CLOSE TO THE HEART OF GOD Being the speech read on behalf of Rev. Titus K. Oyeyemi, Founding President and CEO of African Projects (Foundation) for Peace and Love Initiatives, Inc. NFP, on the occasion of the National Prayer for the Safety of the Nigeria Airspace at the Murtala Mohamed Airport Int’l, Ikeja, Lagos Nigeria, on March 11, 2007 “…..  You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings ….” (Isaiah 58:12). I welcome you all to this prescient gathering of prayer for Nigeria airspace safety and peaceful Nigeria 2007 elections. APPLI/AFPLI has been around for a while spreading the message of grassroots proactive Peacebuilding for Ethnoreligious harmony in our great nation Nigeria. The opportunity we are hereby presented today is indeed unique in history and I implore us all to make the best use of it. The better use to put an opportunity is to use it to pray to God for direction. However, when God has given us a direction, the best thing to do is to take action. Therefore, we will pray to God today and we believe he will give us direction. When he has given us direction, we shall then challenge ourselves to take the necessary actions. One biblical time king who recognized the importance of taking action when prayers have been answered was Asah, the son of Abijah who was considered to have done what was right in the sight of God because he rebuilt the cities. “Let us build up these towns,” he (Asa) said to Judah, “and put walls around them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the LORD our God; we sought and he has given us rest on every side.” So they built and prospered.” (2 Chronicles 14:7). As we gather here today to pray, I want to challenge us to recommit ourselves to become repairer of broken walls, and restorers of streets with dwelling.  In my prescient message sent to the members of the KAIROS Peace and Love Club at the Olabisi Onabanjo University on August 26, 2004, I challenged the students of the university to spend their energies to rebuild and not destroy Nigeria, reminding them that “it is the wise that builds” and the “foolish that destroys.” In my message to the KAIROS Peace and Love Club at the Adeyemi College of Education, launched on June 30th 2005, I challenged the faculty to produce teachers who will teach young Nigerians how to rebuild and not destroy Nigeria. Nigeria is in ruins. Can we not see it? Our roads are in ruins, our seaports are in ruins, our airports are in ruins, our railways are in runs, our hospitals are in ruins, our homes are ugly, and there is decay and dilapidation everywhere. Because we are living with so many rats, big and small, and of many shapes and colors, we have all joined the rat race and have almost become like rats. We are living with rats and cockroaches. We are living in danger of floods and air disasters. We are a highly educated people but we are lacking the desire and impetus to develop our nation. The best thing we know to do is point fingers. Finger pointing cannot take away reproaches. It is has to be done away with. To rebuild Nigeria all hands should be on the deck. As a concept and strategy APPLI has therefore, developed a structure where everyone – the toddler, the aged, the family, the community, the parents, the students, the teachers, the farmers, the technocrats, the consumers, the businessmen, the ruled and the rulers, the religious and the unreligious, the workers and their employers – will be involved in grassroots proactive positive Peacebuilding, as long as they have a grassroots connection. As the title of this paper suggests, APPLI believes that the only way to get close to the heart of God is intercede for the re-building our country. Any sincere listener to this address today, who could subject himself or herself to critical self-examination, will identify where he or she had failed to use their position, power and influence to build up something or somebody but instead had tore down or destroyed. It is the time for us to work together to rebuild Nigeria from its ruins. If we do not, nobody will do it for us. We are deceiving ourselves if we think God will do what we should do by ourselves. I am convinced that the Prince of Peace will ride his white horse only on the roads that men have paved. Every development has a price tag. We as a people have to pay the right price if we want the right development.  Unfortunately, Africans are paying a lot of prices, (untimely death, low quality life, lack of amenities, life devoid of promises, diseases and decay), but not for development. It should be a source of worry to us all that instead of building our nations, we are destroying them. I make bold to say that unless we imbibe a new patriotic spirit of nation building, we will find ourselves to blame for the hardship that will be unleashed on future African generations yet unborn. We should note that anyone who destroys his or her home or joins others to do so will become homeless, beg for shelters and lose his or her dignity. Please, do not forget that the more you beg the more beggarly you get. At this millennium age, pity politics will take Africa no where. A people who repeat the same mistakes again and again are a no people no matter how much educated they claimed to be. Nigerians are like the proverbial men and women of iniquity. They look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but they walk in deep shadows. Like the blind they grope along the wall, feeling their ways like men and women without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight, among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl for justice, but find none, for deliverance, but is far away. Our sins and offences have caught up with us. Like the Great Prophet Isaiah, I am saying these words to us: Let us do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing of fingers and malicious talk, and spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed. Let us join hands to rebuild Nigeria. Nigerians of all religious fast a lot, stay up in night vigil several nights until they become too tired to work and to sleepy to think. The admonition of prophet Isaiah is truth with Nigerians “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” If we can do these things, then true blessings will come to us as a nation just as the word of God has predicted: “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.” (Isaiah 58:7- 11). Let us pray today for committed men and women to be elected into the various political offices in Nigeria 2007 elections. “For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9) We are gathered here today to stand in the gap. We are standing in the gap for the safety of Nigeria Airspace. We are standing in the gap for all airline owners and businesses. We are standing here in the gap for management, pilots, engineers, crews, and travelers. We are standing in the gap for the Nigeria governments at all levels. We are standing in the gap for all students in all our educational institutions. We are standing in the gap for all road and transport workers. We are intercessors, interceding for the air, road, sea, and railway safety in 2007 and years to come. We are interceding for the weak and the feeble. We are standing in the gap for those who have loved ones in preventable air disasters. We are praying for God’s own peace to prevail on earth. History belongs to the intercessors, and, in the same manner, the future is never close to them. Intercessors are never hopeless, though it may take longer than expected, yet they belief the future into being. The future belongs to whoever can envision a new and desirable possibility which faith then fixes upon as inevitable and as a reality. The good news of the Gospel is a reality. We have been promised that we will be delivered from our enemies. As intercessors for Ethnoreligious harmony in Africa, APPLI has come with the politics of hope. A hope that envisages the future and then acts as if that future is now imminent, irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which Nigeria longs. “Hope delayed makes the heart sick, but a promise fulfilled is the tree of life.” To APPLI, the future is not closed and will never close for Nigeria. There is a brighter day ahead. Therefore, let us sing the song of nation Peacebuilding and sing with the African Children of Peace, as they sing: “This is the time for us to come together. It is the dawning of a new Era Let us work together To rebuild our nation The way to make peace Is to serve your neighbor’s needs Give peace some chance Because we are here to make peace You lift my hands, I lift yours In no time with your help In no time with my help We gonna be riding higher Riding higher, riding higher and higher Where the Eagles fly Because we are here to make peace” Blessed are those who labor for peace in Africa, for they shall put the enemy of humanity to shame. PEACE! SHALOM! KAYERO! KAYEROJU!  LONG LIVE NIGERIA! Reverend Titus K. Oyeyemi