Since Dedicating My Life to Christ As A Teenager, I Have Remained Steadfast – Dr Shade Toyin-Kehinde

 

Reverend Dr. Folashade Toyin-Kehinde is a multifaceted woman known for her radiant smile, and diverse roles: an accountant by profession, former banker turned devoted servant of God, a respected Daughter of Zion, with a shepherd’s heart, and a pastor, transformational leader, life coach, mentor, and in-demand conference speaker. As a dedicated Bible teacher and prayer advocate, Reverend Dr. Folashade Toyin-Kehinde, the author of the book, “Leadership Principles for Impact”, life is characterized by her unwavering commitment to her faith. She has consistently demonstrated a profound commitment to holistic empowerment as the Convener of All Ladies Affairs Business Forum, and serves as co-pastor at Agape Generation International Church, Maryland, Lagos, with her ministry partner and husband, Rev Dr Toyin Kehinde. 

Celebrating her 60th birthday and 33 years of marriage recently, she shared insights into her life journey of faith and other issues in an exclusive interview with Gracious Akintayo. Excerpt;

Ma, you are 60, and remarkably youthful; what is the secret to your ageless look?

I will attribute my youthful appearance to divine providence. God’s kindness has been instrumental in maintaining my well-being, and age is merely a number. I sometimes find it amazing, but I’ve learned to be matter-of-fact about it, as some people may find it hard to believe. The only thing is, God has kept me going and strong.

My approach to life and health is straightforward: I prioritize a balanced lifestyle, which includes eating wholesome foods and drinks. Unlike some, I seem to be able to indulge without adverse effects. Teaching others about healthy living has also been a significant part of my life for many years.

I eat what I have for a healthy lifestyle, and that’s been keeping healthy for a good number of years now. I also teach it. There are certain things, if you pay attention in a bid to keep healthy, it will save you a lot about your health, your look, and carrying a merry heart. Part of keeping healthy is having a merry heart. The Bible says a merry heart is a good medicine. You smile and laugh, and make yourself happy. Even when things around you are not looking good, let the joy of the Lord be your strength. Part of keeping healthy is keeping God’s word and living the life of the Word.

The word of God says, all things work together for good, to them that love God and according to His purpose. Even when things are not rosy, when you remember the word of God that all things work together for good, you will make yourself happy and allow the joy of the Lord to strengthen you. The Bible says, rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice. There’s nothing anyone can do to make me sad, because in a bid to make me sad, by speaking ill of me or looking at me somehow, doesn’t bother or move me. What intoxicates and determines my mood is the word of God and prayer.

In the end, whatever you are trying to do to unsettle me, I’m not aware. I may even be seeing you doing it, but it doesn’t matter to me. Because you don’t have the power to determine my environment and my spiritual, physical or mental realm. It is God that fills those capacities, not what you say or do to me. When you live that way, it will help you to live a life of forgiveness. You don’t harbor, keep people in mind, or nurse it.

If you do anything I am not happy about, I will talk to you immediately, and won’t spear or pamper you. but I will do it in love. The next moment I turned, I saw you as sisters and brothers. Even if the person is still feeling angry, I will not be bothered because I have forgotten it. I don’t allow things to stay in my mind. David says, what have I kept in my heart that I will not sin against you.

When I keep God’s word in my mind, how will I keep a sister or brother that is hurting me in my mind? No space for that, but for forgiveness.

What has been the guiding principle of your 33 years of marriage? 

My marriage is a gift from God because, as a young girl growing in a Bible-believing church, I caught Christ early as a teenager, and I made up my mind to follow Him with the whole of my heart. Early in life, God has already laid His hand on me and showed me that I’m going to be a tool in the ministry. I received my calling into the ministry as a teenager.

While I was in campus fellowship, I would teach Bible study, I was a prayer secretary for Christian Union for 2 years, 2 tenure, and was sister’s fellowship coordinator. I reached out beyond my campus. We invited other campus fellows, and we traveled from one state to the other.

From then, the call was obvious. God told me He gave me the privilege to study accountancy and worked in the bank for some years. When it was time, the way He showed me my call early, He showed me my husband early. Ahead, God showed me the person I am going to marry.

Being a frontliner in campus fellowship, I received a lot of proposals. If God had not shown me who was going to be my husband, I would have gone with another person. But God showed me early with clear terms that, that is the person, and we were not in the same campus fellowship. It took about seven years before he came, and the moment he came, the fulfillment of God’s word and the mission became manifested.

God has shown me, both of us are going to be in the ministry. I knew a lot of girls then saying, I don’t want to marry a pastor but I know I will marry a pastor. The first time God showed me clearly about him, He used the book of Acts 16: 9-10, where Paul says, he saw the revelation of a man of Macedonia saying, come and help us. So, I knew we will go through thick and thin, and ministry like the mission work we are doing is massive. It’s a heavy load, you can’t bear it by yourself.

Our guiding principle is God’s will in the marriage He has ordained, and it has been God who proved Himself faithful.

On our part, we have resolved that we will be in the will of God in all things and at all times. We are a praying couple, a mission minded couple, and God has dealt with us individually about those things and collectively, we go everywhere, and do things with one mind.

Each of us knows the strength and weakness of the other as related to this work. We are able to marry the areas where I am strong, where he is strong together, and early in our marriage, we agreed that our marriage is a perfect one. It doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements or issues. I preach and tell people that I can’t tell you that we don’t have disagreements, I will be lying.

Some pastors that preaches and say, my wife and I, never quarreled is a lie of the devil, it’s either one is a robot, or someone is manipulating the other, or one have subdued their partner, and the person has no choice, or will, he or she is just following like a fool. In my marriage, no one is a fool, no one is subduing the other, and there is no robot. We have our differences because we came from a different background, but God has enabled us to handle our differences with love.

If we don’t agree on anything, we put them into prayer until the other person is convinced before we go ahead. By the time this person is saying, this is what God is saying, the other person is saying, we got it right together, and the workload becomes easy.

There have been times we offended each other but we forgive each other. We are a couple who have agreed that, if we fight, before we go to bed that night, we must settle our differences, and not go to sleep with offenses in our hearts.

How do you balance your roles, as a businesswoman, a minister, mother, wife with managing your home?

God’s grace has been sufficient to me to be able to combine all of those things, and no area wobbles, It’s God, I can finish preaching now, and next moment, the business community is asking for me. to flow, I will remove the cap of one, and put the other, to flow. While doing that, if any of the children needs my attention, I will give it (smiles). Humanly, it’s not an easy task, but when God’s grace is there, it makes them simple and easy.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own. But it’s God’s grace. God knows what empowerment, and endowment He has deposited inside each one of us.

While in school, before I graduated, I was trading. I would leave the hostel and come to Lagos to buy things I would sell to fellow students on the Island. Not because my parents are poor, or because I needed money to feed.

My father was a senior civil servant, and he gave us enough money that will last us for a whole semester, regardless that, my mom would cook pot of soup every two weeks and send to me in school, my school friends knew when my pot of soup comes, it’s always like a party in my room.

It’s just that, the entrepreneur’s nature in me would not allow the pocket money my father gave me to last three months be lying down in my box in the hostel. I will use the money to buy things to sell, to multiply the money.

My mother was an entrepreneur with a fashion school, and lots of apprentices. She was also running a restaurant, a provision store, and was trading in clothing (Lace and Ankara). As a multificated-trader, I grew up under her, and was inspired by her business dexterity.

She taught us those trades, despite that she has maids that work for her, she doesn’t spare us, her children. She made sure we were carried along and when I was in higher institution, I continued because my mother impacted on me. While working in the bank, it never left me and when I got married, I continued.

When God told me to leave everything and come into full time ministry, I abandoned everything. But as needs arose in the ministry work, and we realized that the gospel needs money, the Lord gave me the permission to go into business ventures.

My father had six girls and one boy. He taught us to start doing things early, how to invest in stocks, and shareholding, but we learned all basic trading from my mom, and all those things have stayed with me, they are helping me now, and I thank God.

Our mission work is massive, and needs lots of money. It’s not something we can sit and wait for the congregation, or manna to fall from heaven. As we are requesting people, to support this work, we are also giving, and God has been faithful. I’m not doing all the business and making money to eat or wear clothes, it’s for the purpose of the work.

I have widows and underprivileged I take care of, they come with their challenges, and we reach out to them. That arm of my ministry is 28 years now. I started it a few years before we started the church, and it has grown to have branches in Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun States. It’s amazing, it has taken us to South Africa, and East Africa, to minister to widows and underprivileged. I can’t wait for the offering and tithing from the church. I’m also tithing, and give offerings. What I preach is what I practice, and I teach a lot of people too.

March 7th, is the annual business and career forum I organized for women, around International Women’s Day. This year International Women’s Day is on the 8th of March, and Saturday, 7th, is the business and career forum for this year.

Those are the things I teach there. How to, even as a pastor, or a housewife, and your husband says, don’t work, there are businesses you can do from home, and God’s work will be easier when you can also give to the work of God.

With the current rates of divorce, separation, and broken homes today, what could be the missing link in today’s marriage institutions?

God is the author of marriage, and as the author of marriage, He has a constitution to guide the marriage. If only we can abide by that constitution, which is the word of God.

There is no aspect of marriage that is not covered by the word of God. But where people want to live on fables and compare their marriage with other people’s marriage, they missed it. You don’t know where they are coming from, or what their motivation is, and you are making a comparison.

One of my teaching analogies on marriage is that you see a couple, when they go to church every Sunday, the wife will sit in the car. The man will come down and open the car door for the wife to come down, but your own husband doesn’t open the car door for you, and you are angry, only to find out several months later that the woman is sick and she needs to be helped to get out of the car. Or you find out that that door, that particular person sitting by cannot be opened from inside, and has to be from outside because the door is bad. These could be reasons they are doing what they are doing. You don’t pattern your marriage after other people’s marriage.

Most preachers put Maggi inside their messages. They claimed, my wife and I, never quarrel, and never argued. And you see yourself arguing with your husband or your wife arguing with you, then you say your wife has a demon because my papa said that his wife never argues with him. You went on to say your wife has a demon, without knowing, your papa may be sugarcoating it. Maybe that same morning, they argued before coming to Church, but you didn’t know, and you’ll be looking at your spouse that she has a demon.

If we can pattern our marriages after the word of God, and the relationship of Jesus as the head of the church, the marriage will be sweeter. No marriage is without ups and downs because there are different seasons of life. We need to be tolerant, forgiving and accept the other person.

Never think you can change your spouse, and never have it in mind that I will change him, or her when we are married. You are not God, the best you can do is to commit him or her into God’s hands, and you to be patient until you see God working it out.

I don’t think any other man can marry me. Certainly, his patience changed me, I used to be a pepper, and fire. In the course of our marriage, his patience and tolerance changed me more. When people who knew me when I was young say, I have changed. I will say, thank God and thank my husband. He’s not a complaint type, and it’s not his complaint that changed me, his patience did.

What is your advice to the younger generations? 

If the younger generation wants a sure tomorrow, the only thing that can guarantee that for them is Jesus.

Follow Jesus with your whole heart because how you are going to be tomorrow is determined by how you live your life today.

Don’t chase after frivolities, after superfluity of naughtiness, after money, and after fame. When you follow Jesus with your whole heart, all of those things will come and follow you.

The Bible says, when you seek the kingdom of God, all other things shall be added, but today’s younger generation wants every other thing before seeking for the kingdom.

The younger generation should seek after God’s kingdom first and all other things shall be added.