A Poetic Tribute To Apostle Geoffrey Dabibi Numbere (1944 – 2014) | Copyright © 2014 By Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Psalm 116:15 King James Version (KJV)
“The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.” Proverbs 10:7 King James Version (KJV)
“We have happy memories of the godly, but the name of a wicked person rots away.” Proverbs 10:7 New Living Translation (NLT)
Sometime in 1944 a son was born!
Maybe it was on a Sunday morn,
For Sunday became a Special Day:
When the grave stone was rolled away
And Jesus triumphantly walked away!
Oh, that Great and Blessed Day!
What name should he bear?
That’s a question we often hear.
His parents gave him a good name
That prepared him for great fame.
A name is not just for identification:
A name can be a means to elevation,
Or carry a curse for destruction,
As we know from biblical instruction.
“Word Killeth, Word Maketh Alive”:
He taught us how to talk to thrive.
A brilliant and outstanding student he was:
He toiled hard to avoid academic flaws.
No wonder, he was the overall best candidate:
1958 Eastern Nigeria Primary School Certificate.
And the famed Government College, Umuahia
Was surely the right school to take him higher.
There was no money to pay his school fee,
But his excellence helped him to school free:
He was awarded Eastern Nigeria scholarship.
He was surely the best, he was the flagship!
He proceeded to do his advanced level in Owerri:
No money, but with God you don’t have to worry.
To the University of Ife he went to study geology:
A very lucrative oil-company career, not theology!
And with Rivers State Government scholarship,
He was happy he had no financial hardship.
But Sunday, 11 May 1969 was a turning point:
He gave his life to Jesus Christ – the starting point
Of a glorious walk with God for forty-five years!
A walk that makes life’s sorrows temporary tears!
Tuesday, 3 March 1970 was a memorable day!
As he knelt down by his hostel bed to pray,
God gave him a vision that changed his course:
The salvation of lost souls was a better cause.
He saw multitudes of lost souls, bowed faces
And God clearly told him, “Go, raise their faces
That they may look up to Me and that they might live.”
He obeyed God even if it was his life he had to give.
Painful it was, his lucrative career to abandon,
But he paid the great price for sinners’ salvation.
His family couldn’t appreciate his strange conviction,
But he never gave up in the midst of their persecution.
“Where should I start from,” he had asked The LORD.
“Anywhere” was God’s answer; he obeyed His word
And to the Muslim Northern Nigeria he went.
His three-year missionary sojourn was well spent
Among Muslims who bow their faces to pray
Just like the multitudes in his vision on that day.
He had many converts all over the place,
For God bestowed upon him His grace.
Then back to his home in Rivers State he came,
Where he was born and some knew his name.
Saturday, 9 September 1972 will forever be cherished:
“Greater Evangelism World Crusade” was established,
Birthed during an all-night prayer meeting
Of zealous youths out to do God’s bidding.
God gave him the name of the Ministry;
It wasn’t based on a religious sophistry.
“To Know Jesus And To Make Jesus Known:”
God gave him the motto – it wasn’t of his own.
6 December 1972, God gave him the emblem.
Where God leads, He handles every problem:
How else would the Ministry have survived
When one with another to destroy it connived?
He celebrated forty-two victorious years of the Ministry
By God’s grace, not because of his industry.
That was what the humility he epitomised taught him:
Not to share God’s glory, but ascribe every success to Him.
No earthly thing could blur God’s vision to him.
Wealth, pleasures, fame often make such vision grow dim.
Persecutions came and went, betrayals hit and left,
For in the Rock of God he stayed, safe in its cleft.
Storms blew and ceased, waves raged and calmed,
For in the Boat of God he dwelt and slept unharmed.
In hunger and pain he toiled, for souls lost to be reached.
Face-to-face with death many times he preached.
A fiery preacher he was, the undiluted Gospel his delight.
To sinners he preached and Believers he taught, to show all the Light.
He was a Bible teacher extraordinaire.
He never had the quest to be a millionaire.
Heed his last teaching, if Heaven you must make,
Revealed in his last book, “I Forgive, For My Sake.”
A few years before he left he did massive ordination exercises.
They weren’t just ordinary ecclesiastical exercises:
The Future-Seeing God through him was empowering a multitude
That after him will take the Ministry to a higher altitude!
We may not know the exact date and time of his birth,
But we surely know the exact date and time of his death.
Innocent we all were at the time of our birth,
But lost or saved we are from the time of our death,
And the deathday is more important than the birthday:
A solemn lesson that Ecclesiastes 7:1 teaches us today.
On 15 October 2014 all his earthly labours ceased:
He’s now in Heaven where no one is diseased.
We mourn the painful loss of his irreplaceable earthly company,
But we celebrate the glorious dawn of his irreversible Heavenly destiny.
Apostle Geoffrey Dabibi Numbere, he is the one!
Selah! Alleluia! Marantha!
Copyright © 2014 By Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee
Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee wrote this poetic tribute to Apostle Geoffrey Dabibi Numbere on 19 November 2014.