Walking with God: Coming to America, The Promised Land

By Chukuma C. Chijioke

Do you want to hear and receive instructions from God? This book teaches you how to hear from God, understand His voice, obey His instructions, and see His wonderful works resulting from your obedience.

In this inspirational autobiography, Dr. Chukuma Chijioke documents each step in his testimony with honest transparency. He details his jo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637696330

Book preview

C_Chijioke_5.5x8.5_Cover_Front-01.jpg

Walking with God: Coming to America, The Promised Land

A TRUE-LIFE STORY OF THE VICTORIOUS JOURNEY WITH GOD FROM CRADLE TO THE FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PROMISE, THE STRUGGLES, AND TRIUMPH OVER THE FORCES OF DARKNESS AND A GENERATIONAL CURSE.

Dr. Chukuma C. Chijioke

Trilogy Christian Publishers

TUSTIN, CA

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive

Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2021 by Chukuma C. Chijioke

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ISV are taken from the Holy Bible: International Standard Version® Copyright © 1996-2013 by the ISV Foundation. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC. All rights reserved internationally.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without written permission from the author. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-63769-632-3

E-ISBN: 978-1-63769-633-0

Other Titles in the Walking with God Book Series

Book 2: Finding a Virtuous Wife

Book 3: Miraculous Deliverances

Book 4: Fulfilling the Promise

Contents

Dedication vi

Introduction vii

Chapter 1. In the Beginning 1

Chapter 2. Primary Education 12

Chapter 3. High School/Secondary Education 25

Chapter 4. Medical Education 33

Chapter 5. Repentance and Conversion 39

Chapter 6. Relocation to Port Harcourt 51

Chapter 7. Service in His Vineyard 91

Chapter 8. Coming to America 132

book 1

Walking with God: Coming to America, The Promised Land

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my adorable and beloved parents, late Ichie (Elder) Charles Chijioke Nwoke & Mrs. Rebecca Nwoke. They embraced the biblical injunction, Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6, KJV). They applied this time-tested godly instruction to raise my siblings and me in the fear, knowledge, and love of God, lighting up the way for us to follow the Lord at a young age.

Introduction

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that grows brighter until the full light of day.

Proverbs 4:18 (ISV)

The steps of a [good and righteous] man are directed and established by the LORD, and He delights in his way [and blesses his path]. When he falls, he will not be hurled down, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand and sustains him.

Psalm 37:23-24 (AMP)

(hereinafter, brackets in the original)

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void. But it shall accomplish what I please. And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV)

If God will not do it, He will not say it. If He has said it, He will surely do it, no matter how long it takes.

There are situations you find yourself in life that seem hopeless. You look eastward—there is hopelessness; westward—there is hopelessness. When you look southward, streams of tears flow from your eyes. But when you look northward, up there, in heaven, is God who has put you on this journey of life.

Your path of life has smooth parts, some rough parts, some rocky parts, some parts are mountainous, some straight parts, some crooked parts, some parts pass through a valley, some parts pass through the water, some parts pass through the fire, some parts pass through the wilderness, some parts pass through thick forest, and some parts pass through the darkness.

But at the end of the darkness is light, your spacious place, your expected end, your promised land.

God has promised to walk with you throughout your whole life’s journey until He brings you to your expected end, your promised land. As God declared in Jeremiah 29:11 (KJV), For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

chapter 1

In the Beginning

This first book in the Walking with God series embodies the true-life story of my journey with God from cradle to the fulfillment of His promise to me, the struggles against and triumph over the evil forces of darkness and a generational curse.

This autobiography began with my encounter with the Lord in my final year in medical school at the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu campus. On December 18, 1985, God spoke to me and made three promises to me. Before that day, I had a problem in school, for which I embarked on three days of fasting and prayers to seek God’s intervention on the matter. On the final day of my waiting on the Lord, precisely on December 18, God gave me three promises that would shape the rest of my life.

God said, I am going to take care of the problem you have in the school.

Additionally, God told me, I know you have a problem with Ngozi. But go back and reconcile with her because she is the person that has been chosen to be your wife. Because two of you have work to do together for Me.

Furthermore, God spoke and said, I am going to bless you and make you exceedingly rich. But the money is for your less fortunate brothers and sisters.

Assuredly, God fulfilled all the promises He made to me according to His word. Concerning the first promise, He took care of the problem I had in school that semester, and I was free. Regarding the second promise, He ensured the fulfillment of that promise, too, to the glory of His holy name.

Ngozi, which from the Igbo language translates as blessing in the English language, is the name of my beloved and beautiful wife. Her other name is Jemima. Jemima (Hebrew) was the name of the oldest of the three beautiful daughters of Job in the Bible. Jemima means dove.

After my communion with God, I obeyed and traveled to her nursing school in another town named Owerri (approximately ninety miles from Enugu) to reconcile with my future wife. Two weeks before embarking on this fasting and prayer journey, I had written her to tell her to forget about me as she had refused to visit me in school or have any intimate relationship with me for the past four years we had been friends because she was a virgin. Therefore, on that day, God instructed me to go and reconcile with her. After the reconciliation, we continued our genuine platonic no-contact relationship. The thrilling occurrences of our journey’s path to the altar on May 5, 1990, are recorded in the second book, Finding a Virtuous Wife in the Walking with God series.

The experiences of my exhilarating journey with God, culminating in the fulfillment of the third promise, are recorded in this first book, Coming to America, the Promised Land, in the Walking with God series. Thus, the incredible and breath-taking events of my life that climaxed in the third promise’s attainment are meticulously documented in this book and constitute this autobiography’s theme.

My name is Chukuma Clifton Onyinye Chijioke; I am a physician, biostatistician, and public health epidemiologist, the fourth child of seven children born to my parents, Ichie (Elder) Charles Chijioke Nwoke and Mrs. Rebecca Nwoke.

I hail from the village of Umumba, one of the five clans that make up the Nsirimo autonomous community in the Umuahia South local government area of Abia State in South-East Nigeria. (Abia State is also known as God’s own state.) Thus, my father’s nuclear family consisted of nine individuals, though I had an uncle and his wife, who had seven children too.

I was born in Lagos, as all my siblings, except for my last sibling, born in my village. Lagos was the colonial and administrative capital of Nigeria from 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated to form the single colony of Nigeria. Lord Frederick Lugard, the then colonial British governor-general, oversaw the amalgamation. However, on December 12, 1991, Abuja replaced Lagos as the federal capital city of Nigeria.

My family was a middle-class family and moderately comfortable. My father was a technician with the Igbobi Orthopedic Hospital in Lagos in the fifties and sixties, while my mother was a homemaker. My first three siblings were all girls, and my father had lost all hopes of ever having a son to carry on the family name.

As the family story went, my father refused to come out or participate in my third sister’s christening ceremony when she was born. He was said to have locked himself up in his room and wept bitterly throughout the naming ceremony, lamenting that the road for him to have a son, who will succeed him, was closed. He was in this distraught, hopeless, and desperate situation for more than six years before I was born.

As the family story continued, my father was ecstatic and thrilled with joy with my arrival. He took alcohol and got drunk for the first and last time ever. He never touched alcohol in any form throughout his life after that. Donations and cash gifts were liberally given to the family by relatives, friends, well-wishers, neighbors, and my father’s colleagues at work during my christening ceremony. My father gave me my first native name, Chukuma-Ikpeazu, which denotes that only God has the final say in any challenging or demanding situation that comes our way. My first native Igbo name, Chukuma-Ikpeazu, translates to God knows the end in the English language. Additionally, my grandmother gave me my second native name, Onyinye (which translates as gift from God).

The names given to me by my parents from birth were Chukuma Clifton Onyinye Nwoke until August 8, 2004, when God told me to change my surname (last name), resulting in my current last name Chijioke (which translates as God holds my destiny or God holds my portion). Chijioke was my father’s native name.

My father utilized the donations and cash gifts from my naming ceremony to purchase a land plot at Aba, also in Abia State. He erected a building for rental purposes as a memorial to my birth and wrote Chukuma’s Villa across the front of the building, which is still standing today. Thus, my birth wiped away my father’s tears, anguish, pain, and hopelessness as a father without a son, inheritance, or continuity among his extended family members.

A short description of the importance to a father of having a son to succeed him, carrying on and preserving the family’s name in Igbo culture and tradition is vital to understanding the dilemma of a man without a son to inherit his estate among his family members.

The Igbos who occupy the southeastern region of Nigeria are believed to be the lost tribe of Israel, the descendants of the sons of Gad, the seventh son of Jacob. According to the YouTube narrative The History of Igboland: Ndigbo, the Lost Tribe of Israel and the Nigerian Slave Trade, compiled by Matthew Onyekachi Eneoko, a historian, the Igbos’ forebears were Gad’s three sons, Eri, Arodi, and Areli, recorded in Genesis 46:16. These three brothers fled from Egypt with their families when the Egyptians persecuted the Israelites to avoid the subsequent slavery