My father studied Medicine at St Mary’s, Paddington and my mother read Law at the Inns of Court, Middle Temple. They were students at the time when I, the second child of their marriage, was born in 1963. Three years later, my mum and nan took us to Lagos to live there for a while. Dad joined us when he completed his postgraduate studies a year later.
My first memory of Christian worship was singing hymns from “Songs of Praise” at my primary school assembly in Nigeria. I also attended Sunday School and remember the highlight for me was biscuits and squash at the end of the service.
I went to a boarding school in llorin, Kwara State, and was not baptised until I was a teenager. My father did not believe it necessary to baptise infants, so when I was about fifteen years old, I made the decision to be baptised and confirmed into the Christian faith.
I was baptised in an unconventional setting somewhere within the suburbs of Ilorin. There were about ten of us, all around the same age. There were no family members present, just the ten of us and the priest. The church building was an uncompleted structure (no windows, doors or plastering), very unlike the grandeur of the cathedral in Lagos or All Saints Church, Woodham! The font was a large white tin bowl, filled with water, which the vicar used to baptise us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is pertinent to note that some people in Nigeria live, work and worship in such surroundings.
When the vicar asked me for my Christian name, I was a bit confused because I thought the names my parents had given to me (at least 4) were more than sufficient. Anyway, my fellow students already had names from the Bible, so I chose “Stephen”. We were studying Acts of the Apostles at school and Stephen was one of my heroes, so his was the first name I could think of. Soon after this, I was confirmed at the cathedral in Ilorin.
I returned to the UK and have been living in Woking since 1990. My wife Olubunmi (Lulu) and I returned to Nigeria to be married at the Cathedral of St James the Great, Ibadan. We worshipped initially at St. Paul’s, Woking, where our daughter was baptised.
We were drawn to All Saints Church, Woodham, where our son was baptised. All Saints Church emphasises the sacraments and has a traditional liturgical presence that draws on all our five senses. The 8am communion service was also at a similar time to the one I attended at the Cathedral Church of Christ in Lagos.
Rev Peter Farrell, the vicar, encouraged me to join the Sunday School team, which I did. I found this quite rewarding and I wanted my children to learn about the Christian faith from an early age. Some years later, Father Iain, encouraged me to consider becoming a churchwarden. I was taken aback, as I felt I did not possess the requisite knowledge or time for such a huge commitment. Anyway, I took this to be a calling from God, accepted the call, and served as a churchwarden on two different occasions for a total of five years. On reflection, I feel that it was important to have been invited by these two vicars to participate in the leadership of the church and God’s mission in Woodham.
Many years on, I am still journeying between two homes (UK & Nigeria) with similar eucharistic traditions but with One Faith and One Church worshipping One God and Lord of all!
Babatunde (Babs) Akinyanju
2023