When we visited Mama Ruth
Elton on the 6th of November, 2013, our interest was on the works of
Pa S. G Elton (Her father) and the need for it to be immortalized. But, we were
really blessed by this woman of God and learned of the remarkable contribution
she has made to the gospel in Nigeria. We were enamored by her selflessness and
her candid views about the church in Nigeria.
We conducted an interview
with her with team members having opportunity to ask one question or the other and
also a special write up celebrating her life.
The team comprised of: Pastor
Wole Olakunle, Pastor and Mrs Demola Akinyemi, Pastor Douglas Arukwe, Pastor
Isaac Arikawe, Solomon Balogun, Olawale Perfect, Mr Akinbiyi and Yemi Obideyi
who did the write up.
Be blessed as you read about
this remarkable vessel of Christ.
SIXTY-TWO years ago Ruth
Elton, daughter and only child of one of the foremost Christian missionaries to
Nigeria, Pa Sydney G. Elton, would have become an atheist.
Greatly miffed by gross
misconduct found among many Christians around her in the 1950s, Ruth welcomed
the idea of being listed among atheists, except God would specifically prove
Himself to her. At about 17, then in a technical college in the U.K, she was
pissed off with the faith having observed wide disparity between biblical
provisions on conduct and lifestyles of some known as Christians. Before
arriving at this position, Ruth had extended her investigation on Christians;
conduct beyond the walls of her school unto members of her traditional church
(The Apostolic Church) and found no difference hence she resolved not to attend
church anymore. Coincidentally, a chunk of her schoolmates openly professed
atheism, declaring that God was not real. This was in 1952.
About two months into this
confusing (or precarious) state of mind, her college played host to (and
admitted also) sets of Christians from America who were vehemently more convincing
in their teaching of the bible and testimonies about the “Latter Rain Revival”.
They boldly declared their experiences with the Lord Jesus Christ including
personal encounters with Him. Not only were these people passionate with
sharing the scripture, they ravishingly brought to bear the tangibility of the
reality of Christ on their situations.
As usual, Ruth Elton refused
to be taken in by mere preaching or outburst of palpable enthusiasm. She
decided to check out their lifestyles. With keen interest, she hunted for
attitudes that could contradict their teachings and the scripture. From one to
another, she literally saw the scripture being practically expressed in real
life by those who professed to be Christians.
At this point, Ruth Elton’s
doubts and confusion were removed. A new resolve she then made: To surrender
her life to Christ and serve Him evermore if only Christ would reveal Himself
to her directly. This she sought for by praying and sometimes fasting. Indeed,
the Lord showed up in a unique, unforgettable yet indescribable and
inexplicable encounter thereafter. The import and imprint of this encounter
could however be seen in the selfless and sacrificial service to which Mama
Ruth’s life was ever since dedicated in the Lord’s vineyard.
Before attending the
technical college in the U.K, Mama Ruth Elton, now 79years old, had lived in
Nigeria for about 13 years. At barely three years, Ruth and her mother departed
England August 1937 to join her father, Pastor Sydney Elton in Ilesha, Osun
State. A divine assignment to serve as a Christian missionary was responsible
for Elton’s relocation from England to this southwestern part of Nigeria earlier
in February of the same year.
Fired up by deep conviction
of God’s call upon her life, Mama Ruth moved a step further from her father
journeying northward of Nigeria to preach the gospel of righteousness, peace
and joy in Christ Jesus. Absence of electricity, pipe-borne water and basic
amenities in the pre-independent Nigeria of the 1950s could not deter her from
moving from one village to another with the good news. Like one who had had a
thorough dealing of the Lord or a life-transforming encounter, Ruth exhibited
uncommon courage, strong determination and high level of faith in God. She
defied the barriers of language and culture trusting the Lord to supply
interpreter(s) at the nick of time.
While living with her parents
in Ilesha (Osun State), Mama Ruth had armed herself with the Yoruba language
(Ijesha extraction of the South West), before crossing over to the North
Central part of Nigeria. “I went near Egbe (in Kogi State),” She said, adding “and
someone came there from Ebira Okene who spoke about the needs of the people”. In
other words, she discerned from her interaction with other(s) that, the people
in Okene were in thick darkness judging by their ways of life and practices.
Following this discovery, she geared up and moved to Okene in 1953. “There were
many villages around Okene at that time without a single church, unlike Egbe
where fellowship of believers in Christ had been in existence”, she recalled
nostalgically.
It is worthy of note that
Mama Ruth’s successful spiritual expedition to these areas was, in no small way,
aided by the ministry of her father, the late Pa S. G Elton. The latter had, in 1952 resigned his position
as missionary Superintendent of Ilesha Area of The Apostolic Church, Lawna
Territory. This resignation was informed by his hunger to extend the frontiers
of the evolving revival and spiritual rebirth beyond the limitations of a
denomination. This marked the beginning of a new phase for Pa Elton’s missionary
outreach, changing from a singular denomination to an
inter-denominational-oriented ministry. Not only was his teaching of the
scripture allowed more flexibility at this time, the new phase enabled him to
contribute to building and strengthening the body of Christ in general. He
attended to the needs of different churches across Nigeria, raising men and women
for the work of ministry. One of such was an evangelist trained and dispatched
by him to some of the villages around Okene.
Mama Ruth supervised the team in the area bridging communication gap via
interpreters.
To her, she was quite at home
in the bush because her heart was glued to the work of soul-winning for Christ.
She found comfort and fulfillment therein. In no time, Mama began to pick up
the local dialect of the Ebiras. Upon the discovery that another community of
the Ebiras, Kotun Karfe, was grossly deficient of the gospel witness, Mama Ruth
moved in swiftly to fill the gap. With her team, no stone was left unturned to
hoist the flag of truth and righteousness in Christ. Getting there, “the place
was backward (then), they did not know the gospel either”, but being so
convinced about “our call” as missionaries, we put in all we have to reach them
with the good news. The response was slow, the process was gradual nevertheless
we remained steady, focussed and committed.
Ruth and her team did not stop
at merely leading the people to Christ, they, by the grace of God, chose to
take them beyond the entry point. “I preached the reality. We taught the truth,
not being churchy, as we had found among many”.
Choosing to live among the
converts for many years gave Mama Ruth unique opportunity to assess growth of
the brethren in the light of conforming to the nature of Christ Jesus as the
ultimate requirement of the bible. This resulted in a conscious effort at
pointing the people to the real substance and purpose of salvation, cautioning
them against overstretching the dispensation of grace because scripturally it
was bound to give way to the Kingdom dispensation.
The differences between the
two are unique and wide. Grace Dispensation is used to capture the entrant of
the gospel of Christ into a place or people. It refers to the point at which emphasis
is placed on accepting the gospel as the true and living way in replacement of
any other form of belief or worship. Usually it is followed by participation in
fellowship or church activities. It is grace because sins hitherto committed
are washed away as the individual confesses and repents of them at the point of
(or before) accepting Christ as his Lord and Saviour. By faith, a convert
receives atonement and cleansing for his sins through the blood of Jesus
Christ, however, this individual is prohibited from continuing in sin in the
hope that grace would abound always.
This prohibition and
forsaking sinful life lay the foundation for the Kingdom Dispensation. On its
own, it requires a different orientation and pursuit having to do largely with
a deliberate resolve to imbibe and live by the principles of God’s kingdom. The
goal is becoming Christ-like in obedience to the Almighty Father. And this is
measurable by the yieldedness of the individual to the Holy Spirit at every
point in the journey.
In the grace dispensation
however, believers tend to measure their growth in God by their commitment to
church activities or programmes. Not only is this viewpoint biblically wrong,
it is misleading. Knowing this, Mama Ruth and her team of missionaries had to
rely on God for how to steer the people out of the murky waters of religion and
“churchianity” into kingdom lifestyle. According to her, the transition was
accomplished to the glory of God though it was tasking and demanding.
To this woman of God, it is
either the gospel of God’s kingdom – that emphasizes character moulding- or
nothing at all. She was quick to add that the gospel of Jesus Christ was never
for money making or a commercial enterprise of sort as it had become with many
preachers today. Only the church or Christians that had been nurtured and
prepared after Christ likeness would reign with the Lord in the advent of His
kingdom on earth.
But how was Mama Ruth’s
spiritual exploits funded in the hinterland?
“God provides” she quipped absorbingly.
To those called by Him and found to be faithfully committed to the assignment,
God always made resources available via the sovereignty of His wisdom. Though
she could not narrate all her experiences in this regard, it was clear in her
response that the ways by which resources got to the missionaries were as
astonishing as the progression made on the work itself. Mama Ruth could recall
that many years ago, a Nigerian met with a Swiss couple in the ‘50s who were
interested in supporting missionary on the field in Nigeria. Mama stumbled on
the Nigerian who then linked her up with the couple. Indeed, they thereafter
supported the team for six months, sending certain amount every month. With
this and contributions from some God fearing Nigerians, the mission work was
firmly rooted in Ebira, Okene and spread to other areas and tribes notably
Egbira Koto, Gwari, Bassa, Kwomu, Ganagana- all in the middle belt and North
Central region of Nigeria.
The missionary train of Mama
Ruth successfully planted gospel assemblies in almost all the places mentioned
above. Again, the standard and primary goal was to build in brethren
Christ-like nature.
Not long ago, this team
discovered over ten communities among the Igalas (the riverine areas of Kogi
State) where the gospel of Christ had not been witnessed in Nigeria. All hands
are on deck presently to gear up the train for these new challenges.
Mama Ruth Elton’s hatred for
what is generally referred to as “commercialized Christianity” could not be
disguised at all. To this woman of God, it was simply incomprehensible that teachers
of this gospel of Christ could find it convenient to steadily dine and wine
with the devil. In her assessment of the state of Christianity in Nigeria, Mama
Ruth was unequivocal saying “the devil has joined many churches”. Christ, the author of this faith laid down
His life for the prosperity of righteousness. A lot of Christian leaders today
had, however, overturned the sacrificial and selfless lifestyle embedded in the
bible and replaced them with money-making principles and teaching. “The devil
studied them and successfully joined them”.
Mama’s strong stance on
teaching only the gospel of God’s kingdom may not be unconnected with her rich
insight into the purpose of salvation, and the scripture as a whole.
In her book – The Kingdom Has Come- she quoted
Matthew (6:10) “Your kingdom come, Your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, and commented thus:
“This part of the Lord’s
Prayer is the first request in the prayer taught by the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Saviour who had come to do the great work of redeeming man and creation back to
what God had originally intended. He, Jesus is the One who will be the great
King of kings in that kingdom. Your kingdom come (to earth), your will be
done on
earth, as it is in heaven…. After teaching His disciples this great
prayer sequence, Jesus the King went on to live his life on earth, doing things
that would bring the answer to this prayer into the lives of people on earth at
that time. He lived His life teaching, instructing and demonstrating with
actions, what kingdom life was meant to be on earth.”
Her late father, Pa Elton’s
pioneering role in laying the (right) foundation for Kingdom gospel had
tremendous impact on Mama Ruth and the landscape as a whole. His veracious
teaching and messages on God’s kingdom were simply classic and eye-opening. He
was renowned for living by what he preached (principles of righteousness,
contentment and meekness). He was said to have stood against acquisition of
titles (Bishop and Arch-bishop etc) by emerging Christian leaders groomed by
him even in the 1970s.He had told them clearly “you can not use title to
replace the anointing” He refused to set up a church of his own and instead was
committed to building Christians in (and for) ministry across the nation.
Mama Ruth, the only child of
Pa and Mrs. S.G Elton, did not marry all through her life-long sojourn in
Nigeria. She explained it this way: “If I had married, I would not have been
free to do mission work as I love to do it. God knew this well and never sent a
husband on my path.” Today, Mama Ruth
could speak at least four Nigerian languages fluently. These include Yoruba,
Pidgin English, Egbira, Ijesha and others. She had been involved with a group
that translated bible from English to Ebira.
This article was written by Yemi Obideyi, a member of
the team.
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