Posted by By PETER ANOSIKE on
Rev. Innocent Peace, the founder of Living Fountain Ministry has traits of two great men in the Bible - Jeremiah and Jonah. Like Jeremiah, he was ordained a man of God right from his mother's womb, that at the tender age of five, he took to the Bible like a fish to water and stunned people by his ability to read the holy book at that same age.
Rev. Innocent Peace, the founder of Living Fountain Ministry has traits of two great men in the Bible - Jeremiah and Jonah. Like Jeremiah, he was ordained a man of God right from his mother's womb, that at the tender age of five, he took to the Bible like a fish to water and stunned people by his ability to read the holy book at that same age.
But like Jonah, he resisted being a preacher of the 層ord' with every fibre of his being and that brought him untold hardship which included escaping to Libya on foot through the Sahara desert.
But while in the hot desert, he came to terms with the omnipresence of God and he submitted.
Background
Peace hails from Alor in Idimili South local government area of Anambra State. According to him, his growing up days were a bit rough as he was like rejecting the call of God. He said that one thing that was very significant was that he could read the the Bible very well even when he could not spell simple words like boy and girl.
'And as Iwas growing up, it became clear through prophecies and other means that I am destined to work for God. My relations would go to church and they would be told that they have somebody in their household who would do something for God as a pastor. But whenever they brought such news to me, I would brush it aside and tell them that they don't know what they were saying."
He said that as somebody who came from a town that is very near to Nnewi, he wanted more than anything else to be a successful businessman.
He would travel to different countries of the world, buy goods but when he came back to Nigeria to sell them, he would not make anything out of them. One problem or the other would crop up to make nonsense of the enterprise.
In 1992, he decided to travel to Libya in order to escape from the hardship that he was facing in Nigeria as a result of failures in business. The journey to Libya was a terrible experience as he had to trek through the desert. Alongside others, he took off from Kano to Niger Republic.
'Before we entered Libya, we had to climb the highest mountain in North Africa called Mount Heoga. This is a mountain that if you begin to climb by 5 a.m., you will get to the peak by noon. We climbed it. After that, we walked 40 kilometers through the Sahara desert with armed robbers and soldiers robbing us at intervals. We drank water which even camel would not like to drink."
'My experiences in the desert made me realize that the hands of God were mightily upon me. At a time some of the Ghanaians that I was going with came to me and asked where I made the juju that makes my dollars disappear whenever we come into contact with hoodlums. They said that everyday, they see me spending money while they know that all of us have been searched down to our pants several times, but they don't usually see my money which means it disappears whenever they come. I told them that I made it at Ajegunle but the Holy Spirit convicted me by telling me that I am giving glory to the devil instead of God. I called them back and told them, Look! I lied to you people. It is God and nothing but God." He stayed for one year in Libya, coming back in 1993.
Becoming born again
I came back in 1993 and that was when I decided to give my life to Christ because to most people, it was like you are Jonah. You are trying to run away from the call of God. So when I got back home, I decided that this must stop. I must give my life to Christ. But still not without another struggle because when I came home was during the Abiola crisis and everything was in disarray, even the goods that I brought back to sell, I did not make much out of it."
He said that starting a ministry especially in his town where Catholic and Anglican churches were dominant was not easy. 'I was telling the evil men who were drinking palm-wine at the market square that they must accept Jesus Christ. They were embarrassed. They were saying who is this person that has the power to talk to us this way? The market has its own deity even though they all go to church on Sunday, they still believe in the deity. But from that very day, my people were delivered and after that people began to give our tracts and other Christian materials."
Rev Peace has a vision not only to preach the gospel, but also to set people free from captivity.