Glorious Escape From Death

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee  in judgement thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord.”—Isaiah 54:17

THE testimony of Edwin Onyeabor, a pastor in the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Abakaliki,  and  lecturer  at Ebonyi State University, is one that thrills the heart and greatly renews our confidence in the ability and willingness of God to deliver His children at all times.

As he shared the testimony of how he survived the hail of bullets rained on their vehicle by dare-devil armed bandits during a night trip on the Benin-Asaba-Onitsha Expressway  recently, several  participants  at the recent General  Convocation for Watchman pastors and their families who listened to him may have just shed tears of joy while the others shouted, clapped and praised God with great excitement.



Saved! Edwin Onyeabor  After The Ordeal



According to Pastor Edwin, as he rose after the robbers’ operation, there were cries of dying men and women and blood-splatter all around him. But he came out without a scratch. Indeed, this reminds us of something. Sometime ago, the General Overseer of the Watchman, Pastor A.C. Ohanebo,  declared that God has made all Watchmen sacred cows. No doubt, Edwin’s testimony is another proof of that:

“I want to testify of  the deliverance of the Lord upon my life. It happened that last year, about March, I was billed to participate in an academic conference  at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. I  had sent my papers some weeks earlier, and  when the conference commenced, I could not  be  there to join them on the first day, because, I was tied down in Abakaliki, by some  work in my  office and other engagements in the church. I, however, was able to be there on the third day.

Because, I couldn’t leave Abakaliki on the morning of Tuesday,  I had to travel  by night in order to arrive Ile-Ife Wednesday morning. The idea  was to present my papers  that  Wednesday and then return by night to Abakiliki the same day, as I  had some important matters to take care of the following day.

“ I arrived  Lagos Wednesday morning, and headed for Ife immediately. Fortunately,  I was able to deliver my papers the same day. I then embarked upon a return trip that Wednesday night to Abakiliki, by a night bus. Unfortunately, somewhere between Benin and a town called Abudu, we were attacked by armed robbers. It was about 3 a.m. Incidentally, I  was so weak that I was asleep most of the time as we journeyed.

So, I  didn’t know what was going on until I was suddenly woken up by sounds of shootings and noise of shattered glasses  pouring  on my head. Incidentally, my seat was  directly behind the driver’s,  and before we knew it,  the driver was no longer on the driver’s seat. He had been hit  by the bullets, and had fallen out of the vehicle while the vehicle continued to  move at  top speed. Immediately, I dived to the floor of the vehicle, lay flat, and began to pray. All of a sudden, the vehicle began to summersault continously until it fell into a very deep gully inside the bush.

“In fact,  there were cries of dying people all around me and blood spilled everywhere. To crown it all the fuel from the tank began to pour on us because the vehicle had turned upside down. It was now a struggle for survival as those still alive  were desperately looking for openings  to get out of  the vehicle before the worst could  happen. At that  stage, I checked myself and saw that I could still move,  and looking up,  I discovered an opening  near the engine and began to climb out.

Surprisingly, as soon as I climbed out of the vehicle, behold,  the robbers were just  arriving at the scene. When they saw me where I lay, they said:  “this one don die”, but I said: “no I’m not dead”. Strangely, they asked me to go and lie down,  and I went and lay down somewhere. The next thing I saw was that they had rushed back to their vehicle, and returned  with machetes and other instruments with which they tore open the vehicle and began to drag people out.

They would pull out one person  and say: “this one don die”,  and pull out another and say: “no, this one never die”. After they had succeeded in pulling out a good number of people, then they began their operation proper, shooting and searching people one by one. There was a young man that pleaded with them, saying  that since God had delivered us from the accident,  they should please spare us, and leave us to  go. Immediately he said this, one of  them ordered that he should be shot and they shot him.

“Actually, where I was lying, I began to pray. First of all, I repented that day for taking a night bus. Then, after that,  I began to remind the Lord that I am a Watchman, that I am  part and parcel of the IGMC (International Gospel Ministers Conference) vision.  I equally have the vision of  this ministry with the Lord. Then I said to the Lord:  this people must not touch me, let alone  hurting me. In fact, while I was busy praying,  one of them stood behind me with a gun, overseeing the whole operations.

In the course of searching people,  they jumped over me several times but  never searched me. And as if that was not enough, they began to drag people that were alive back to the vehicle so as to identify their bags and give them money. They did all that for about thirty minutes and after they had  satisfied themselves, they left. None of them touched me, searched me or did anything to me.

“We remained there  till morning. It was then I discovered that the young man that sat beside me was dead. The vehicle had fallen on him and he died. So,  many people were wounded by bullets  and others by the vehicle.

 Some had broken legs, heads and so on. Some were shot by the robbers during their operation. But to the glory of God,  though my whole body was soaked with blood, I did  not sustain  any injuries,  not even a scratch and none of my belongings was lost. I saw and recovered all.

Praise God!”