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A Short History of Baptist Students’ Fellowship, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife

Baptist Students’ Union, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (BSUOAU) also known as the Jesus’ People was launched on October 11, 1964. It was the second of Baptist Student Union established in Nigeria after the University of Ibadan (UI). It was later changed to Baptist Student Fellowship in the year 1978, with the Drama and Choir subgroups as the main subgroups that started the Fellowship while other subgroups started later. The motto of BSF is “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another,” (John 13:35). BSFOAU started as the students’ arm of Beulah Baptist Church, Ile-Ife in 1978.
Moreover, since then it was Beulah Baptist Church, in conjunction with other Baptist Churches in Ile-Ife that was nurturing BSFOAU by providing all the needed supports. The Fellowship operated under the church for more than ten years before it became independent in terms of worship services. The weekly programmes of the fellowship meetings hold on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. Sunday services hold by 1 pm, while Mondays and Thursdays are scheduled for prayer meeting and Bible study by 7 – 9 pm respectively.

The belief of BSF OAU about Missions
Missions is one of the core beliefs of BSFOAU, and the fellowship is well known for it both on the campus and at the convention level. Many other campus fellowships consult BSFOAU for mission orientation. Missions is believed to be the heartbeat of God through which souls can be won through the preaching of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The first mission target is to address the spiritual needs of members through the preaching of the word of God during fellowship time. This is to ensure that members have personal, genuine salvation experience. New members are encouraged to go through a discipleship programme anchored by the fellowship which is called Follow-Up School. Those who graduate from the school are given opportunities to serve in any groups they know they are gifted to serve. One of such groups is the Mission sub-group. Even though all members participate in mission work from time to time, some members are devoted to carrying out the mission activities of the fellowship almost daily.

A Short History of BSFOAU Mission
Subgroup

The mission subgroup is an offshoot of the Church Relations Subgroup (CRS). The Church Relations Subgroup (CRS) was established to serve as the link between the Baptist Churches around and the fellowship. The members of the subgroup also help the growing churches in town to teach in their children’s department and other areas they may be useful. The Mission subgroup is reaching out to the villages in Ile Ife environs. Mission work in Ile-Ife environs started with the activities of the Southern Baptist missionaries who established, among others, Erefe Baptist Church (Now Christ Way Baptist Church, Erefe), Aroko Baptist Church and Akeredolu Baptist Church in the 1950s. The missionaries were teachers in the Baptist Teachers’ Training College (Grade III), Ile-Ife under the leadership of Miss Lena Lair. They were taking care of the mission outlet until the phase-out of the college which led to their leaving the area. After the missionaries left, the churches ceased to function since they could not find anybody to serve as the leader after the white missionaries left the area. Baptist churches in Ile-Ife took up the challenges of the village churches but could not carry on after a while.
The Mission activities of BSFOAU began in 1989 through one of the campus students. Brother Joel Oke was a member of the Church Relation Subgroup. Joel Oke visited Aroko Baptist Church and discovered that there was no leader in the church. He took up the challenge and was attending the church on a weekly basis. Afterwards, he extended the work to Gidiogbo, a nearby settlement. Later on, Joel Oke shared his vision for mission works in the villages in the Ile-Ife environs with the then-BSF president in the person of Sola Ajibade. This led to the division of the church relation subgroup into two in the 1996/1997 through 1997/1998 session: Church Relations Subgroup and Mission Subgroup. Gradually since then, the mission subgroup has been expanding in scope and it is now overseeing over thirty villages. Some now have church buildings while some do not but still meet under shades. The vision for the work has been transferred from generation to generation, and the work keeps growing in the hands of student missionaries to date.

OUR Activities

Weekly activities include:

A. Sunday Service: student missionaries converge on early Sunday mornings at their meeting point on campus for a short charge and prayer before they set out. They set out to fellowship with the villagers and thereby preach Christ. The student missionaries in pairs and someone ministers in each of the villages.

B. Subgroup Meetings: all the subgroup members meet on Tuesday evening at a designated meeting point. The focus mainly is to fellowship together as a subgroup and share burdens from different villages. The issues such as testimonies or challenges from various villages are addressed at the meeting. There is a section of prayer and interactions as well.

C. Bible Study and Prayer Meeting: These programs are held in different stations across the days of the week, depending on the agreed time and days fixed with the villagers. Every missionary is obliged to visit his/her station to conduct Bible study and prayer meetings with the villagers. The purpose of this is to disciple them to grow in the Lord and to know about their welfare even during the week.

D. House to House Evangelism: This is usually done anytime but mostly during the weekends when the student missionaries are less busy with academic activities. This is done to ensure that not only the church members are benefitting from the gospel but every villager too.

E. Tutorial: Educational activities are not left out of the subgroup program for the village boys and girls. Most time this comes up immediately after or before bible study during the week. This has been a very useful tool to arrest the attention of and minister to the boys and girls both in primary and secondary school which have been yielding positive results so far. Many of the boys and girls that have been trained over the years are now in higher institutions and some have graduated with good grades.

F. Vigil: Overnight prayer is another monthly activity that takes place in the villages. Each village or station has its fixed weekend for the spiritual exercise and God has been faithful to back it up with several testimonies.

G. Revival: Individual stations conduct revival based on the leading of the Holy Spirit and likewise revivals are conducted along different axis i.e. several stations along the same axis are combined to pray together.

H. Visitation and Welfare for our village students in Higher Institutions:Efforts are usually made to reach out to some of the village students who have secured admission to various higher institutions. Initially, stipends and foodstuffs are given to those students as often as God leads and helps us.

I. Scholarship: Over time, it came to the notice of the student missionaries that most of the village students are struggling to pay up their school fees due to the low economic status of their parents. The student missionaries then started to make efforts to support the part of or the whole school fees of some as the case may be. This is purposely done to help the village students focus on their studies, remain committed to Christ, and not be hijacked by wrong hands.

Special Programmes

A. Peniel:Peniel is a special program designed for the village boys and girls, both secondary and post-secondary school students. The program usually holds during the vacation period in schools. It is a whole day program and sometimes two days (weekend) where students in all the mission stations will be gathered to fellowship together in an assigned venue. It is majorly to bring teenagers and youths together from various stations in order to teach, counsel and interact with them and allow them to ask questions on various challenging issues and also to allow them to take programs. It also helps to familiarize with the children and tend to know more how to help them.

B. Holiday Missions: Holiday missions is the subgroup program that comes up anytime the students are on vacation. The program formally started during the tenure of Adeyemo Samuel as the subgroup leader and Pastor Sanmi Oyedeji as the fellowship president in the 2008/2009 session. The program is in two forms. The first is a mini holiday mission that usually involves some set of volunteered students while the other is major, involving the whole fellowship members.

Before the start of the major holiday missions, the mini-setting has been in place and still on till today. For the mini holiday missions, some student missionaries go to a central village, usually Erefe, to camp there and from that place reach out to other villages during the school vacations. The major reason for this camping is to follow up on the teachings in various villages. It was discovered over the years that once the student missionaries are on vacation, the villagers usually go back to their vomit and experience spiritual decline. To avoid this, some student missionaries decided to camp in a central village and continue to follow up the teachings until school resumed and other student missionaries resumed duty in their various villages.
The major holiday missions involve the whole fellowship whereby every volunteered fellowship members embark on a week, two weeks, or three weeks of mission outreach to specified villages. The goals of the program are to involve the whole fellowship in the mission outreach for the period of a week, two weeks, or three weeks as the case may be, depending on the length of the school vacation. Also, it is to serve as the spiritual retreat for the student missionaries. Student missionaries organise teaching, preaching, listening to messages, prayers, seminars and so on for themselves at their base camp in the morning when the villagers would have gone to their farms. In the evening, the missionaries go out in groups to various surrounding villages to preach the good news in various forms such as film shows, revival, house-to-house evangelism, and so on.
The program has been a great means of evangelising many in remote villages and several testimonies have been confirming the move of God through the program.

C. Churches planting: In 2008 when the first-holiday mission started, the subgroup only had nine village churches to minister but the number has increased to thirty villages now. Most of these churches are been monitored by the students while some have serving pastors.

The above picture shows the student missionaries singing in a morning session during the first holiday missions in 2009.

The fields are ripe for harvest. The time to act is now.

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