WHEN I WAS 18, MY FATHER TOLD ME TO GO INTO BUSINESS WHILE I WAS STILL IN SCHOOL. BY THE TIME I BECAME A DOCTOR WITH LITTLE FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM HIM, HE OVER CELEBRATED IT.
- Dr Pastor Paul Enenche
The Ignite Conference 2021,
Day 4, Evening Session
- Some of the things my father told us ‘ruggedised’ me while some of my siblings were offended.
*My father pushed us at a young age to accept responsibility.
*My father told me not to think of inheriting his wealth.
*Most people spoil their children.
My father started business at the age of 18. Young man, from age 12, he was already doing all of it, but at the age of 18, he started. His father died when he was young and my father told us many things that ‘ruggedised’ me, it annoyed other people but it ‘ruggedised’ me.
He said: Me, I don’t know my father. You, you know your father, what will you become?
Very brutal things.
He said, “I started business.” He carried load on his head until his head became bald in young age. He said, “I started business at the age of 18, you are 18 now, why are you hanging around here?”
It was like knife! He was getting angry. I said, “but I am going to School. Should I leave school and start business?”
He talks those kinds of things:
“See you hanging up and down. Nobody should look at my money ooo because I didn’t look at anybody’s money.”
He was very rugged oooo. In fact, he would say things like, “don’t think of inheriting my wealth.”
He said it raw! There are things he said that I won’t even like to say here.
I should tell you! You want to hear? Alright, the one you can hear I will tell you. Very, very rugged.
One day, I came with long list of books: Anatomy, Biochemistry, Harper’s Biochemistry,… Physiology. Long list, Dissecting set, I put all the prices, everything.
He looked at everything and said, “I am sure there is somebody in your class who does not have a father.”
And unfortunately for me, there was somebody from my village who didn’t have a father, I knew he is an orphan.
I said: Yes Sir.
He said: So who would buy this for him?
He just shook me up and I made up my mind that I will make impact on time, that I will not be a liability.
With the very many connected events, what I am saying to you is different; I don’t want you take this as an instruction. After 2nd to 3rd year, I didn’t go back home for money anymore. I returned back only 4 or 5 years with my certificate.
I said, “I have graduated Sir.”
I am eternally grateful to him for those words. Most people spoil their children.
Eternally. Others reacted, in fact some could exchange words. I never, not once.
By the time I brought my certificate, he called all his associates,” see my son. At this age, he is a Doctor now.”
He celebrated it, he over celebrated it. He gathered the people together. Hallelujah.
There was no prayer he didn’t pray for me before he passed (away).
He said: Anybody you have heard of globally, doing what you are doing, you will excel them.
All manner, that is, from his heart.
Please accept responsibility, so you don’t die a liability.
That was the reason why I brought the story, how he started his own life at the age of 18, (with the) minimal education he had, then how he pushed me and others to accept responsibility on time and not just be lazing about and hanging about, looking for who to blame or who has money to give me or who has this.
I am just rugged, today till tomorrow, I am unable to look at a man in Church as a sponsor. It came from that training.
If I can walk away from home and go through school for so many years and return back with my certificate without having to look and say these are traceable sources, even legitimate sources. Haba I can’t be doing the work of God now and be looking at a man and say, “if not for this man, this Church won’t function.”