At All Saints’ Church, Yaba's 80th Founder's Day - Part 2

Each of the other 16 spiritual fathers of the Church is consciously annotated, reflecting and dissecting their respective tenures. Beyond the Super Canons, some priests also stood out. I note with amazement, the personality and talents of Rev. Richard Vidal Earnshaw-Smith (1965-1966); obviously a foreigner (though his origin is not indicated), he apparently was a stunning speaker of the Yoruba language, especially “with the skilful use of proverbs which had profound implication”. The book offers one example that had me scratching my head – as did most of his Yoruba contemporaries. Earnshaw-Smith (most likely a Caucasian) once brought a particular Synod meeting unto silence with these introductory words: “Eyin agbaagba, mo kii yin. Se eyin naa le so wipe, A kii moo gun, moo te, ki isu ewura ma l’emo – meaning: Elders, I salute you. You are the ones who say that no matter how accomplished one is at pounding yam, water-yam, when pounded, will always have lumps”.

His meaning was hardly ambiguous. His personal interactions with Lagosians (mostly Yoruba) bore this uncommon earthiness and rigorous desire to empathize and connect deeply with his people.

But the chapter is not all effusive, or non-critical reverence. Since frailties are what truly make us humans, one or two of the vicars sometimes painted shades of anomy, however inadvertently. Rev. S.S.O. Sodipe (1987 – 1989) is recognized as a gifted teacher and a thorough Anglican, his challenge in interpersonal relationship appears to have under-whelming ramification on his ministry, apart from his partial disability.

In brave diplomatese, the book grumbles lightly (on page 68): “Many parishioners did not fully appreciate the good work of this man. He nevertheless silently but effectively, improved the spiritual life of this Church.”

We also recognize the adventuresome nature of Rev. A.A. Akinade (1991-1994) who sought practical baptismal experience for his wards beyond the precincts of the Church, and found a brook in Ketu he used for baptism by immersion.

And lastly, Rev. Yinka Olumide (1960-1961) was innovative and selfless, but was “blunt almost to the point of discomfort, and spared no one whom he believed could put God’s work in jeopardy, regardless of that person’s status.”

The longest chapter (89 pages) is also the most bibliographic; it’s called “Societies and Organizations”. To underline its importance, the chapter lies in the middle of the book, reminding us that these over 32 associations are indeed the spine of All Saints’ Church, Yaba.

 In all my years of study, I have never come across such vitality, patience and enthusiasm in collating, welding and establishing a plethora of human activities with clearly laid down objectives, tables of registered members (the old, the dead, the living, the leading and the following). Though it’s obvious the societies wrote each of their own part in the history of this Church as evidenced by the passion and ambition dripping all over the pieces, the editors of these sundry divergent materials must have invested hours of tedious and meticulous gate-keeping exercise to sustain some order and timbre in the language, style, syntax and lexicon adopted for the book. On most counts, they have succeeded.

Few pointers nonetheless reveal the widespread difficulties of the editors’ herculean task. More than 90% of the chronology of the societies is in a particular order – using maturity to serially arrange them. Except for the last four society which appear as products of over-sight.

The first society, Men’s Auxiliary Association was founded seven years into the life of the Church in 1939 and listed above Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) of 1943. Yet the last four include groups with disparate dates of origin like Ladies Friendly Society (1978), the Ladies Workers’ Union (the oldest female society, in 1944), the Association of Jerusalem Pilgrims (2009) and then Christian Pioneers’ Society (1984).  

We may equally have to clarify if one of the venerable pioneers, CWB Sawyer is the same as the leading choirmaster, CWB Savage on page 183.

                                                            

However, it is salutary to note that this kind of work that attempts to record human activities and achievements in documentary format can only be a work in progress – as long as humanity sustains and procreates, this book will continue to witness additions,  reversions, corrections and embellishments. It is on this premise, that I advise that the section on YMCA should be reviewed to indicate that it came to All  Saints in 1943, about 99 years (in this same June) after it was first mooted by a Londoner, George Williams (1844). Please, take your cue from the correct attribution of the Boy’s Scout Movement on page 100.

We also need to reconcile the correct owner of the slogan; “Show the Light” between Men’s Christian Circle (MCC, 1979) on page 131 and Torch Bearers Society (1984) of page 141.

Still on lapses: a magical pronoun pokes its head on page 49 beside Revd. Hunter; then, “had never heard of” on page 65 can do with a simple “ever’. And this: Earnshaw-Smith died on November 20, 1969, and the Trust Fund instituted in his honour at Immanuel College, Ibadan could only have been after his demise, yet the book, on page 66, says “even though he had already left a year earlier, in October, 1966”.

As earlier stated, more work needs to be done in updating and enriching the book in subsequent editions. For instance, Egbe Imole whose picture appears on page 229 marking her 40^th anniversary suggests there is/was a Yoruba society after the formation of Egbe Ife Olorun (1946). And a tiny caption slip peeps at us on page 233 (YMCA picture).

As a whole, I find the chapter extraordinary in the assemblage of names, officials and sundry attainments and activities. To neutrals, it looks as if the entire membership of the Church in the last 80 years has been squeezed into this monumental book.

Chapters six to ten deal essentially with structures and main-frames of the Church – Parish Church Council, the Service Units. Evangelical Ministry, Children’s Sunday School and The Saints magazine. In amazing reservoir of intellectual perspective and high sense of occasion, all persons, personages, actors (including children) figures and ordinances that gave birth to, and have sustained those aforementioned operations and administrations, are efficiently labeled and documented. The language of recollection is civil and simple – even bordering on the reverent. Contributions in seemingly routine activities and unheralded gestures are generously splashed across the canvass of time, for contemporary Christianity not merely to admire and revere – but to remind us that the passions for the things of God are recognizable, codifiable and rewardable, before our very eyes.

The concluding chapters (Historical Pictures, Harvest In Retrospect and Epilogue) bounce across 17 pages, panting at the storms of emotions and spirituality that have gone far behind.

For the avoidance of doubt, “The Journey So Far At 80” is not a scholarly tomb. Though historical in motivation and pedagogic in delivery, the prevailing sentiment around the book is a passionate desire to equip the succeeding generations with tools forged in undiluted hardwork, non-conceited communal love, irrepressibly keen sense of brotherhood and absolute joyful trust in the God Almighty.

The book, sensibly legible in deference to adult readership, provokes all who read it to take a bite from the bread baked by His Lordship, the Rt. Revd. Adebayo Akinde on page 8: “It is hoped that (more recent parishioners and the present generation) would be able to relate with the evolution of the Church, the growth and her mission to be home to all who sincerely seek God, desire a warm Christian fellowship and worship, end-time harvester of lost souls, committed good stewards of God’s resources who long to see that Christ’s Kingdom is established and His will is done on earth”.

It is equally true that the stock of humanity gains and soars in robust knowledge when it is exposed to intellectual helpings, most especially scrapped from the grip of history and the ashes of death. Such is the potential and power of this book, even as the future awaits further amendment and enlargement.

Let me leave you with this statement from this cynical fellow often noted for poking graceful jibes at the Anglicans. Ambrose Gwinett Bierce defines every Christian’s most cherished word thus: “Everlasting, adjective; Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled “A Partial Definition of the Word ‘Everlasting’ as used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures”. His book was once esteemed, and still is, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit to the souls". (A. G. Bierce, born June 24, 1842).

In truth, I concur, “The Journey So Far At 80” will give “pleasure to the mind and profit to the souls” of all who come across it.

Thank you.

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

(Author and Journalist)