How Big Is Your God? Testimonies from Life Experiences

“Mommy, Daddy has had an accident and he is inside a ditch”

In 1986, on Sunday July 6, at about 1225hrs, I was driving from Ore to Lagos on my way back home after a two day visit with my parents in the village of Awo-Omamma. A car driver suddenly overtook me and immediately applied his brakes because he was going to hit a parked trailer. I was forced to apply my brakes as well but my Volkswagen Beetle tumbled four times and ended up in a ditch by the road side. It landed on the roof with all the four tyres up.

I scrambled out of the car without any scratch on my body but both my front windshield and the back windshield were shattered and the car roof caved in. A number of other cars that were plying the road stopped to offer assistance.

In the car that was immediately behind me, was an army Major with his escorts and a lady. In the car following him, was a Medical doctor. All of them stopped. The army Major asked me about the occupants of my car as I was standing by the car. He did not know I was the one driving the car. He affirmed that he saw two people sitting in the car. When I told him that I was the only one in the car, he refused to be convinced and continued to affirm that there were two people he saw in the car. At that point, the lady who was in his car, looked closely at me and asked me if I was the same person she saw in the Sunday Concord Newspaper she was reading. In those days, I was maintaining a column in the Sunday newspaper. My column was "Ministering Christ" and on that particular Sunday, I had written on “How Big is Your God?” The Army Major then said, “Your God must be really Big because He was in the car with you and saved you from death”

The passers-by organized to raise some money for me to make it home and then turned my car over and brought it out of the ditch. When we turned the car over, we saw that even though the Petrol tank was full, no drop of petrol dropped on the ground. The engine oil, on the other hand, had spilled all over the place and was completely drained. We were in the middle of nowhere. No town and no Petrol station within five kilometre range.

At this point something miraculous happened.

A young man dressed only in boxer shorts, no shirt on top, came forward with a five-litre gallon of Engine oil and simply said “Here is oil for you”. Everybody asked him where he got the oil from and who he was. He did not answer. I asked him how much he wanted for the oil, he said it is free. We insisted on paying for it. He then said, “Pay me Ten Naira.” That was ridiculous. I gave him Ten Naira. He simply vanished into thin air. No one again saw him. Who was he? No one has answered the question till date.

Still more miracles; when we poured the oil, the car started but I could not drive it because the gear hooked. I towed it to the nearest Mechanic Workshop which was about ten kilometres away. As soon as they unhooked the gear, I drove the car back to Lagos at very slow speed as the frame of the car was shaking.

One more miracle before I got to Lagos. As I drove on, I noticed that it was raining. I stopped the car in the middle of the road, looked up to heaven and said: “O God, you just saved me from what would have been death; you can stop this rain from destroying all that is in the car. My windshield is broken and the back shield is completely out.” From then on, I drove on and no drop of rain dropped on my car. I would see rain in the front but when I get there, the ground would be wet but no raindrops fell; when I look back I would see it raining again. That was how it went on till I got to Lagos about 1815hrs.

Three other things happened in connection with this accident.

When my wife and the children got home from Church Services that day, they expected me to be home either before they returned or soon after. At about 1345hrs when I should have been home, my three year old son Ebenezer called the mother and said; “Mommy, Daddy has had an accident and he is inside a ditch” Of course, the mommy tried to shut him up but he insisted. They had to gather and pray for me. How did my three year old boy know I had an accident?

At home, in faraway Awo-Omamma, my mother went for an evening fellowship at 1700hrs. The pastor called her and said “Thank God for sparing you tears; God has saved you from what would have been the putting off of your light” In those days there were no cell phones and even if there were, we had none. My mother did not know what the pastor was saying until some forty-five days later when I told them what happened. How did my mother’s pastor more than 400 kilometres away know that I had a problem and that God saved me?

The following day, Monday, I drove the car to my mechanic’s workshop to have it fixed. My mechanic’s workshop was some twenty four kilometres from my home. When I got there they asked me to park it by the side so they could fix the planks to enable me get it into their garage. When they finished arranging the planks no one could move the car. We had to push it in and when they tore the car down, they found out that the Steering rod broke when I had the accident. How in the world, was I able to drive a car with broken steering rod for more than 250 kilometres? This is nothing short of the Hand of God in this one life.

Excerpt from my memoir "What a Life!" which is still a work -in-progress