very worldwide program now. I
started in the 80s. Um there used to be the
S training, so I've kind of had a crutch or
a dependency on those outside, you know, to produce certain
results in my life other than just completely relying on God.
I just, you know, OK, so, so this is Peter,
(39:30):
this is for you. This is, you're not asking the
question like, hey, I'm a coach and I'm using this
stuff for my, um, you know, the people I'm training.
This is more just that too, yeah, it does go
into that also, yeah, OK, well, I think, you know,
I think it's, it's simply, you know, I mean if
you think of like the term self-help, um, you know,
(39:53):
there's some places where we do need just to exercise self-help, right?
I mean there are certain things.
Unless you do it, it's not gonna get done. You
can't just say, well, um, I, I'm not gonna look
for a job. I'm just gonna trust God to get
me a job. Uh, I'm not gonna lose weight. I'm
(40:14):
just gonna trust or try to lose weight. I'm just
gonna trust God to get me in shape, uh, you know,
things like that. So you, there has to be a
mutual cooperation, right? So I think it's just, just simply
self-help is necessary.
But we need more than self, right? We, we need
God's help too. So, I think in, in some cases, you, you,
(40:37):
of course, you know, of course, you're gonna, at the
end of the day, you know that this program isn't
gonna be the ultimate thing for you. Just like the guys,
you know, nowadays, there's so many athletes who are believers
these days, and they're phenomenal athletes, you know, whether they're
football players or basketball players or baseball players or soccer
players or whatever.
(40:57):
And then, you know, and then they're saying like, you know,
I just want to give thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ.
They're acknowledging that, you know, of course I'm talented. I'm
the MVP but
I'm, I'm trusting in the Lord too, so I think it's,
it's not an, it's not an either or.
It's a both end.
What do you think, Richard? What do you think, coach,
(41:20):
Coach Richard? No, I just think that, yeah, I'm, I
don't wanna go on off territory with my reliance on
that stuff more than God. That's my struggle, yeah, and I, I,
I mean it doesn't sound to me like you're doing that,
but Rich, what do you think? Because you actually were
a coach, yes, and, um.
You know, I think there's, there's a distinction that you
(41:41):
have to make like what is the prescription, the prescribed
self-help methodology? What is the, what is the, um, what
are the disciplines within it that you're supposed to apply
to your life and you have to ask yourself, well,
how do these go along with my faith?
And I believe that as as we are disciples we're
(42:03):
followers of Jesus and Paul, you know, Paul said hey
I I I train like an athlete here, you know,
um I I I discipline my body so that I
can be more effective for God and when we think
of like uh there are spiritual disciplines that have been
used by people throughout um the history of the church.
And sometimes we feel like, well, those are just things
(42:26):
that people did and you know they they might have
been nice habits for them, but what about me? Um,
I think there are disciplines we should be applying to
our life spiritually, things that enhance our relationship with the Lord,
but that doesn't mean that help that you're like certain
disciplines within the athletic domain.
Um, that those things are like antithetical to your faith
(42:48):
in Jesus. You always have to go, is this working
against faith in Jesus? Is there something literally that's being
said that I'm supposed to do that God would go, no,
that is not what you should be doing as a
follower of Jesus. And then if not, then you can
look at those things and kind of go, well, is
this going to help me like the, you know, like
(43:08):
being a coach, you know, in the offseason there's training,
there's lifting, there's conditioning.
Um, there's all sorts of stuff that goes on. Um,
if I'm, if I'm gonna try to implement those things into,
into the lives of, of the athletes that I'm coaching,
then I think I, I would wanna be a part
of it with them. I think I would want to
encourage them in it. You have to step back and go,
(43:30):
are these things that I'm gonna ask these kids to do,
are they healthy things for them to do? And if
they're not healthy things, um, you gotta watch out because
there are some big organizations that they got stuff that
they're doing and really what they wanna do is just
make you.
You know, some mental puppet, but, but don't, so you're
gonna go, no, I don't think that's where I'm gonna,
I'm not gonna dedicate my mind to that stuff. But
(43:52):
there are other things like some people would say like, Well,
can you go to a therapist as a Christian? Can
you go to a therapist? Um, well, there's some things
that the therapist, some, some behavioral training and disciplines that
they would want you to do that mitigate against things
like anxiety. Well, I would say that's not an unhealthy
thing to do.
And also at the same time I wanna lean into
(44:14):
scripture words. Jesus is saying, well, don't let your heart
be troubled. And but the reason that you're doing that,
it's not like I'm gonna get into this positive mental attitude,
but you're thinking, no, here's the King of kings who's
saying in when he was greatly troubled in John 13,
it says he was greatly troubled, and then he tells
his followers, Don't let your heart be troubled.
And that was, that's just something I think like that
(44:36):
wasn't a positive mental attitude thing he's just thinking like
no don't be troubled because you know who I am
and so I would encourage you to never, never venture
into some practice that you feel like this is, this
is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, um, it's antithetical
to faith in Jesus and if you can't, if, if
they're not compatible, don't do them so I, I was
(44:57):
doing this thing a while ago, um.
Called chair yoga. Ever heard of I've seen that.
Well, as you can see, looking at me, it's tremendous progress.
You know, they show this guy, he's like 69 and
he's all just buffs all over the rock, you know,
(45:19):
flat stomach, and they're like, in 10 days this will
be you. Well, I did 30 days and, uh, still
got a ways to go, but I'm getting a little
bit off track. But then there was also, uh, this
tai chi thing that was kind of connected to it,
you know.
These exercises right? And so, you know, I was doing
the tai chi thing, but then it's like that it's
(45:39):
telling you to do, you know, like this stuff, you know,
think this and say this and they give you a little,
a little Hindu chant, you know, and you're just like, yeah,
you're like, you know, no, I, I actually I'm not
going to do that. I, I'm, I will, I will
do the stretch, but
I, I'm not gonna do that. And so I think
that that's, you know, you just have to be wise
(46:01):
and like Richard said, anything, obviously anything that's antithetical to
your
Walk with Jesus, your discipleship, whatever. No, I'm not going
to do that, but you can.
It doesn't mean you have to necessarily exclude everything. I mean,
I did all the exercises of the chair yoga. I
just didn't do the home part.
(46:22):
You did the owl part, but not the part. The
owl part, yes, I did. It's painful. All right, Peter,
thanks for your phone call today on Pastor's Perspective. And
now here's Anthony in Long Beach. Welcome to the program, Anthony.
Thanks for calling 888-564-6173.
Hi, thank you.
Um, you know, I'm calling today just because I have,
(46:44):
I guess I'm taking some advice. Um, I've been having
some issues with my family recently. I had a big
blowout with them about two weeks ago that just kind
of brought up a lot of things for me that
I've yet to deal with in terms of my own
healing and, uh, moving forward in my life. And so
the holidays coming up. I've decided to not.
(47:05):
Take part in their celebration. I don't want to be
with anybody right now. I kind of just want to
be on my own and work on myself, um, but
I do feel a little like a hypocrite because I'm
also trying to walk right with God, and I don't
want it to be like I'm choosing on forgiveness. Um,
I don't want it to be like I'm doing anything
(47:25):
that's not Jesus-like. I mean, I know the scripture says
something about, you know, they slap you on one cheek,
you know, turn to the other.
And I just feel like I've run out of cheeks
to slap, and I just need some time to heal
before I can be around them again, and I don't
know if that's the right thing to do or should
I just put myself in that situation again and just
pray for the best. Anthony, do you mind telling us
(47:46):
what maybe part of the feud is about?
Um,
It's just my, my family's pretty chaotic. I've
Dealt with a lot of uh isolation, being like a
black sheep almost. There's a lot of favoritism in my family, um,
and all those things kind of got brought up for me.
(48:09):
The issue isn't so much what the blowout was, it's
what the blowout brought up inside of me and things
that it made me think, you know, I was getting
messages from my mom like you need to repent, you
need to, um, seek God and, you know, everybody's wrong
in the house, including.
And just felt like a lot of guilt was being
pushed on me, uh, instead of asking, hey, are you OK?
(48:30):
because I end up leaving that night. Um, I didn't
go back at all. I've, I, I've gone back once
to go pick up my things, but essentially that night
I moved out. What, what does your mom want you
to repent of?
I don't know. I don't know. She hasn't said anything.
There's
Nothing you think that she might be.
Uh, I think, I don't know, honestly, I really couldn't
(48:51):
tell you. She just told me I need to repent
and search my heart. So, so your mom, obviously your mom,
your mom's a believer, right? I mean, yes, my whole
family is. Oh, your whole family is OK, yeah, and, um,
I mean.
Yeah, this, this is a a really just straightforward question.
Um, are the things that they're saying to you, are
(49:14):
they right? Is it, is it true that, you know, whatever,
whatever it is, are you gonna say, um, no, they're,
they're wrong about all that, or you, are you saying, yeah,
I own, you know, maybe not all of it, but
I own some of it.
Yeah, I could definitely take ownership and part of it,
and I have done so. Um, I've, I've sent messages
(49:35):
out taking accountability, um, hoping that it was reciprocal and
it wasn't. It just seems like, uh, there's a lot
of the thing is, in my family, a lot of
things get swept under the rug. Um, I have a
brother who
He was abusive to his girlfriend physically and I called
it out and I said it's not OK and for
(49:58):
whatever reason everybody wants to tiptoe around it and it's
just ridiculous to me. Uh, my sister, her boyfriend has
laid hands on him and I mean laid hands on her,
and it's a pretty toxic thing there as well, and
I'm the one that brings it up and like, hey,
like why is this guy allowed back into our house?
Why is this guy allowed into our family, like knowing
the things that they've done and why is my brother
(50:19):
doing these things and
You know, nobody's saying anything like he has to know
this isn't OK. And uh when I confronted him about it,
I got threatened with violence, and it just kind of
felt like, why am I the bad guy because I'm
calling out what's happened. I'm trying to find healing for
all of us. I'm going to show us all we
need to do better. And what, so yeah, this kind
of goes back to that question and you know, like
(50:42):
when your mom says you need to repent, do you
think she's saying you need to stop stirring up trouble.
By I think that that's the way that I feel.
I do think that I come off as a bad
guy in all of these scenarios, um, and like I, I, I,
I took accountability. I'm like I, I can only do
what I can, but at the same time you can't
(51:03):
put it all on me when these things are actually
happening around us. Yeah, yeah, well, listen, because this is
specifically asking about, you know, the, the holidays coming up, um, I,
I think just simply if, if you anticipate.
That the holiday gathering is going to turn into this
(51:25):
intense moment of conflict between, you know, yourself and and
your family members. Um, I, I wouldn't want to go
to that myself and it sounds like you've done a
little bit of you, you put forth a bit of effort, maybe,
maybe even more effort, um, to try to get some resolution.
(51:48):
Um, but, but nothing is resolving at this point, so
I don't think it would be a bad thing to
just say, you know, like I'm gonna just kind of
skip out this year on this, on this gathering. Um,
I think the only thing I would just say is
don't isolate yourself, um, you know, you, you don't wanna
(52:08):
just be sitting around on Thursday all alone.
That that's not gonna be good for you either. So I,
I would just say, um, yeah, maybe, maybe just hit
the pause button on.
On Thanksgiving this year and see if the dust maybe
settles between, um, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe, maybe
(52:31):
it'll be a different story by then. But, but I
don't think there's any.
Wisdom and just walking into a toxic situation that you
know is more than likely gonna go south. And are,
are you seeking counseling or therapy for any of this, Anthony?
Uh, I had a therapist for a long time, but
she actually recently passed away. Uh, she was also a believer.
(52:52):
She was a family friend. She's known me for many,
many years and was very helpful and has validated my
feelings and all this stuff. So right now I'm kind
of just focusing on, uh.
My walk with God, um, trying to make new friends
that are Christian Mike. I've been trying to volunteer and,
and do what I can just to get out in
the community within the church. Yeah, that's awesome, you know,
(53:13):
keep doing that. Focus on, focus on that, and then.
You know, pray for your family and you know, maybe
there will be a time where you guys are all
able to kind of have a a.
A helpful conversation. A conversation that moves things forward, but
it doesn't sound like that is this moment. It's probably that.
So like I said, it's got 4 weeks to, yeah, yeah. So,
(53:35):
so God bless you on Thanksgiving. Um, I wanna pray for, um,
Oluwafimi and just the whole thing that we talked about
the first half of the program as we finish up today.
So Father, we, we thank you that you, um.
Just brought about the opportunity for Olawafimi to be with
us today to share that just unbelievable story, the heartbreak
(53:59):
and all that he lived through, and we pray, Lord,
that you continue to bless and, and bring healing where
healing is needed, and we think of his daughter who
is still traumatized by this, uh, all these years later,
and Lord, we ask you to, um.
To just heal her heart through the process of time
(54:22):
and Lord we do pray that you would raise up
against this satanic evil force that is bent on destroying
lives uh in Nigeria and many other places. Lord, we
pray that you would um.
God, just protect your people and Lord, we know that
(54:46):
we're we're appointed to some degree to suffering because you
suffered and we, we will suffer with you. But Lord,
we just pray for mercy and deliverance and help, um,
and exposure to, um, the facts like we were able
to do today. And Lord, we pray for any that
listened and heard, uh, the first half of the program
(55:07):
that that have a contribution to make, something to
Uh, connect with Oluwafimi about just, um, help them to
take that step, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And
a good organization to check out is Open Doors, Open Doors.org. They, uh,
deal with Christian persecution around the world, and you can
sign up for their newsletter and check out their resources
(55:28):
and they'll let you know. I mean, there's parts of
this world that are so deadly, so
Man, I mean, we think we have it bad here
in the US sometimes, but, uh, you know, because the,
the pews at church, the, the benches aren't cushy enough, and, uh,
that's nothing that, well, it is, but compared to this,
you know, open doors.org is the website. All right guys,
(55:50):
that's it for today. We will be back tomorrow. Call
us between 3 and 4. Yes, we will be live
for the last time this week, tomorrow on Pastor's Perspective.
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