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Becoming a Soldier of Jesus It is time for me to share with my brethren in Miles Jesu worldwide about my experience as a soldier of Jesus. This testimony is about acceptance and love, faith and God’s blessings. You should know that i am a lawyer and a Nigerian, and live in the Onitsha Archdiocese of the Catholic Church. Around about 1989, when i joined Miles Jesu, i was seven years post call as a lawyer and had a very promising future as a private legal practitioner. I was full of life, expecting to explode professionally. Being the first lawyer in my community and one who had earlier served that community, i was kept busy with briefs. My expectation of being a legal luminary was very high. I want to say that, though being a Catholic, i knew so little about spiritual matters. Although i attended Mass on Sundays, i was not regular in the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Suddenly, just before my wedding in 1986, my voice started being hoarse and i was finding it difficult to talk. All medical examinations disclosed nothing specific and yet the situation was degenerating. After our wedding i had no time to settle down and my wife did not enjoy a day of blissful married life. Things were so terrible that, two months after our first baby was born, i was rushed to a university teaching hospital where i was destined to fight for more than ten years to survive against a tumor in my larynx. It was in the course of that fight for survival that i witnessed a sad and terrible aspect of life, which i pray to God that i will never experience again. The diagnosis had disclosed a carcinoma of the larynx. The discovery was late and there was no hope of life. Things had fallen apart. Friends and professional colleagues had gone their way and my wife and i and our child were left to the coldest seclusion and loneliness, though my professional association, a few friends, doctors and nurses were very caring and supportive. I turned to Christ. I sought Him with my whole being and He responded with love and abundant grace. He gave me a loving devoted wife and gave me Miles Jesu. Before Miles Jesu...the struggle became very tense and severe with all the powers of darkness determined to take me out of the Catholic fold into occultism but they failed woefully! I thank Fr. Paul Vota, M.J.. He was a real father to me, my wife and child. He gave gave us a “Jesus Encounter”. He encouraged, he counseled, he formed me. Mind you, i was very sick. I had received radiotherapy. I had a tracheotomy tube in my neck and i was not talking audibly. And Fr. Vota would say “Hey Peter, go to Abuja and incorporate our Paul Murphy Society!” It sounded dreamy, telling a man who was supposed to die very soon to travel to Nigerian’s State Capital, Abuja, to register Paul Murphy. He would sit me down, brief me and encourage me to write the constitution of Paul Murphy Society, and i did write it, and years later the Paul Murphy Society was successfully registered in Abuja after Fr. Vota left Nigeria. I saw a dynamic family of love, of humility, of simplicity, and of the greatest devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ and to His mother, Mary Immaculate Queen. The songs of Miles Jesu were very interesting, meaningful and healing. I saw medical doctors, teachers, engineers and business people, eminent in their professions, yet reserved, simple and dedicated in sharing their lives and experiences in accordance with Miles Jesu charisms. I saw Miles Jesu missionaries of young men and women from other countries come and go, and there was no racism, no discrimination, no speciality. And i said, this is my family and it has remained so since 1989. “What are the fruits?” you may ask. Well, no doubt thanks to God, i survived cancer! In Miles Jesu and through Miles Jesu, i had come back to life as a solicitor and advocate. I had won election to the Local Government Council where i represented my town and served as Supervisor for education. I have become a knight of the Catholic Church, and presently, the national secretary of the Miles Jesu Council in Nigeria. Recently by virtue of a Miles Jesu exposition in land negotiations i had opportunity to interact with legal luminaries in my state and got employed as a judge of the customary court. And in recognition of my services, His Royal Highness, the Traditional Ruler of my town, will on 23rd December, 2002 give me a deserved title as one of the members of his royal cabinet. But the outstanding thing is that through Miles Jesu God has given me formation and faith as a Soldier of Jesus. And i pray for final perseverance and to be a soldier to the end like our Brother Paul Mary Murphy did on earth, until the last blast of the whistle, when i shall meet him with the Lord and Mary and other saints hereafter. |