The pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Royal Ambassadors, Lagos Province 38, Babajide Ogundeji, has empowered 43 widows with food items and money to enable them to trade in small scale businesses.

Speaking at his church in Alakuko, Lagos State, the cleric said he was motivated by the urge to help widows so that they won’t feel neglected in society, adding that the mode of selecting the beneficiaries was not based on religion.

He said, “It’s my birthday so I felt the need to give back to people who cannot give back to me and I thought that the best people to start with will be widows as many of them are helpless.

“So, I set up a committee of three people in the church and gave them the mandate to look for these widows and that they don’t have to be Christians or members of our church.

“So, what they did was to move around the community and outside Alakuko, where the church is located and when we got recommendations from people within and outside the church, from our end, what we did was to verify if truly they are widows by doing a short interview with the widows and also visiting their houses for further verification.

“We got interest from 60 widows but because I had specific instructions from God to reach out to 41 widows, my wife said to me that we should increase it to 45 because the interests were many.”

But eventually, on the day, 43 widows showed up. So, we gave out N30,000 cash and a food bag worth N6,100 to each of the 43 widows.

“Out of the 43 widows we reached out to eventually, maybe just five were members of my local parish. We also encouraged them to use the money to go and start a business or use the money to add to an existing business. I also said to them to come back in six months to show me if they have been able to multiply whatever businesses they are doing so I can support them further.”

One of the beneficiaries, Mosunmola Gomez, said, “I thank God for benefitting from this empowerment; yesterday, I didn’t have money to take delivery of bread but with what he has done today, I will be able to collect bread tomorrow.”

Another beneficiary, Muslim Muritala, said, “I thank him (Ogundeji) for his generosity to us. May God continue to protect him and not let him and his family experience hunger.”