Edu Okorie: the life of a leader
Chris Pepple |
There’s a Christian school in Nigeria that is three hours from the Port Harcourt airport. It’s a walled school in the jungle with twelve buildings (and two being built) used for worship, classes, administrative work, recreation and lodging. It’s a school without computers, without phones, without internet access for the children. The PTA paid for the wall to be built around the school so the staff and children could be protected from thieves wandering the lawless area of the land. The yearly tuition of $200 a year remains just under the $290 annual average income of the families who send their children there for an education.
Many Christians see this school as an excellent opportunity for mission work. Their generous donations help make this school a reality, help construct structurally sound buildings for the students and staff, keep the generator running. Visitors to the school spread hope and encouragement. No one knows the benefits provided by caring Christians more than Edu Okorie (’81), a man who has made the school more than a mission trip. It’s his life.
Lipscomb alumnus Edu Okorie, his wife and two children live near the grounds of Nigerian Christian Academy (NCA) in the Etim Ekpo area of the country. Okorie founded the school in 1999 with the support of several churches in Nashville, Middle Tennessee and from the Buford church in Georgia. NCA offers a preschool through high school education. The school, which placed third academically in its state, has 1,050 students. In 2005, sixty-seven students graduated from NCA.
Okorie graduated from Lipscomb University in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. In 1984, he acquired his master’s degree from Tennessee State University. He returned to work in Nigeria as a missionary in 1986. In that role, he established sixteen local congregations between 1987 and 1999 (and has continued to establish local congregations throughout the area). He has baptized many people including local chiefs. Beside his home, a generator runs all night to pump water from the well so six spigots can provide fresh drinking water for the nearest village. Without this water, the local villagers would have to walk three miles to the nearest river.
In July 1999, Okorie started the Nigerian Christian Academy. He carved out a space in the jungle and started building from scratch with the support of generous donors who knew the blessing this work could be to the area. Gary Finley, one supporter of Okorie’s work, writes, “The Christian students at the school are already influencing not only other children, but also their parents and relatives. Some day, the graduates will make a difference in the Nigerian political culture.”
Finley has traveled to view the school and help continue to encourage and support Okorie and his family and staff. “I have been blessed to have traveled to a number of places throughout the world including five times to Africa,” Finley states. “Edu’s work is absolutely the most productive work that I have ever observed first-hand. I am passionate about his work.”
Paul Langford, retired Lipscomb professor and current recruiter for premed students, remembers Okorie from his days as a student at Lipscomb. “I have kept up with him through the years,” Langford states. “Edu really makes a positive impact on the community he lives in. When he raised the funds to dig a well, he allowed the local villagers to come get water, too. That allows him to touch the lives of many people.”
On the 10th of every month, Nashville supporters send a package to Okorie with correspondence and supplies. No other means of communication are possible because of Okorie’s location. The package can be sent only because of an arrangement with DHL. Okorie’s school is on no regular mail route.
The communication challenges are mild compared to other difficulties faced with life in a Nigerian jungle. Okorie must keep some funds on the premises to buy basic supplies and to pay faculty members. With no bank nearby, Okorie must drive an hour one way to deposit funds. He has been the victim of an attempted robbery by thieves slipping through the jungle. One such robbery attempt left Okorie with a gunshot wound to the leg. He has also had to face a malaria diagnosis for his young son, Efep. Okorie raises his young daughter, Inimbuk, away from the luxuries of modern life he experienced when he studied at Lipscomb. Even building the school had challenges. Okorie cleared his mother’s land of palm fruit trees and built the school from scratch. Wooden buildings can be temporary shelters, but must be replaced before termites bring them down. Once students were enrolled, Okorie’s wife, Unwana, designed clothing for them so each child had school uniforms to wear into a classroom.
Okorie sees the effects of his work, however. He brought a young girl named “God Knows Effiong Jimmy” into his school who was forced to leave her pagan family after she converted to Christianity. Okorie saw her graduate from NCA and begin work toward entering college. He gave two young boys named Immanuel and Israel a home and an education after both parents were killed in the region. “He gave two boys a future they couldn’t have had,” Finley notes. “Edu’s heart is in his work.”
When the school’s drum sounds, the beat can be heard two miles away. The message Edu Okorie brings to the students will travel even farther. The education he offers to the people in the Etim Ekpo area and the faith he invites the people to grab hold of will be with them as they travel throughout Nigeria and the world.
--Chris Pepple