PASTOR INYANG: MY WIFE MARRIED ME WHEN OTHERS REJECTED ME

Pastor Dennis Inyang, the presiding pastor of Sure Word Assembly, is a stickler for perfection. From his fine tailored dress to his neat office, it was obvious that the man was dapper. A grin broke his face as he peered at me from behind his designer spectacles, outlining a perfect set of glistening none teeth as I flopped into a chair opposite him.In this chat with The Sun, Pastor Inyang speaks on Romance, his Beautiful Wife (Aity), his Calling..
Romance: Pastor Inyang met Aity while studying at the University of Calabar. For him it was a case of love at first sight the moment he set eyes on the damsel, who would later become his wife.“We met at the University of Calabar at a programme that was hosted by the Christian Union. Interestingly, the programme was tagged: I’ve Found It; probably that was prophetic,” begins Pastor Inyang, a look of nostalgia etched on his face.“She got saved that night
Sweet mother: 50 years after, what’s been his greatest regret, what are those things he’d want to do differently?“There are always things one could do differently with the benefit of hindsight though I can’t really think of any right now. But there is something I wish I could change. I had a great relationship with my mother. When I look back I wish she had lived long enough to see who I have become, to see how her little boy turned out, because she laboured and did so much for me. She did not live long enough to see me become who I am today. She went to be with the Lord in 1991. That’s one area I wish I could change. At the time she died she was actually living with me because I was her only child.”
Happiest moments: Pastor Inyang says that in the past 50 years he has had many great moments. A happy glow descends on his visage as he speaks: “My happiest moments?” he asks rhetorically as he responds to the question, “I have had great moments; I don’t know which of them is happiest. Getting married to my wife, Aity, was one of them. My wife has been my friend, my confidant, my counsellor and I think I couldn’t have married a better girl. My wife married me at a time it seemed I had no future.“I often make a joke that if I had been given free of charge to some ladies and even if that lady was paid a salary she would have rejected me and probably pleaded the blood of Jesus! Maybe I have exaggerated that a bit, but I am just trying to make the point that she did not marry me for anything material she could get because I had nothing.“Another day was the day we had our baby, Kasemfon. The name means behold the grace of God: we also call her, Lovely. She has been such a great blessing. She is just a year old. My friends came from all over to celebrate with us because this was a baby of ours after lots and lots of years of not having a baby of our own.“Another great moment was when we started Sure Word Assembly. When God called us into the ministry, the question was, ‘how were we going to do it?’ We didn’t have money. In fact the only money I had was N3, 920. And that was the money I used to pay for the hotel we used and printed handbills.” and came on the podium to give her testimony.
The moment I saw her something within me was stirred and I said in my heart, ‘this is a beautiful girl. I must meet her again!”By the end of the service, he was restless and overcome by a strong desire to meet Aity one-on-one; and so he pleaded with his covenant brother in church saying that he just had to meet the young girl that gave testimony during the programme. “It turned out I knew her roommate and we started visiting. Eventually we became friends and started a relationship.“She was16 and I was 20 when we met and fell in love with each other. It took two years for me to ask her to marry me. I had no money when I proposed to her; it was by faith and not a function of how much I had,” he confessed, adding that his dream had been to tie the knot at the age of 25.Proposal:Pastor Inyang says proposing to his wife was something he planned and executed meticulously because he was keen on winning his future wife’s heart as well as making sure she truly loved him.“I did mine like a village boy,” he says recounting that romantic evening years ago at the University of Calabar. “She knew my intentions but I didn’t know she already knew that I planned to propose to her the day I did. I made all the preparation and asked her out that evening.

We went somewhere at Malabo in UNICAL.“I started telling her about myself, about my mother and father and the fact that they were not together anymore. I told her about the challenges I had growing up. How I was going through school and how I didn’t come from a very wealthy family. I was just downloading on her. I told her that chances were that we would live in the village since I had no plans to go anywhere because I was a village boy.“I told her that my village was a local place and we did not have good roads, no pipe borne water and no electricity. I was trying to scare her, to test her love. And when I was done with all of that, I told her that I wanted her to marry me. I thought she was going to tell me what other born again girls would say which was, ‘let me go pray about it.’“Back then in the Christian Union, it was unthinkable for any girl to say yes to a man the first time he proposed.
You needed to keep the man waiting and probably say, ‘I will pray about it’ possibly for three or six months and all of that. But I was surprised that she said yes right on the spot! And when she told me yes, I was happy, I was overjoyed and that was just the beginning.”Rejected:However, his dreams for an early marriage soon ran into a brick wall because he did not reckon with the opposition he was going to face from his father in-law.By the time he was done with youth service he did not have a salaried job but was determined to press on with his marriage plans.
However, his father in-law gave him a no no.“I think her father had reasons to say ‘no, you can’t marry my daughter!’ And I had to wrestle with that for many years. I had to beg and plead. I really didn’t look like the prospective son-in-law he wanted to have. I didn’t drive a car, I didn’t have a good job and I didn’t look like someone that could lift the family so he was not impressed.”In retrospect he adds that if he was in the shoes of his father-in-law, Inyang says he probably would have done the same because his financial state was pathetic: “To be fair to the man, we were really very young,” he says laughing, “May be too young at the time we first approached him. When I look at our wedding picture, I don’t blame the man much for saying no. Probably if I were in his shoes, I probably would have done the same. After everything, God helped us and we were able to get married and settle down.”