Pastor Bimpe Eskor Mfon was all packed and ready to go home in April 2007, after a harrowing nine months of watching her lifetime partner battle a debilitating ailment, only to lose him, to complications arising from a common bacterial infection. This soft spoken woman has gone ahead to author one book and mid-wife some projects her husband championed, even as she remains on track to celebrate his life through living an exemplary life herself.
BIMPE’S LIFE
It’s been more than one year and the pain is still very raw. Bimpe is a graduate of French who ran her own business for a number of years, but has, since her husband passed, had to run Tie Communications, his PR and Advertising firm. As Bimpe welcomed me to her office in Surulere Lagos, I could see the pain, in the dullness of her eyes, and beyond that, an uncertainty about what she was about to do; grant an interview on how her life celebrates her late husband, Pastor Eskor Mfon. But as soon as she begins to speak of him a smile slowly lights up her face, and the uncertainty disappears, because, as she says, she believes he is in a better place. ‘’Life goes on. I feel guilty that it does, but it does and God is helping. For me it is not about how long anymore, it is about what you do in that life God gives you, and that gift of life is actually a loan because you don’t even know how long it is for. Whether it is one or one hundred and twenty, it is just a question of eternity, where are we going to spend it? Is it with God or with the devil? It was painful and it is still painful but then what sustains is, number one knowing that my husband is in the Lord and then with the hope of re-union, that when I go, I pray at a good old age, I will meet him again which leads me to the next point, if I know that I want to meet him again, then I must work like he did. Impacting lives not just by preaching, but by living whatever he preached.
ESKOR’S LIFE AS A GIFT
Making sure that her husband’s work is put down for posterity is one of Bimpe’s way of appreciating the gift that he was to her and many others. Pastor Eskor was the Provincial Pastor of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Lagos Province 4, Head pf RCCG, Apapa family and Pastor of the City of David, which she says was home to all. ‘’ He was tolerant in everything, he never discriminated against anyone, and City of David was home to all kinds of people. He used to say, ‘leave them, let them come to church, let them hear the word of God, the word of God is like water, it will wash them, it will cleanse them …’ the one thing that his passing has taught me is that we really need to document things for generations to come, that is why I am transcribing his sermons into book form, because you can bless many by some of the things he did, some of his CD’s, his sermons … when I listen to them I wonder at the insight he had, he really did have a passion for souls, for Jesus, for the work of the gospel, so that is the best way we can celebrate his life … by putting his works together. He was intolerant of mediocrity because he was driven by excellence, yet he was very considerate of people’s feelings’’.
The book she authored early last year, Standing By His Grace, is perhaps the ultimate celebration since it is in fulfilment of the promise she made to God during the period of her husband’s illness, that she would give account of God’s faithfulness at the end of it all. This was around about when her husband was to be discharged. ‘’I am going to write about how God brought us through it all, he also planned to write all about his experience, so in writing this I am actually writing for the two of us even though some of the experiences I can’t describe as well as he would have described them. Writing it was very difficult for me, very painful! I was invited to a book reading recently and after I was called to speak, I couldn’t even say a word. It is still too emotional for me’’. The book gives a blow by blow account of the illness, which started off as a tummy upset, taking them all by surprise as they planned her fiftieth birthday. Of course the celebration never took place, rather it was a seemingly unending hospital stay and spiritual battle they fought for Eskor’s life, as well as the love and support they received from family and friends.
Writing about God’s faithfulness even after it seemed death had triumphed, is indeed a celebration of one man who only saw good in others. A man Bimpe has known for more than three decades, and was married to for twenty two years. He fathered her three children, and was indeed her best friend. ‘’i remember one of my children said, ‘mummy we were always telling you to have friends, you had only daddy, what are you going to do now?’ I said, well I will make you my best friends now that daddy has gone. Friends used to tease me that Eskor was my only ministry. But you know, given the responses I’ve been getting, it’s all been worth it writing the book. It proves true what my friend Debbie told me ‘you are writing for a woman whose husband is still alive’, I guess it could help women realise that life and loved ones have to be constantly appreciated.
COPING WITH THE LOSS
Her coping strategy may sound trite to some, but Bimpe says it is simply that of having a thankful heart, and she gets the message across without mincing words. ‘’Life, of course, lost its meaning after my husband died, because if you ask anybody who has been bereaved, it is as if the world has ended. In fact everything looks gloomy, because you are wondering how this can happen, especially in my own case where we were getting ready to return home and have a thanksgiving service. On the human side, it is difficult; God is the only one’’ she pauses with a distant look in her eyes and continues, ‘’our General Overseer (G.O.) Pastor Adeboye, and his wife ministered to me, asking that I find those things I could thank God for. I remember mummy G.O. told me that there are some women who depend on friends to bury their husbands because they have no money, some have no children and some die shortly after because of the pain and grief! People underestimate grief; they come and say ‘oh! She’s okay’ and i always laugh at them. The memory just comes, sometimes you are walking and it just jumps at you, but people think you are fine. So it is God that keeps us, so I will tell others who find themselves in similar positions to take it one day at a time’’.
Eskor’s thoughtfulness, loving heart and generosity, Bimpe says, she will never forget and she is holding on to the outfit, shoes and bag he had intended her to wear on her fiftieth birthday celebration that never was but, she recognises that, ‘’life goes on whether you like it or not, whether you want to die or stay alive, the days just keep passing by, so celebrate life by being true to what you believe, if you say you are a Christian, be such in and out of church. That is how life is for me, and then that my children and I will make it to heaven, it is not about making money. And even if I did, I will put the money back into the work of God.
Culled from Totally Whole