Ifesinachi Somadina Chibueze is a Baptist minister, missionary, mentor, and educator passionate about discipleship, leadership development, transformational education, and cross-cultural missions. Licensed under the Nigerian Baptist Convention and commissioned through the African Baptist Mission Board, he has served in missions and educational ministries across West Africa, including Ghana and The Gambia.

Driven by a commitment to see people and places transformed by the Gospel, Ifesinachi is passionate about mentoring young people, equipping leaders, and mobilizing believers for mission engagement. He aims at advancing the Great Commission across personal, local, and global frontiers.

LinkedIn:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/greatcis/

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you.

If it's not you, it's a great pleasure to connect with you.

For those listening, what part of the world are you in today?

Greetings from Africa.

I'm in Nigeria at the moment.

How often are you in the field?

It's been a full-time engagement.

It's been two years now and I've just withdrawn for the moment.

What is it like in terms of the physical challenges of being away from home that long?

Oh, you know, like they say, north, east, south, west, home is best.

So whenever you leave home, you always would love to be home again.

The challenges will always begin from the emotional connections and of course, the challenge of adapting to a new environment away from home.

Yeah, among many others.

What initially made you believe that this is what you were called to do?

I've always known that I was born for this, basically because I don't see myself doing any other thing best, better than what I'm doing now.

God designs all of us in a very unique way to meet specific purpose.

My point of conviction came from hearing the voice of God and most importantly, descending through experiences, what doors he has opened my way and the doors he has closed in order for me to go the direction he set for me.

How did you meet Jesus?

I met Jesus as a teenager at the age of 16.

Remember, I never had a dream, a trans or a vision, things like that.

But then I think grief was the precipitating factor that brought me to Christ.

I had a brother.

He was my elder brother, but we were like twins, just a year and a few months apart.

I had a privileged upbringing and I never thought the world was a place of sorrows and all of that, till this brother of mine passed away at the age of 16.

I remember something changed about me.

I've always known people die and all of that growing up, but this one hit home.

At that point, I was beginning to question where has he gone to?

How about me?

Why am I here?

I questioned everything I've come to know.

I grew up, of course, in a Christian home, but that wasn't sufficient to support a personal commitment and accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

So it was in that valley of sorrow, of grief, that I met Jesus through an evangelistic revival that was held years ago in the neighborhood where I lived.

It was an Anglican church and I remember impromptu, while still reflecting on my grief and all of that, I had attended that program and then the minister preached from the Sodom and Gomorrah biblical narrative and the Old Testament.

Then he talked about God seeking for someone and there was this prompting in me that just made it a perfect timing.

When the altar call was made at the end of the ministration, I saw myself prostrating before the pulpit walking away from the pew and I was led to Christ.

Praise God for that.

Do you think your brother had the relationship he needed to have with Christ?

I do think he had the relationship.

Like I mentioned, we all were born and were brought up in a Christian home, quite decent.

And through the kind of life he'd led and demonstrated, I just felt as a person that it should have been me and not him, because in my opinion, he was too saintly.

He was just too saintly to depart.

But then life happens.

He had some challenges with his health and at the same time, he didn't want that to stop him from living his dream.

He had wanted to become a neurosurgeon and he was at the terminal level of his studies then in the high school, hoping for the next level.

I think the challenge, the shock and all of the experiences perhaps intensified his health challenges and then he passed.

But I do believe that he had that relationship with Jesus Christ and he demonstrated it through the short time we shared together on it.

One of the things that is indicated on your bio is clearly you have a passion for working with young people.

When you think about the fact that that seed was birthed in you, where do you think that came from?

It came from that same place of relationship with the one who then was closest to me.

I realized I'm not too young to pass away and if I could lose my brother at that age of 16, then even a baby, even a growing child.

Why do we need to wait till a particular age before we begin to invest in the young people and the next generation?

I realized that the seed already was planted beginning from that experience and going forward to the opportunities God has brought my way.

It's always been with a special passion for children, for youth, specifically the next generation.

And something else about that passion, it's the fact that I've always looked around my society, I've looked within, I've looked beyond and it seems there is just so much problems.

In our generation, I thought to myself, how can I as one individual impact the world?

Then it came to my realization that if I can begin from myself and then I begin from those who God has placed around me, specifically from the ones who are still in that position where they can be positively influenced, the next generation, then I could look forward to a better world someday.

Yeah.

What is daily life like when you're on the field, the missions field?

Like every other missions field, the Gambia is very challenging, but it's specifically challenging with the fact that it's a nation of 95% Muslim dominantly.

So you get that challenge from the opposition to evangelism.

You get the challenge from subtle persecutions.

You get the challenge of just the language barriers, trying to speak with the people and connect.

You get even the challenge of relationship building because they just know that you are not a Muslim.

And when you want to maybe strike a conversation, it seems the antennas are already high.

I know where you are going to, so I'm not going to let you do that.

But somehow God in his special way has always made ways in incredible manners.

And I would also say that there is a challenge of, you know, a sense of aloneness, I mean abandonment, but then God promises he always goes with us.

And when you encounter the challenge that comes with mobility, the frustration that would come to maybe limited resources, you see realities of those needing salvation, those needing basic human needs, a healthcare, a good quality water supply, and some of these things.

And then you want to present Jesus to them.

You begin to think about their felt need, despite aiming towards the real need for salvation.

So when I look within and somehow these limitations abound, it's just kind of, you know, humbles me and wants to make me, you know, to seek God more and find his intervention.

From personal experience, my greatest question with respect to missions has always been, why won't God heal?

Why won't God heal?

Because sometimes these people, when you speak to them, they want to see that practical demonstration of the kind of the biblical miracles, the powers, the prophecy being manifested amongst them.

And they feel like if this isn't done, then the message is not validated.

And there are times when, you know, very, very specific situations will meet people in need of healing of some kind.

And you just want to cry out to God and say, Father, could you just honor your name and do this for this person, that they might come to believe in you.

So in most situations, I have seen God actually heal.

But in other situations, I have seen that not happen instantaneously or take a longer time or not even happen at all.

And it makes me bothered.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

You would have heard that you were doing missions.

Then you were on a retreat.

What's a message you'd leave for future you listening to this conversation?

I take a lot about seeing that the very conversations we're having today somehow have served as a source of encouragement to someone somewhere in years to come.

And, you know, it's important that I take this time to acknowledge and appreciate the effort you I mean, your wife, your family, the entire team invest towards the 12 minutes conversation with Jesus believers.

And you would, of course, agree with me that conversation is a catalyst for transformation.

The gospel as we have it today, it's a compendium of ordinary conversations that have made extraordinary impact.

So we never can tell what God could make out of a 12 minutes conversation.

Hence, I'm very positive that somehow in his own way, he's going to make something out of it.

And then I think I've seen the vision you have and all of that.

I am just blown away.

But I believe we could either be a little part of something big or a big part of something little.

Either way, we bring glory to God.

Thank you for having me.

This is Sinatje, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What is Inspired by 12 Minute Conversation.