MFM Pastor, Dr. D.K. OLUKOYA’s Wife, SHADE, Explains
General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, Dr. Daniel Olukoya, he is one of the most respected men of God in the country today. He is widely regarded as a man of high integrity and sound intellect, asides being a spirit filled man. His wife, Dr (Mrs) Shade Olukoya, though quite popular too, she is not quite as popular as her husband. And it is deliberate. She tries to keep away from the spotlight and let the focus be on her husband and the ministry alone. She rarely makes public appearances or grant interviews. And she seldom talks about herself and her husband.
But she broke her own rule lately. She spoke about her role in helping her husband be in the right frame of mind at home to do the work God has called him to do. In other words, she was basically sharing with other women the things she does to keep her husband happy despite his heavy work pressure.
She revealed this in a video, where was seen being interviewed by the church’s media department. She urged wives to maintain a warm and playful relationship with their husbands, emphasising that such an approach is both a divine duty and a means to preserve youthfulness. She also stressed the importance of light-hearted interaction, suggesting that spending time playing together not only strengthens the marital bond but also has a rejuvenating effect on both partners.
Dr Shade Olukoya explained that her role as a wife is to help her husband by keeping him happy and engaged. “I play with my husband; I make him laugh every day, whether in the kitchen or elsewhere. After spending a lengthy time in church, he will come back again with loads of prayer requests and prayer letters that have been handwritten. Most of them handwritten, some of them typed, some of them printed. And these are people’s private life issues that he has to handle personally.”
“I mean, look at that. It’s all by God’s grace. So what do I do as a wife? Make him happy, play with him. We play like boys and girls. I tickle him, I do all that. Because I know that’s my own part. I’ve come to help. My job is to help. And for him to be happy while at work, you know, there’s some kind of chemical reactions that goes on in the body when a husband and wife who love themselves, when they are playing together, you know, there’s this chemical reaction that goes around the body that just makes everything so easy and light. I don’t joke with that. I take that as a personal thing, as a very important part of my office, as a helper.”
“I play with my husband, I make him laugh every day, in the kitchen, everywhere. I tickle him. Sometimes I try to pretend as if I can carry him. I try to lift him and he says, don’t break your back, don’t break your back. Okay, so, I tell him, you carry me then, you know. And so, you know, stuff like that. We laugh every day and we smile at things. We have discussions and all sorts. And we have our sober mood when we have to reflect on people’s life’s issues as well. We don’t take that lightly.
We pray together. We talk together. We reason together. And that has been very, very helpful for us in the journey of the ministry. So whether we are together or I’m somewhere, he’s somewhere, we are tightly knitted together. It is very, very important that two perfectly become one. Reasoning together, understanding, knowing the pain of the other, knowing the strength of the other, managing this well and coming together to achieve one strong aim together. And then that helps both to complement one another. That, I think, is very, very good for everyone to think about.
So, as you are aging in the journey, it’s biological. It is normal. We age, things change, but love grows. Love continues to grow no matter what the age is, regardless of circumstances and situations around that journey. But when love is kept in a position that is allowed to grow and it gets the right nurturing, it keeps both of you still youthful, youthful at heart and youthful in the love that used to radiate around you when you started. So love won’t grow old. Rather, it grows younger and newer.
And then it helps both of you also to be rejuvenated. It helps both of you to be youthful. You play sometimes and you forget about your age. And when somebody tells you your age, you say, no, no, no, no, I don’t believe that. Because you keep getting younger and younger. And that’s what it does. It helps you, you know, it actually puts some kind of beauty spell on you as well. That is what the presence of God brings. Since God is love, so that means a loveless life is a godless life. Let love grow. Let love take its place and fill its own space in that relationship. You’ll all be feeling younger and younger and more beautiful. And that is what the presence of God does for us through His love.
I pray that the blessing of God, the presence of God, the goodness of God will overshadow your marriage relationship, will overshadow everything you do. And the honey of the almighty God that never goes sour will fill your relationship in the name of Jesus. The spirit of understanding will enter into the journey of your life together in the name of Jesus. You will reason well with understanding of the Holy Spirit. You will speak words of love to one another and it will stand in the name of Jesus. And the gates of darkness shall not be able to prevail over you.You will hold hands in prayer. When husbands and wives hold hands in prayer, hell is in trouble!”
Dr. Olukoya and his wife, Dr. Shade Olukoya, have been married for 36 years and they have a son named Elijah, together. Dr. Olukoya recalls how he met his wife and how they ended up as man and wife.
“If there’s one thing I really thank God for, it’s the ability to hear what he has to say to me. By my calling, I don’t need to go to the mountain to pray or hide in a corner to pray , before I know what God is saying. That did not happen suddenly. It happened as a result of building-up, praying and consecration. When I was in secondary school, I didn’t have a girlfriend. I was not interested. I read more of my books and I served God. I didn’t do random sampling trying this and trying that. I just relied on God rest assured that when the time comes, He would show me whom to marry. That was how it was until I met her. I met her in the course of my ministration. She was a chorister in another church I was invited to minister. It was the first time I met her and nothing happened then.
So, what was the attraction when he first saw her ministering in the choir, he was asked?
“Let me simplify it. The first time I met my wonderful wife was when she was singing as a member of a choir in a church I was invited to minister. That was how I got to know her. Later, I was in a place called Tresting. It’s somewhere on the mountains in Italy. I went there for a conference. One night too, as I was saying my prayers I prayed about marriages
I asked God for a woman who would want to work and fit into what God wanted me to do and the Lord brought her image. I wasn’t sleeping o. It wasn’t a dream, and God said “this is the woman”. Again, I prayed three times and got the same answer “this is the woman”. That was my first testimony. My father, who was a pastor also prayed. He had never seen her, but when he visited Lagos and saw her for the first time, he said “… this is the woman I saw too”. It’s not a question of I feel led, or I think so, I heard and I saw before I took a step,’ he recounted.
His wife also gave her own account.
“When I first met my husband, I was a chorister. I was very inexperienced and all I knew was to serve my God. I was brought up that way. He was then a music director who came to our church to improve the performance of the choir. We used to call him brother Daniel. There was really nothing on my mind than we had a nice brother who was coming to teach us in the choir. He was down to earth and straightforward. Anytime he came we enjoyed his teaching. We always wanted him around because we learned a lot from him; more than the songs he taught us.
At a time, he had to go overseas in pursuit of his education. He went for his doctorate then. We didn’t know much about that. We were young and just coming to church. We expected him to come, but he didn’t and we learned later that he had traveled. It was like a little child eating a nice piece of cake and somebody came from the blues, snatched away the cake.
At a time, he now came to the church, not as a Music Director but as a Preacher. That was the time he met me. I met him when he was a Music Director he met me when he was a preacher. Bro Daniel returned to the country , but now as a firebrand. We wanted to grow in the Lord. We always wanted to learn from him. He had that pleasant aura, just magnetizing people to the knowledge of God. I was even invited to the fellowship then in the house. We prayed and I had to leave again to pursue my education. I was far away in Ife. On one of his visits, I think he was going to Ondo town then. I think at that time he had received the vision. I hadn’t received anything then. I was just living my normal life I think, but he proposed to me before I left for Ife”.
What was it like as he proposed to her, she was asked?
“It was like he was maybe prophesying or speaking in tongues. It wasn’t the kind of language you would expect from young people… you know something like, I’m in love with you. That day, he called me and we were in a small room where we normally had our fellowship. He used to do his counseling there too. I was thinking within me when I heard he wanted to see me and I wondered oh my God, have I done anything wrong? What has the man of God got to say to me today?
I was on dry fasting as well trying to see a man of God. In preparation for that visit, I was praying and wondered oh God, what is this meeting all about? And he said to me “simple”. Just as he writes his books, he’s a man of not too many words but action backed up by the power of God. I’m not praising anyone, but I’m saying the truth from the bottom of my heart. That day, he talked to me and he said, “God is laying it in my heart that you are my wife. Simple”. It was like I was in another planet trying to come back. Before I said anything, he just said to me, “you have enough time, you go and pray”. I had to leave for Ife then.”
“When he visited, it was like an inquiry about what went on after the appointment. The result of my prayer and things like that. When I got to Ife, it was like God prepared that place for me to have a personal encounter on the issue. To me, it was a matter of life and death, because of our Christian background. We prayed over everything, committed everything into Gods hands. We didn’t do anything without hearing from God. For the first time in my life, we did marathon fasting. I fasted for 3 days just to ensure that I was getting it right and today, the rest is history, we give all glory to God.’
– WALE LAWAL
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