Outreach and relief
Practical help where the need is immediate: food, essentials, and support for widows, the elderly, and families in crisis.
Elkanah Osibanjo Foundation · Lagos
No one is
beyond restoration.
We continue the life’s work of Rev. Elkanah Olusola Osibanjo. We spread the good news of Christ, relieve poverty, open the way to education and a trade, and stand with people others have written off.
Rev. Elkanah Olusola Osibanjo1930 to 2018
His method
Restoring the marred pot
Papa took the phrase from Jeremiah 18: the potter who does not discard the spoiled vessel, but works it again into something useful. He did not treat it as a sermon illustration. He treated it as an instruction for how to handle people.
He gave responsibility to people others had quietly written off. He looked for what someone was actually good at, and then built them somewhere to stand on it: a zone, a congregation, an office, a platform. He described himself as a manager of managers, and he meant that the managing was the point: his job was to make other people capable.
It is not a complicated idea. It is simply an unusually stubborn one. Over forty years it produced seven churches planted from Shomolu alone, a division that had to be split twice because it kept outgrowing its own shape, and a great many people who are still standing where he put them.
This foundation exists to keep applying his method to the need around us.
“No one is completely useless without a trace of usefulness in one area or the other.”
What we do
Three ways we intend to work
Drawn from the objectives filed in our constitution, and shaped by how Papa actually operated: through people who are already there, wherever the need is, and without writing anybody off.
Education and a trade
School fees, books and uniforms for children who would otherwise drop out, and apprenticeships for young people whose future is in their hands rather than an exam hall.
Church and community support
Support for small congregations, ministers and community workers doing the ordinary, unglamorous work of holding a neighbourhood together.
A life
From a cabinet maker's workshop to forty years of ministry
He was converted at twenty, threw away the Ifa oracle he had been custodian of, and spent the rest of his life building things that outlasted him.
- 1930
Born in Ala
8 September, four kilometres from Ijebu-Ode, eldest son of five.
- 1940s
Trained as a cabinet maker
A trade learned young, and a custodian of the Ifa oracle Aiyelala.
- 1950
Converted at twenty
Follows a friend to Christ Mission of the Birth, Tejuosho, and does not go back.
- 1950
Ministry begins
Deacon, then chief deacon, then pastor as the call becomes undeniable.
- 1959
Foursquare Shomolu begins
Brings his Mushin members into the Foursquare Gospel Organization.
- 1970
Confirmed Acting Pastor
By the Central Executive Council, after twenty years of assisting.
- 1980
Ordained Reverend
Pastor of Foursquare Shomolu and Divisional Supervisor of the South-West.
In his memory
What people said about him
“His exemplary life of humility, sacrifice and commitment to the work of the kingdom has endeared him to hundreds of faithful Christians across continents.”
“He built a church where love and camaraderie thrived, a legacy that binds every member of Foursquare Shomolu globally together.”
Stand with us
He spent forty years making room for people.
If his life meant something to you, this is where you can help us carry it forward.
