Pastor Gbenga Oso is the General Overseer of the Laughter Foundation International Ministry. His church is known for blessing many couples who through his prayers have had couples. Some have had twins, some triplets. That is why the church has been blessed with hundreds of couples who have had kids after receiving the divine prayers of this respected man of God who has remained so humble.
Recently, City People Publisher SEYE KEHINDE spoke to him about the spiritual challenge many young babes are facing in having children. Below are excerpts of the interview.
Over the last few years, there have been cases of many women having problems with Child bearing. Why is that so? And how does your church help?
We can look at it in 2 ways. First, the natural one. It has to do with modernisation-what people eat, what people drink, that is what medical science tells us, that all these things can affect the organs of the body in a way that a woman may find it difficult to reproduce. So, we can look at the sources of inability to have children from 2 stand points. The first one is the natural one, meaning what medical science teaches us. Modernisation has made people to be eating what they should not eat, drinking what they should not drink. Several years ago, many of the things we have now at the supermarkets were not available. We were all eating fresh food straight from the farm. Atimes, you would even stay in the farm and eat those things. And they do many good things in the body. In those days, you hardly find barren women because what those people were eating were all the things that were good for the body. Those are the things that God actually told us to be eating. For example, in the the Bible, we read about people living up to 900 years, 800 years before death. The reasons behind their longetivity was what they were eating. The fresh vegetable and fruits they were eating. Those things were what God originally created for human consumption. Those people were eating those things and they were living up to be 400 years, 800 years and 900 years.
But modernisation made us to pollute the raw plants with chemicals. Apart from the fact that the chemicals have shortened our lifespan, they also affect child -beating activities. That is just one side. The other side is spiritual. There are people who have problems in having children not necessarily because of what they eat but because of something more powerful that they cannot explain. There are people, who would go to hospital and doctors would carry out test and examination on them and the doctors would say you are ok. Doctor would tell husband, you are ok, wife you are ok. Then, whats the matter. The doctor will say we don’t know ooo! Such strange challenges could be considered spiritual. I have seen people, who have received medical treatment within the country and outside the shores of this country.The treatment which worked for other people, would just not work for them, because the thing behind their inability to have children was more than what medical science can handle. These are the 2 cases-people whose inability to have children was caused by the chemical polluted foods. Their cases could be easily handled by medical treatment or medical attention, but women whose inability to have children is beyond the treatment which medical science as is a Spiritual Thing. Its only God who can resolve it. There are so many examples.
There was an example of a woman, anytime she was pregnant, she would see persons in her dream, about 3 or 4 women laughing and saying, do you think you would deliver this one? By the time she would wake up she would start to see blood. She has had miscarriages.
For people, who don’t understand, they can ask how does that happen? These are spiritual things. It happened to her for more than 5 times. She would wait for a long time after each miscarriage before getting another pregnancy and losing it after 2 months into the pregnancy after a repeat of the same dream. That was the story until she and her husband came to see me and I prayed for her, gave her Bible passages to be reading. That was when she overcame all the spiritual challenges. Some women who have such issues, are people who have money to go to seek solution. The woman I am talking about is a senior person in the Oil industry. She had been to so many hospitals, but hospitals could not help bad dreams, but prayers was able to help. After the prayers and the assignment that I gave her and her husband she became pregnant. Those dreams that she had been having didn’t come again. She was able to deliver a baby boy. So, those are the 2 areas to look. Natural areas and Spiritual areas as the factors causing of Infertility. Spiritual areas could only be redeemed by prayers and power of God.
At the time you got your calling what did He ask you to do?
God speaks to me much because I am somebody who prays much. I used to pray a lot. I am still praying much. In this ministry, there was a time I went on Fasting and Prayers, eating once a day for 282 days about 9 months just eating once in a day. I was doing that because of some other activities, so that I can have strength to do other activities. After that, I rested for sometime and I had another round if fasting and prayer for 500 days. That was around 2004, 2005, 500 days are more than a year. That is 1 year 4 months, eating once a day. Atimes, I would make it 2 days marathon fast. I won’t eat.
When God spoke to me, I was thinking how I could do it. But it didn’t take me a long time before I started in March 1997. When I started, I started 2 forms of programmes-I was training for general miracle service because the people who coming for infertility challenges were few. I then wondered Haa! How could somebody continue with this? So what I did was after calling everbody to come after ministering to everybody I would say ok, those who want to have children could wait. We would now have the 2nd programme. At a point, God told me that the programme I was doing first was not what He called me for. The 2nd one you are doing is what I called you for. Up until that time. I didn’t call you for the 1st one. There are so many people doing that general miracle service. I called you for Miracle Service for people looking for children. From that day, I told the other people not to come again. We started just ministering to people believing in God for children. Then we started using the media to create awareness and the crowd became bigger and bigger till today.
What should women who believe in God for children do?
They should come for our monthly miracle service. The main day we do everything we need to do about people who want children is the 2nd Sunday of every month. What we do that day, we call it the monthly miracle service. That service is always a family long service. People come to give testimonies. This stream you see on television is real. That is the day we recorded that. Atimes 5 persons, 10 persons atimes come around to give life testimonies of what they have been through and how God did it for them. So the 2nd Sunday of every month is our monthly miracle service to focus attention basically on people believing in God for children.
Its not only me speaking. On that day, they will hear testimonies from people who have come here and God has answered them. We always encourage people and strengthen their faith and have what they want. On those days, some of the challenges that are spiritual in nature, these are the programmes that deal with them.
There is a women, who is our member here. She got married at 56. She would not get married until she came here at 56. At 56 she is now married. We see many ladies in their 40s and 50s getting married here. There are things we see here. What brought them to that level is not ordinary. It is only the annointing that can break that yoke. It is only the power of God that can help them overcome the challenge of lifetime singleness.
How did Laughter Foundation start?
The mandate came from God 20 years ago for me to begin to pray for couples in need of children, couples that have been married for some time, who unfortunately have not been able to have children. And you would know that they could have done everything, go to hospitals and they can do all these and it will yield no result, so God spoke to me that I should start a Ministry that will basically focus on that.
At that time we didn’t have a church that was doing that, that was basically doing that. what churches will do is, during the service, maybe, have 1 or 2 minutes to pray for people who believing God for Children.
But God specifically told me that I was going to start a Ministry and the only thing that Ministry before that time.
When I heard that I had a clear picture of the message. I heard that and the Ministry started in March 1997 with about 8 people in attendance and then we went on. The attendance was growing little. It was at that point I knew the power of the media.
From that time, we continued to use the media starting from the radio to TV and eventually to print media. The journey has been wonderful in these 20 years testimonies abound.
There are so many testimonies. I can’t remember 1% of those testimonies of people who have done everything a human being should do to have children that have not been possible.
There is one. A couple came have, few years ago. The woman has been married for 35 years without a child. Of course before she came have, she had gone around done everything. She was also working in a hospital. She eventually came here after making so much efforts to get pregnant. As God was doing it for people she became pregnant. By the time she delivered that baby girl she was 59 years old going to 60 years. For a woman to have a baby at that age was nothing but a miracle. These are some of the things we see here.
There was also a woman who came here and God answered her prayers. By the time she had her 1st born she was 54. Many people were surprised that she could have her 1st child at 54. She had a 2nd child at 56, here. She still comes to church with those children.
One happened very recently. Its about a couple who got married in Nigeria. The husband came from the UK to get married to the wife in Nigeria and later the wife joined him in the UK.
And then it was time to start making babies. And nothing was happening. There, they were exposed to the best medical practice in the UK. Their marriage was going into years. They got married at one of our branches in Ibadan.
This couple got married at one of our branches in Ibadan. Then the man went back to the UK. The wife later joined him. The wife knew what God has been doing in Laughter Foundation. They didn’t have any of such in the UK. (They were members of a church. A very fantastic church but no child. The problem the wife has been having is bad dreams. Anytime she got pregnant, she will suffer bad dreams and that will finished every thing. At a point, she was not getting pregnant and they started doing IVF after they did 6 IVFs and there was no child, the wife told the husband and said look, I know where I came from. At Laughter Foundation this kind of thing is death with easily.
So she spoke to the husband that they should relocate to Nigeria. As difficult as it was, the husband agreed with her, since having children has become a big issue. The wife knew that what they were facing, could be taken care of here at the Laughter Foundation Church. It is always a problem that God solves easily here. So the husband now started applying for jobs in Nigeria. He was working with an Oil company in the UK, London.
He was applying for the same job in Lagos so that he can be here in Lagos and be attending our church here.
Luckily for them, he got a job and they relocated back to Nigeria. The said they had every thing going for them in the UK but the issue of having a child was more important that all that. The wife resigned from her job and both relocated completely.
Then they both started attending Laughter Foundation. To cut a long story short, the IVF went to 7, meaning they did 7 IVS that failed.
But within years that they have been attending Laughter Foundation the wife got pregnant. She was afraid that she will lose the pregnancy again. Of course I told her not to worry. I had some time to pray with them before the pregnancy came. I saw their names in the forms people fill.
In our church, when you come here for the 1st time there is a form members fill. They fill counseling forms. And in it they narrated.
