Culled from Sundat Tribune 28/02/2010

Written by Olu Osunde

As the world celebrates love today, Tribune Church looks at the love life of some pastors who spoke on how they met their wives.


I have been following her from the day I met her at fellowship - Bishop Francis Wale Oke
I met her in one of the Christian fellowships in the school. You know, God is wonderful and does His things in mysterious ways. Before God led me to her, she had already been spoken to by God concerning me. For that reason she could not turn me down.

She just said well, God had spoken to me and from the outset, I began to follow her just as a I still follow her till today (laugh).

'My daughter wooed this new wife for me' - Sadela
I was the last to marry among my peers in those days, all because I wanted to be very careful in going into it. Nevertheless, the marriage didn’t work as expected and all the seven children that were products of the marriage died mysteriously, including my wife, their mother, whom I described as a witch who killed all these children. Because of this, I was so scared of marriage that it took me another 30 years before my second marriage, this marriage was consummated when I was 65 years. But after the demise of my second wife I decided not to go into any relationship again but my daughter had to marry this new wife for me to be my companion at old age. So, this is the first time they will marry for me. A lot of women showed interest in getting married to me even at old age.

It was not love at first sight - Pastor Kayode Adekitan
THE first time I saw my wife, I said within me “I wish this sister becomes my wife!” Love at first sight you may say, but not exactly. I believe it was a result of constant seeking and praying to God for a future partner for about two years before I met her at a church programme.

As a young Christian, I believed I can marry any sister as long as she is born-again, but as I grew in the Lord and attended several marriage seminars and read books on choosing a marriage partner, I realised that God has made a specific sister (wife) for me, not just any sister and I have to seek God and let Him lead me to her (Gen. 2:18). So, I began to pray for divine connection.

The day I met my wife, I had a strange desire for her and this desire continued to grow everytime I saw her. So, I had to go back to God in prayer to know whether this feeling is from God, God confirmed my desire through the bible (Psalms 37:4-4) and other people.

It was after I was sure that God was leading me to her that I began to seek to know more about her through an elderly Christian friend who introduced me to her in one of our programmes in the church. We also got to know ourselves more through church programmes and activities in our church then — Surulere Baptist Church, especially the youth programmes.

One day, I was encouraged by this elder Christian friend (Deacon Samuel Akintola) to meet her (my wife) and let her know my desire and this I did (sometimes in 1987). I met her and just told her that I believe she’s my future partner and that she should pray and let me know her response.

After several weeks of waiting, she called me one day and said she agreed to my request. We got married two years later, 2nd September, 1989. To God be the glory.

I wooed her constantly with as little as a bottle of yoghurt, suya, etc — Pastor Afolayan AyoOluwa
I believe marriage ought to be a lifetime of companionship and frienship. It ought to have a lot of qualities like kindness, trust and benefits of doubts just to mention a few.

My wife had always been my friend. When the thought of having her as my wife came up, it wasn’t difficult communicate this to her.

I believe that the most effective tool for wooing your wife is your character as an individual. It is obvious that no one desires trash but rather treasure. Therefore as much as I had capacity to do I tried to make her life better, fuller, richer than I met it.

I never believed in cajoling a woman for love. My philosophy had always been that my wife will love me for who I am not who she or society wants me to be. Therefore all my activities to woo my wife were purely based on my natural personality and ablility to add value to anyone I come across.

I strongly believe that wooing has a bigger role to play after marriage than before marriage. The reason for this is that the tendency for marriage to become a burden is very high. The excitement is lost in the first three years. The woman easily becomes fatigued by the responsibility of marriage and while she is still in the home, her mind is fantasising about her freedom of spinsterhood.

A man has the responsibility of wooing her out of this mental enclave to have a fully functional home to which you are excited to come. Without your continuous fanning of the fire of love, your mate will become cold and uninteresting.

To ensure that this doesn’t occur from time to time I go home with surprise gifts. These are not expensive gifts. One bottle of yoghurt and a stick of suya says a lot; that I have you on my mind. I also help out with the house chores. There are times we eat out and relive our courtship.

It took a whole year of struggle and yanga to make her say yes - Dr. Solomon Ishola, General Secretary, Baptist Convention
GOD led me to her as a pastor. By the grace of God, after a year and a lot of struggle and ‘yanga around’ me, she said yes to my proposal. We met during a fellowship.

I used to woo women in a playboy-like manner — Pastor Mark Valentine
I’ve been a play boy for a long time before I gave my life to Christ. As a playboy, I was using the idea to choose a lady. There was a time I was going out with a lady, thinking she will be my wife but all of a sudden I just noticed that we could not go out anymore without any misunderstanding. But there was a time a friend of mine invited me to a church to pray and when we were praying, the pastor told me that I might lose the person that God has chosen for me, if I’m not careful. After the prayer, I planned to go out for valentine. However, I met her two days to the valentine day. Meeting her was nice, I didn’t even know she was the choice of God for me and that day I heard a voice that said “this is your heartrob.” That was the first time I will hear the voice of God and I never knew the meaning of that word. That night, I took her phone number because there was no GSM at that time, but there was land line, and I called her with the number she gave me. I just noticed something when we started going, what I noticed was that her relationship with me was increasing my faith and was getting me closer to God, that was how I got married to her.

The way God converted her for me was more spiritual — Pastor Tope Omotoye, Ukraine
I think what really was dramatic but highly spiritual was not how I met her but how God answered my prayer and suddenly turned her from being a muslim to a christian.

“She was a muslim which even means, she was a believer while I was then unbeliever” (laugh) as at the time we met, I was still living my own life.

After God called me, I was on the street one day when I heard the voice of the holy spirit. He said now, you can talk to me, such voice then was still new to me and I said, God, I am on the street and if I start talking now, people would think I am mad.

But then, I said, God, if you really called me, my wife is a muslim, if I preach to people, they would ask me to go and preach to my wife first. So I said, let my wife be born again in three months time then I will be sure you called me.

Three months later, she became born again, I did n’t even tell her anything. Today, though we are both doctors, she has taken over the job while I pastor the sheep.

I kicked off by inviting her to my house — Pastor John Odejayi
I met her in Lagos. She was in school in Ogbomosho while I was in Lagos.

When the Lord convinced me that she was made for me, I invited her to my house and that was after a month. She prayed about it and she also got convinced. Not quite long, we got married.

We got interested in each other at church — Pastor Seyi Faloju
I met my wife when we were in school, I was the president pastor of my fellowship then. She came in as a jambite into the University of Ibadan. She was a member of my church in school and I was in 400 level at that time. After I left school, I went to serve and later went for my masters. She was to serve in Lagos and I was also transfered to Lagos at that time.

It happened that where she was staying at that time was very close to where I was staying and we were also attending the same church in Lagos. It was in school we developed interest in each other. Initially, I never had the mind of having a relationship with her, along the line, after an interaction, the feelings came and I told her about it and she said she was going to pray about it. But it took some time before she agreed with me.