Obi and Boi Outpourings
A spontaneous revival broke out in Gindiri in 1972. The first showers of this revival were felt in Obi (in the Mada Hills area immediately to the south of the Jos Plateau), in 1971. There, a small group of staff and students at the Obi Bible school, founded by the Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ in Nigeria, started holding special prayer meetings after they experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit resulting in spiritual experiences that included visions, healings and speaking in tongues.” This outpouring lasted for much of 1971.
In December 1971, one of the students visited his home in Boi. He shared stories of the Obi outpouring. This led to special prayer meetings for revival and resulted in a repeat of the Obi experience. In Boi, there was public repentance and confession of sin, reconciliation and restitution, and the manifestation of the gift of prophecy. In January 1972, news of this revival reached Gindiri through a native of Boi who was a student of the Gindiri Pastors’ college. Shortly after this two women from Boi visited Bitrus Auta, pastor of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Gindiri.
Auta’s Vision and the Confession Spree
They told him that the Holy Spirit had revealed to them that there were wrong-doers in his congregation and that he was to do something about them. On Sunday morning, February 27, 1972, Auta had a supernatural experience during church service: “I saw people in the church, pure white and transparent as bottles, and these were those with faith. Those without faith were very black-like blackened cooking pots, even if they were wearing white clothing. I heard a voice say to me, ‘Do not allow them to go out today. Call to them loudly and show them what they are doing. Truly, unless they repent, they will receive great judgment from the Lord.”
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I called them by name and told them what the Holy Spirit said concerning all their deeds. After that the Holy Spirit touched all the people in the church, and everyone was weeping for his sins. Everyone openly confessed his sins, from 11.30 a.m. until 6.30 p.m. At the Gindiri secondary school chapel that night, something unusual happened, unconnected to the earlier COCIN event. The preacher -Tambaya Jibrin, after singing some words from Psalm 23 said, “No, it will not be so unless my sin is covered and I am free in Christ.”
By this he meant those that were not converted could not participate in the blessings of that song. That set the stage for what followed. The principal of the boys section of the school, Derek Joy, recollected that what followed was totally unexpected. A lady who attended this meeting recounted the experience: “There must have been well over 1,000 people in the church although the three aisles were only wide enough for three abreast at the most, almost the entire church rose up forced into the aisles and came seething forward. Some came right upon the pulpit (platform) and knelt.
Date: 13th September 2022
Title: The Gindiri Revival – A Confession Spree
Source: A Heritage of Faith: A History of Christianity in Nigeria
Author: Ayodeji Abodunde
Tale Tuesday 008
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