The Church of Brethren in Nigeria has committed to acts that guarantee a better future for itself and its members.
The church, otherwise known as Ekklesiyar ‘Yan’Uwa A Nigeria (EYN), made the commitment during the weekend at its headquarters in Kwarhi, Adamawa State, where it held a special retirement service for its immediate past president, Rev Joel Billi and vice president, Rev Anthony Ndamsai.
In their speeches, the incumbent EYN president, vice president, and general secretary said the immediate past president and his team laid a strong foundation on which the new leadership is determined to build.
They recalled how Boko Haram once brought the church almost completely down, with most church branches destroyed, and how the Rev Billi-led leadership had to launch a rebuilding process that has now greatly revived the church.
The incumbent president, Rev Daniel Mbaya, the general secretary throughout the eight years that Billi was president, said he is luckily in a vantage position to continue from where Billi stopped.
He said all that is required is goodwill from all church members, adding, “We call for support for the new leadership’s vision to bear fruit. We have a vision for a united living church deeply rooted in the word of God, a church that is spiritually, numerically and materially prosperous.”
Similarly, the EYN general secretary, Rev James Musa, said the new leadership is pleased to have a good starting base, explaining, “We learnt resilience, dedication to service and humility from the retiring president and vice president. We are happily building on the solid foundation they laid for us.”
In their remarks, the retired president, Rev Joel Billi, and vice president, Rev Anthony Ndamsai, said they had taken it upon themselves to keep praying for the success of the new church leadership.
Rev Billi said God supplied him with great people of goodwill who helped him deliver great results, and he would always be on his knees praying that EYN continues to grow.
The exited vice president, for his part, also pledged to do whatever he could for as long as he lived to advance the course of the church.
Earlier during the retirement service, the guest preacher, Most Rev Musa Filibus, the archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN), told both Rev Billi and Rev Ndamsai that as men of God, even in retirement, they indeed have the duty of praying that the EYN gets better.
