DO CHRISTIANS STILL GO TO GALILEE TO MEET WITH JESUS? My memories of Easter Monday in First Baptist Church, Kaduna -by Bola Adewara

DO CHRISTIANS STILL GO TO GALILEE TO MEET WITH JESUS? My memories of Easter Monday in First Baptist Church, Kaduna -by Bola Adewara

When I was young, every Easter was a period of great fun for us children in First Baptist Church, Kaduna. That was the only time we shifted church t

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When I was young, every Easter was a period of great fun for us children in First Baptist Church, Kaduna. That was the only time we shifted church to another venue, Government Garden (now Kofar Gamji) where we children and youth, men and women, met to enjoy ourselves.
Kofar Gamji

* Government Garden, now Kofar Gamji… A very serene ambience is lost.

In this church, the best church in the world, where I was raised, I was a member of RA, Royal Ambassador, (Does that group still exist?)

A great organisation that should have moved from the confines of the church to a national movement.

There was also the GA (can’t remember the meaning now) and there was the Lydia Circle.

All of us, straight to Government Garden at the far end of Constitution road in the Kabala Doki area of Kaduna. There, we had our Galilee.
The Galilee tradition was instituted in the Baptist Church after the order of resurrected Jesus met His disciples at Galilee, Judea.

The Government Garden was a serene ambience in Kaduna back in those years. One does not know the true history of the garden but the tale is that it was a place the colonialists enjoyed themselves during the colonial days.

It attracted government’s attention when a historical artefact, the Lord Lugard Bridge was relocated there.

Kofar Gamji

* Under those trees on the left, we sat to have our Galilee… Government Garden, now Kofar Gamji cannot be the same.

The bridge was built by Sir Frederick Lugard in 1904 at Zungeru, the capital of the Northern Protectorate of Nigeria.

After the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates, the bridge was reconstructed in 1920 after it was moved to the garden, now Gamji Gate in Kaduna, which at the time served as the new Northern Headquarters.

On 16 February 1956, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments declared the footbridge a historic monument because it is regarded as the first bridge to be constructed in Northern Nigeria.

I effectively left Kaduna in the late 1980s but around 2011 while in Kano, I decided to visit a friend in Kaduna and so went there.

Kaduna has changed. I chattered an Okada man to take me around the town that gave me my early life. For four hours, the Okada man was crisscrossing the town.

One of the places I visited was the Government Garden. I heard the name has been changed to something Kofar Gamji. All the well-flowered road leading to the garden is gone. The mango, cashew, and pawpaw trees are gone. Buildings

Kofar Gamji

 

have taken over. I didn’t spend five minutes there. I left in anger.

We destroy good things here in Nigeria. I wonder if the Galilee tradition still subsists in that cosy ambience.

We looked forward to every Easter Monday with prodigal enthusiasm and unbounded elan.

Our parents cooked good food for us, we bought soft drinks like Tango, Brahma Guarana, Dr Pepper, Tree Top and Cabin biscuits, and invaded the garden with our mats.

Different Churches gathered in different spots of the garden. Different programmes took place: Bible quiz, Sword drill, songs, drama, etc. The youth leaders would tell us stories about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Here, I fondly remember two of our leaders in RA- Mr S.S Ayodele and Mr Akintunde. I’ve not seen these men since 1986! They must be very old now if they are still alive.
These men trained us children in the faith. When you catch and train children when they are young, it will be easy to Kofar Gamjikeep them in the faith when they are old.
No wonder we are still in the faith. We praise God for their lives.
Yours truly and his friends would not sit in one place. We would invade the gona (farms) of the Hausa folks to pluck mango, guava, and pawpaw and eat. That was the best part of Galilee for us. By six pm, Galilee was over. Everybody, allele!
I have a great nostalgia for that era. I don’t know what obtains now. I lived my young life in the North, so I don’t know if Christians in the South West/East/South had that tradition.
I am sure the Igbo man would rather go to his shops and sell than pay attention to one Christan tradition called Galilee. Igbo kwenu!
Kofar Gamji
Some Lagos fathers too would rather have their Galilee in drinking joints while mothers take their children to meet Jesus at the beach or stay at home and watch African magic. What a Galilee!
The profundity of the Easter celebration as articulated in meeting with Jesus at Galilee is lost on the generation of children we have now. How I wish we can turn back the hands of time!

COMMENTS

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    N.M.AKINTUNDE 4 years ago

    I want to bless the name of the Lord for this wonderful write-up.
    I totally agreed with you on recollection of this past memories and my greatest joy above all is that you
    Are still in the Lord.
    The Lord in His infinite grace will sustain and grant you the grace for more exploit in His vineyard.
    A friend posted your write-up to me on my whatsapp.
    I thank God I’m still alive and my brother SS AYODELE too.
    Stay blessed in the Lord shalom. N.M.AKINTUNDE

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