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Roberts and Medical Team Head to Nigeria

By Ginger Shepherd

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Click Photo to Enlarge ORU alumni Scott Cordray, D.O., and Glenda Payas, D.M.D., work on a patient during the 2005 healing crusade. Dr. Cordray and Dr. Payas have successful medical and dental practices, respectively, in Tulsa.

Click Photo to Enlarge Doreen Babo, Ph.D. (seated) and Mark Babo, M.D., are two ORU alumni who helped run the medical clinic that operated in tandem with the healing crusade in 2005. Doreen is the international director of Faith Medical Center in Benin City, Nigeria; Mark is the medical director.

Plans are being finalized as nearly 40 people--doctors, surgeons, nurses, and support crew--prepare to accompany ORU president Richard Roberts to Nigeria for a week-long crusade that will provide both spiritual and medical healing.

Roberts and the team will be conducting the actual healing crusade and medical clinics in the African country from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4. The preparations for the trip started after President Roberts' trip to Ghana and Nigeria in January of last year. During that trip, ORU's president was asked by an ORU Regent, Bishop Michael Reid, to go to Ibadan, Nigeria, said Mike Bernard, Vice President for Operations for the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Vice President for Information Technology and Communications Systems at ORU. Reid told Roberts there was a contact that he should make in Ibadan.

Roberts was asked to meet with Bishop S.K. Abiara, the senior pastor of the Christ Apostolic Church in Ibadan. Bernard said Roberts then spoke at the pastor's new church.

"While driving in the car, the Lord clearly told him to do a crusade in Ibadan," Bernard said, so work was started.

David Wagner, Vice President for University Relations at ORU, said since that time about 14 committees in Ibadan have been working together on the planning and preparation for the event.

The crusade will be about bringing healing through the miraculous as well as through medicine. Wagner said many of the nearly 40 individuals going on the crusade are doctors, dentists, and nurses who will be running medical and dental clinics to provide much-needed health care to the people of Ibadan.

Additionally, surgeons are part of the crusade; an ophthalmologist in particular will be performing eye surgeries at the University College Hospital, he said. He estimated that more than 1,000 people will be seen and receive treatment at all of the various medical sites.

"It shows that God is alive, He works miracles, and He heals through medicine," Wagner said.

In addition to providing treatment to patients, Wagner said doctors will provide some continuing education opportunities for doctors in Ibadan. Such opportunities also enable the crusade doctors to learn about health trends in the country where they are volunteering their time and skills.

The miracles-and-healing crusade will take place at Liberty Stadium, which can hold 50,000 people, Bernard said.

In addition to ministering to different needs in Nigeria, Roberts will make a one-day stop in Niger, the country that neighbors Nigeria to the north. He has been invited to speak to a group of Christian pastors from across the country. As reported in a 1989 edition of an Oral Roberts Ministries publication, Niger is one of the 40 nations that the Holy Spirit told Roberts his ministry would someday reach.

The visit will provide a chance for Roberts to make contacts within the country and to explore the possibilities of setting up an event like the crusade in Nigeria, Wagner and Bernard said, although, Bernard added, the crusade may be labeled a "Miracle Healing Rally" in the predominantly Muslim Niger.