It’s been almost two years since I took on the role of HEAL president. I have been abundantly blessed to be a part of this mission that God gave to HEAL founder Leo Okonkwo over 30 years ago. I’ve often thought about whether I’m subordinating my own sense of life mission to somebody else’s mission, but I realize such a line of thought is misleading. When you sense that someone truly has a “mission from God”, you realize how God is calling you through that person to realize your own mission in life.
When Leo first visited me in Chicago in 2013, he went into detail about how his ministry started in the remote villages of the Niger Delta in the early 1990’s. Of course, I had known Leo since 1998, when we were seminary classmates together, but I never really understood the story of how he began his mission work. It all began in 1982, when he made a personal covenant with God to be a holy priest in the service of poor and marginalized orphans wherever he went. This covenant was the result of Leo’s gratitude to God for answering his prayer to return to school, after his childhood education was stalled for 3 years due to a family crisis.
After resuming his education as a young seminarian, Leo began to visit the sick in the rural villages where fatal diseases like Malaria, AIDS, and Cholera were routinely contracted due to contaminated water and poor sanitation. In his visitations, Leo would pray for and lay hands upon many of these sick people, some of whom God would heal of disease. His reputation as a seminarian healer spread throughout the villages where his nascent ministry took root. In short, Leo truly acted as another Christ (Alter Christus) to his own people oppressed by evil.
Learning these details from Leo himself sparked something in me that had been dormant for a long time. I recognized the mercy of God at work in him, just as God had been merciful to me in my own life. I had my own once-in-a-lifetime experience of God’s love when I was 24 years old and realized that my life had a purpose beyond what I could imagine. However, over time, I lost that original passion I had for serving our Lord because of selfish interests. I credit Leo, and one other special friend, with bringing me back to following Jesus with all my heart, in spite of my own weaknesses.
I hope that you will find through HEAL’s mission, an element of the purpose God has for you in your life!