When the news came in May 2014, that Brother Joseph had approved the Quiet Time events to be held in Nigeria, I was personally very happy knowing the tempo of the excitements it would generate among the young people in Nigeria.
From that time, we have held many sessions of the event before we stopped due to the building project of our own office for the work. Having moved into the new office facility for the work, we resumed the events in October, 2017. It was a great excitement and prayers answered for the young people. Each session of the program always brings with it this question, when are we meeting again?
Soon, the young people outside Lagos and adjoining towns started asking for the program to be held in other cities to give them the opportunity to enjoy this blessing. The pastors were not left behind in the requests to have the program in other cities to give their young people the opportunity to benefit from the program.
As a response to these requests, Brother Joseph approved for us to hold the Quiet Time event in other cities around the country. The first one to be held was in Benin City, October 20, 2018.
With much excitement, we sent the information and invitation for the program out. It wasn’t long when we started receiving responses from some of the pastors, and the response kept coming till the morning of the event.
The day came at last, and the young people began to gather at the event centre. Some came from towns, travelling over four hours. The excitement on each face was real as they come under great expectation, with some not knowing what the Quiet Time event was all about.
We had over 330 young people that gathered at the event. I was told later that one young person came all the way from the northern part of Nigeria to attend the QT program. This took over 10 hours driving time. This shows how the young people are yearning for this program to attend.
After the necessary preliminaries, they all dismissed into their various chosen spots to observe their individual Quiet Time. During the one hour period, there was a dead silence within the compound. It was indeed a Quiet Time session, to be quiet before the Lord. Some read the sermon book ”The Oddball” that we had available with us, while others prayed, some also read from their Bibles. It was clear that they all got in the program.
At the end of the one-hour time period for them to be quiet before the Lord, we came back to the hall. We could not do the games because of the challenges of facilities, however, we did some quizzes from the Young Foundations website. This was very interesting.
The event ended with refreshments which Brother Joseph had made a provision for us to give to the young people in attendance. The excitements continued during this time, as they ate and fellowship with one another.
The question on their lips was: When is the next one coming up?
The impacts go beyond what we can measure. Both the parents of the young people and their pastors value this great blessing and would certainly love many more of this program.
Brother Andrew Alasa
VGR Nigeria