When a woman believes in a man or a project, the support is always solid, one way, great. And, when the Okrika Church organised their 7th Synod, they chose a strong local organising chairman, a woman!
The church named by Bishop Ajayi Crowther is always a place of nostalgia, a place of a sense of nearness to God. So, when St Peter’s Anglican Church hosted the 7th synod of the Okrika Church, many delegates felt it was a home-coming.
That, too, was same for the bishop, the right reverend gentleman, Enoch Atuboyedia, the bishop of Anglican Diocese of Okrika.
It started on May 4, 2023, but the biggest event, the day of the charge by the bishop, took place on May 6, a Saturday. The bishop seemed full of passion when he named the theme thus: “We Wrestle Not”. He explained. “We decided to choose the theme of the synod because we believe it aptly describes the Church in our present generation. Talking about “wrestling”, it is all about praying, it is all about being involved in spiritual warfare. “We Wrestle Not”, means that as a Church, we are not praying as we ought to pray.
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The LOC chairman, the Dame, Flora Frankie Iyagba, agreed totally with her bishop on this. Agreeing to newsmen that the synod was going wonderfully well, Iyagba said it was an annual event of the Anglican Church. “We come together and discuss, plan better. It is a gathering of the brethren.”
On if the 500 delegates agreed that prayer is getting dull and should wake up, the LOC chairman: “We need prayer, even all of Nigeria. As the theme goes, we wrestle not only against blood and flesh. As a people and as a church, we need prayer.”
She said the delegates would run with the theme to spread it across the diocese. On her own, she said: “My own message is trust in God. In this country, we can only move forward with God. Honestly, we need God. If we can go back to God and do his will, we can go forward.”
