{"id":2890,"date":"2023-04-20T18:02:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T18:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=2890"},"modified":"2023-04-20T19:11:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T19:11:14","slug":"blog-april-20th-the-risen-christ-central-chapel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=2890","title":{"rendered":"Blog April 20th The Risen Christ Central Chapel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2892\" src=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1819\" srcset=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-768x546.jpg 768w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-1536x1091.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-2048x1455.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/1-a-Patrick-with-orphan-children-624x443.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><br \/>\nPatrick with orphan children<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2891\" style=\"width: 1610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2891\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2891\" src=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/outside-painted-Feb-2020-1-624x468.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2891\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #444444; font-size: 1rem;\">Risen Christ Central Chapel<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Portsmouth Gospel Choir - &quot;Mustard Seed Of Faith&quot;\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b4p8naX_Mss?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Last week I shared some photos and a video of children from the Risen Christ Central Chapel in Southern Nigeria receiving books featuring stories from the Bible. They had kindly been donated by Faith and Football. For those who are unaware of the connection between Mustard Seeds and the Risen Christ Central Chapel I promised an explanation this week.<br \/>\nOn the death of his Grandfather (his father had already died) Patrick Oki was about to become Chief of his village in Nigeria. However the elders wanted him to denounce his Christian faith and return to the native religion which had been practiced before his Grandfather was Chief \u2013 this included human sacrifice. When he refused his life was in danger and so he sought asylum in England. It was in Haslar Detention Centre, Gosport that I first met Patrick some ten years ago. Unfortunately his asylum claim was rejected and he was deported to Nigeria where he had to re locate a long way from his village to stay safe.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick told me that when he returned from England, he was ill for two years, not being able to walk or even stand; having been rejected and abandoned by his family and friends- he was left to die, with no one to care for him except his son Emmanuel. Sometimes they had no food to eat, and he even prayed for God to take his life- all this because he had denounced the religious tradition of his people to follow Jesus. Patrick said \u201cI made a vow that if the Lord healed me, I would serve him all the rest of my life and one day the Lord sent a servant \u2013 Evangelist Lady Lizbeth who prayerfully joined hands with me and the Lord set me free. Praise the Lord I became born again to the glory of God.\u201d<br \/>\nPatrick went on to serve God and is an unpaid Pastor in Cross River State, Southern Nigeria. His congregation was worshiping in a hired hall and looking after a number of orphans (see pic) Mustard Seed Songs raised funds to build a new church which was named The Risen Christ Central Chapel. (see pic)<br \/>\nTragically Pastor Patrick died on Easter Sunday two years ago, but thankfully his wife Rev. Elizabeth took on the leadership of the church. It was Rev. Lilly that featured in last week\u2019s blog when she received a package of children\u2019s books (Bible stories) donated by Faith and Football<br \/>\nThis week\u2019s featured song is Patrick\u2019s favourite \u201cA Mustard Seed of Faith\u201d sang here by the Portsmouth Gospel Choir and produced by Mustard Seeds\u2019 Musical Director, Joffy James (Girling)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quote of the week <\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/DjDYDVJVsAElrUn.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2893\" srcset=\"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/DjDYDVJVsAElrUn.jpg 500w, https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/DjDYDVJVsAElrUn-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patrick with orphan children Last week I shared some photos and a video of children from the Risen Christ Central Chapel in Southern Nigeria receiving books featuring stories from the Bible. They had kindly been donated by Faith and Football. For those who are unaware of the connection between Mustard Seeds and the Risen Christ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2895,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions\/2895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}