Exclusive Interview with ‘Bayo Famonure’

Founder; Calvary Ministries(CAPRO), Agape Missions & Evangelistic Network(AMEN) and President; Association of Christian Schools in Nigeria

Question:  Sir, as a founding father of CAPRO, can U briefly explain the Circumstances that led to the Birth of CAPRO?

Response: 1974 saw me heading for the North-Central State to pay my dues to the Nation by Serving. I reported to camp which was at ABU (Ahmadu Bello University) Zaria, at the end of the one Month orientation camp I was posted Government Secondary School Soba, along with Brother Bode Ogunleye. While I was waiting for the principal to come and pick us, I dozed-off on my bed  and had a vision in which God Ordered me to team-up with 4 other colleagues (Niyi Beecroft, Bode Ojoade, Bode Ogunleye, and Emeka Onukaogu) and have a Crusade to Zaria City, and I Jerked awake in excitement. Strangely enough within 30 Minutes all the other 3 Members who had been scattered to various places of primary assignment converged in my room miraculously (because there were no cell phones then). Niyi who was angry for being posted to Kaduna Breweries, went back to the NYSC officials and told them that a Son of  the King CANNOT be  making poison even as a Chemical Engineer. We began to meet every weekend in my place of posting from that August till December 25^th when we eventually attempted the Crusade praying and fasting, during our service year along with other Corpers and Believers. The Crusade was intended to be 3 days of preaching in the Walled city of Zaria, but on the 1^st day after the message came so powerfully and there were responses to the altar-call all Hell broke loose and it turned-out to be a Baptism of Fire, Stone and Blood. We still continued our crusades but around the Sub-hubs not within the walls of Zaria city anymore, that’s how the CAPRO vision started and concretized. God told me 4 months after the attempted Crusade to stay back  in the North until Jesus becomes the LORD of those “Stone Throwers” and start a group to be known as Calvary Productions, he said “I want you to produce men for me.” I wrote things down, worked on it and brought some friends to join, that’s how the vision grew.  Eventually we moved from Zaria to the Base in the Outskirts of town which is we named Kauna, (in Jaba Local Government of Kaduna State) before moving to Jos.

In CAPRO, we have the tradition of waking-up early in the morning for hour of worship, latest 5 am; 5-6 is the hour of worship, that is you wake-up earlier like 4 am for personal devotion that morning before the co-operate hour of worship. We were using our sitting-room for the classes and hour of worship in our early days in Jos. All the rooms including the boy’s quarters were occupied. There were many University graduates in those days, and most of them were single. we were all very free, however it soon became a source of concern that we obviously can’t stay here anymore , something had to be done really fast  so these young men don’t run into trouble. So I told one of my staff, Lawrence Ige, Lawrence come let’s go to Shere Hills and pray, we can’t stay here anymore. God spoke to me that He is giving us a mining camp as we prayed.

                        God eventually directed us to a certain Brother, whose father happened to be the Chairman Board of Trustees in charge of the Mining Companies, this brother then led us to his father whom when he learnt that we are the same the same people who host the December programs at Kauna gave us the liberty of checking-out all the abandoned mining camps that were unoccupied, then we settled for Gana-Ropp under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, after a tour of many abandoned mining camps. When we got to Mr. Adewale (Now late) the General Manager (GM) of  one the Mining Companies, we were told to pay a certain amount of money for the 13 bungalows and the  abandoned school which was out of use. Apparently we had no money for an outright payment, we however ended-up coming to an agreement  that saw us being allowed as occupants and custodians of the camp as a means of Securing the properties against Vandals, we will neither pay anything to Government nor be paid anything pending when they need their property of which they’ll serve us a 3 Month quit notice. At the point of putting pen to paper, as I signed “Bayo Famonure,” Mr. Adewale began asking questions about my Identity  and after a few question and answers he then said “that means am your Uncle from Osun State, you just go and pay only your Electricity bill. ”

Eventually somebody bought the Camp from the Mining Company and ended-up re-selling to us at a give-away Price which we bought bit by bit. That’s how we’ve been following God step by step.

Question:   Sir, How would you describe the growth and the Progress of the Missions enterprise in Nigeria in the last 40 years?

Response:  It has been very phenomenal by the grace of God. The Church has tried to a large extent, they could always do more, I wish we did more, but they’ve tried. Initially it wasn’t easy to penetrate the Churches, you understand, to have young men who want to talk to your members, you don’t even know them nor where they are coming from, so there was some reluctance initially. But eventually Pastors opened their doors to us and the people responded though we focused mainly on Schools, on students in University campuses.

    The growth has been wonderful, when we began it was a very small beginning, but today there’s a group called NEMA (Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association) it’s Ministry embraces most (not all) Mission Agencies here in Nigeria. When you come to our Annual General Meeting just like we had one the last November, you’ll thank God. Over a hundred Missions Agencies, Many People, Many Churches were involved in it. At least missionaries are no longer the wretched people they used to call us in those days, not anymore, because missionaries came well dressed from different countries even in good vehicles. There’re Nigerian Missionaries in over a Hundred different Countries around the World, as far as China, India, Singapore, the Americas, South-Africa, Australia and many more, I mean indigenous Missionaries, some under mission agencies, others went on their own working and schooling, then they caught the vision and began ministry as missionaries. A classic example of those who abandoned or out rightly turned down lucrative jobs after school is Sunday Adelaja of  Ukraine among  many others who today has the Largest Single congregation in Ukraine (and indeed all of Eastern Europe) with many top Government Officials as his members. So there are many Nigerians out there who are involved in leading people to Christ, church-planting, transforming lives and making a whole lot of positive Impacts out there, I personally have every course to thank God for the positive Growth. Maybe we could have done more, because like my vision I thought that by now after Ten (10) Years CAPRO should have had more than Two Thousand (2000) Missionaries by now. But up till now we’re not even up to a Thousand (1000) yet, we are just about Seven Hundred (700) but God has helped us. Because it’s not easy to abandon a life for God these days because people don’t know the joy in it, so they are holding on to their little dreams and ambitions, the small things they have, their small Certificates, small salaries…. They are small things.

Question:  As a man burdened of God to stay, Up North, how can you describe the progress of the gospel taking root in the North, especially core North?

Response:  So much has happened, when we say up North we talk about Kano State, Katsina State, Sokoto State, Bornu State and places like that. Because Plateau is not really North, it is Middle Belt and have had Christianity for so many years. For the real Northern states called the Core-North, God has done so much in many villages. In Kano State for instance there are Big Mosques in the cities, but the villages are filled with churches, Kano may have more Christians than Muslims if they do a real Census, there are many Christians in the North now. However there’re still many unreached people among them, that is true. There’re still people who have not repented, but in past 30-40 years much have been done. One of the Pioneer Evangelist in Kastina State, called Pastor Adegoke, he was a terrific man of God, he was pastoring  a Baptist Church in Funtuwa, the local church sacked him on grounds that he was ignoring their own problems and rather running around pastoring the Hausas from village to village. He had to beg them to be restored.

Question: On the appraisal of mission thrust over the ages in Nigeria, what do you think should be the focus of today’s mission training content and curriculum?

Response:  There is a standard you have to follow. Many years ago we had a seminar in Miango, missionary educators and theological educators; we met together to discuss how the curriculum will look like. People came from Nairobi, South Africa, Gambia, from French speaking countries and so on. In those days, missionaries despised theologians and theologians despised missionaries, theologians say that missionaries are not graduates, they did not go to school they don’t know the bible,  and missionaries call the seminary a cemetery; that’s not true. If missions don’t have theological training and theologians don’t have missions training, they won’t have solid training. So we merge together, bore our minds and agreed that theologians get missions training and vice versa. Both groups included such trainings in their curriculum, so no group despised each other.

                Prevalent diseases, how to create awareness, educate the people and prevention, these are part of missions training and were not taught in the seminaries; but now it is part of their curriculum. The foundation of missions training is discipleship. In those days when pastors are sent to the villages for field practical, they complain. They cannot stay without light, television, refrigerator etc. They cannot do away with convenience but it is not so anymore because men are being taught missionary courses.

Question: How do we engage the church better than before?

Response: The church will not be hostile if we try to reach out to them properly. There is need to reach out to the pastors, they are not our enemies. Though there are many pastors who have changed the gospel of Jesus Christ, and emphasize mammon and making money, you cannot reach them and talk about Missions now. When you go to them you can give them your books and CDs, after becoming friends with them, God will reach out to them in His own way. There are churches that are mission fields themselves. Some are there not knowing what to do, if you reach them well, they will plunge into the work.

               There is a church I know that supports about four hundred missionaries. They give them 200 dollars a month. Multiply two hundred by four hundred, that is eighty thousand dollars. That’s what they spend every month. The Senior Pastor and his team of Pastor are passionate about missions. They go to mission fields, see what is happening there, they belong to a Denomination but they support missionaries across the board, from Anglican, Baptist, CAPRO; just name it. So if we approach them properly they will support Missions. Visit the church; pray with them, some of the churches are Mission fields themselves, while other are there to produce missionaries. There are many approaches to accessing the churches.

Question:  How do we reappraise mobilization and how do we engage the new age generations?

Response: When I was in CAPRO, by divine plan we were in the headquarters of WEC in the UK. We had worked with them in Gambia, even some of our staffs were sent to work with them on Secondment. They were open to us even up to their accounts books and strategies and they asked us, “What is your plan for CAPRO?”  They said, we are surprised that all these years, you are still very few, but I replied “we are only seven years; in the next three years we are going to grow in number”. I was asked, “how many are you now?” I said, “About Forty”. They asked me how we intend to grow in three years and I answered that we will mobilize and we will train; I was so sure about it. They warned me, “you have to be very careful, if you grow too fast, you cannot keep the quality”. We have however over the years found out that they were right. It takes time to build a storey building that will have a solid foundation. CAPRO has a solid foundation; it took time to build it together.

                Mobilization is going on in other parts of the world but in Nigeria here, it is different. Our problem has been that teaching from the church is not as strong as it should be on discipleship. People want to make it in life and they want to make it by all means; have a big car, big house and the good things of life, nobody wants to suffer; there is lousiness in the church. Christians are turning out with preaching of convenience; in our days the campuses had solid Christian fellowship about three of them. Now, no campus has less than sixty groups that do different things. There is no substance in their training, they are not done and they come out too without any solid training. That’s what happens in some churches. The problem we have with people who are coming in is that they have little or no substance in their training.

                We have to be praying, pray and believe God to thrust men into the harvest field. People that are in missions are there because God called them, it is God that interrupted them. It is not that they had nothing to do and that’s why they responded to mission. Sam Kputu for example, who probably would have been Senate President of Nigeria by now, was a rising star, he was growing very fast in politics; he just stopped, God interrupted him. Pade Tokun was a well-established engineer in Kaduna before God interrupted him. As we pray, God will interrupt men and thrust them to the field. Christ himself gave the formulae; “Pray ye the LORD of the Harvest….”

Question: Shall we experience such spirit movement on our campuses again?

Response: It is difficult but not impossible. We did not bring those movements ourselves. The white men and women who came brought with them the word movement. John Dean, James Hilton, he began the Scripture Union (SU). These men and women emptied themselves of everything except love, some of them refused to marry. Their lives were sown into ours, they taught the word, the word and the word when the spirit movement came; the word has already prepared the place.  The spirit movement without the word is empty. We should go back to the teaching of the word on our campuses, churches and fellowships. When we do that, the Holy Spirit will have a place to brood over and bring fruitful harvest. Today on the campuses, if your teaching does not tilt to prosperity, they will not invite you.

Question: Is there hope for our generation if we want to enjoy the experience of old which you enjoyed in you days?

Response: We don’t have much time, all the evidence shows that time is off. In fact just a few days ago I asked myself, this Islamic uprising, is it the anti-Christ, maybe not; and these Ebola, HIV/AIDS, could these be the Bowls of God’s wrath? These things are happening so fast. I listened to Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram Islamic Sect on a video clip, he was so confident that they are going to win this war. They were going to target some key persons and kill them because they are not true Muslims, he said Ahmaddiya is pagan, Izallah is pagan, all these sects are pagan, he even went on to say there is no democracy in Islam. The same flag they have is what ISIS in Iraq and Iran is using, the same flag with Al-Qaida, the same flag which Al-Shabab in East- Africa uses, maybe it’s the Anti-Christ who knows? We don’t have much time, yet Christians are busy pursuing money, we had better pursue God now. There is a global conspiracy in Islam to take over the whole world. But there is always a remnant. God is sovereign, He is in charge, He is in control. God allows this for two reasons; firstly to purge the church and cleanse her; make her rapturable, secondly to calm down Israel, to conquer the hardness of their heart so they can embrace the Messiah. Is there hope in the future? Yes! There’s hope in God He is in control.

Question: What will you consider as crucial to the finishing of task of mission mandate?

Response: The answer is discipleship. When you teach people discipleship, they will want to go out on their own to do exploits for God. Even in their circular job. You know you are there for a purpose, you must be a disciple. We buried one of my friends Mr. Y. S. Dimka sometime last week, he was principal of a Boys Secondary School, when you hear his story you will know he was there as a missionary but he was a teacher. Even at night he does not sleep, he follows students about; they must know God and that is his passion.

              Uncle Mike and his wife were teachers; he got the best teacher’s award in Gongola State. Every weekend, he was on the hills looking for souls. He was the one that took Corpers to Koma hills for the first time in 1982; he also took me there. I asked him, “How did you do it?”, he asked me, “when you want to eat a hard bread, what do you do?”. I answered, ” I soak them in tea”. “I soak the people in prayers”, he replied.  In the night he labored all through in prayers. The following day, we set out for Suli the first village; it took us four hours to reach the village. They are pagans and idol worshippers; in fact, we were interrupted by someone who asked, “Where are you going?” “We are going to Suli”, he replied, “they are going to kill you there”. Today, some of those people are evangelists; the man that met us is an evangelist and a pastor. So discipleship and prayers are crucial.

Question: What is the most crucial factor in missionary work?

Response: People! People who are available, when they are there, every other thing falls in place.

Question: What are the most important landmarks missions has made in Nigeria in terms of reaching the unreached.

Response: The coming together of CU, SU and FCS to form NIFES is a landmark, NIFES in the south turning herself to the North is a landmark. The movement went all over the north opening of students eyes to missions is a landmark. Students now doing missions; the founding of CAPRO and CMF is a landmark. The Word Movement, The Holy Spirit movement brought by Pa S. G. Elton, the coming of Americas into Sudan to start the SIM, the emergence of ECWA and COCCIN is a landmark. These are important landmarks.  It may not be an exhaustive list.

Question:  Sir, can you Summarize your life, your work and burden for missions in the past 40 years?

Response: That is difficult, over the past forty years it has not been easy to keep to his words.  I am just like a broken pot of clay to be used for His work. My burden is for the church to be a triumphant church. The church will survive any form of attack. Nothing will hinder the church, be it Islam, communism etc, no leader will hinder the church. That’s my summary, God knows I love Him, even though like Jonah I question God a lot. In spite of all that he still helps me to obey Him.

Question: What is the role of Agape missions to the mission thrust in Nigeria?

Response:  All I know how to do is; preach and do missions, so the founding of Agape Missions was the most Natural thing to do after leaving CAPRO. In Agape missions, we raise indigenes from different countries, train them and send them back to their own country to reach their people instead of sending Nigerians. We’ve just finished training some Kenyans and have sent them back to reach their own people.

                CAPRO is also doing a lot of that right now. I have been able to gather younger groups of missionaries from Cote D’ivoire , Togo, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa into a network of missionaries. It is called African Missions Network (AMNET). We meet twice in a year; once for retreat for all the presidents and their spouses, the other for members and leaders. I am mentoring other agencies, which is the role Agape has played over the years.