Ropheka Interviewer: Sir, can we meet you?
FA: I am Isaac Femi Akintunde from Mount Zion Faith Ministries International. I am a native of Ediko Ago. Ediko Ago is in Oyo State, Oke Ogun side, Oyo North to be precise. I attended Local Authority Primary School, Ediko Ago, after which I attended Community Grammar School Ediko Ago. I spent one year, thereafter, at Ilupeju Community Grammar School, Iwere-ile. Ilupeju Community Grammar School, Iwere-ile.
After which I proceeded to Divisional Teacher’s College, Saki and that was where I stopped.
Ropheka Interviewer: How did you start acting?
FA: Well, I can say I started acting since when I was Primary school. I have that little gift of acting.
We act drama every year during festive period like Christmas, New Year, and from there little by little
until I got to secondary school. There was a time we started a drama ministry that we called Calvary
Theater Group, First Baptist Church, Ediko Ago. Then, I was the secretary to that group at that time. We were acting drama from church to church, not even our church alone; Baptist Churches to be precise. I have been acting since then. When I gave my life to Jesus Christ also, I was acting drama in my church then. I was the drama leader of my church in Kaduna, when I was in Kaduna. But I had a call to
join the drama ministry when I heard about Mount Zion Faith Ministries and it was my desire to join the ministry as a drama minister because I knew at a point I was called into that ministry.
By the grace of God, to cut the long story short, I came into the institute. I, first of all, attended the Mount Zion Institute of Christian Drama in 1997 then I became a full member in 1998. Since then, we have been serving the Lord in the area of Christian Drama.
Ropheka Interviewer: Have you ever thought of quitting?
FA: Well, many times, one will feel like quitting because of some challenges, but by the grace of God, if you remember that you
are called into the ministry, like David, you will keep on encouraging yourself in the Lord and that is how we have been doing and we are moving because there are challenges when you are
on full time in the drama ministry, a lot of challenges.
Sometimes, when the challenges come, you’ll feel like quitting, but because God is on your side and God has been the one that called
you into the ministry, one will be encouraged again, pick up again and start running. That is just it.
Ropheka Interviewer: Why
Christian Drama?
FA: Actually, if it is not Christian Drama, there is no any other drama, to me. Because I am a child of God and I am called into drama ministry. It should be drama ministry; it should be Christian Drama Ministry all the way. Either good or bad, it is just Christian Drama.
"We all face challenges in life. If challenges come, we pray to God and God will create a way out of the challenges."
Ropheka Interviewer: What motivates you?
FA: Well, motivation, let me say God, Holy Spirit. Because what actually motivated me to drama ministry is the passion for lost souls. As a child of God, first of all, after giving your life to Jesus Christ, you will seek the face of God to know the area you should serve Him and after revealing to me the area that I will serve Him, I needed to do everything possible to do the will of God. What also motivated me to drama ministry is the call of God upon my life that He wants me to serve in that capacity as a drama minister because I have the ambition to become a soldier and it pained when I finally heard that I can’t become a soldier because of some certain things and I gave it up. When I finally gave my life to Jesus Christ, seeking His face and what God wants me to do for Him, that is where the issue of drama ministry came and that has been my motivation into the ministry.
Ropheka Interviewer: What has been your biggest joy in drama ministry?
FA: My biggest joy in drama ministry is seeing souls trooping to the kingdom of God and testimonies of people keep us going and moving in the drama ministry. I remember there are some instances and such instances will always come when one is down in the spirit. There is this particular one, my wife had an accident sometimes ago, and we were in the hospital. The second day after the accident, somebody called very early in the morning from the east and said she was so glad that I picked her call. She said, “Your movie has done a lot in my family. My family has not been doing well, my husband is threatening divorce and all that, but we watched one of your movies, and it was too hard for that woman to call “Moti Pinnu” correctly.
I watched your film Moti Pinnu and my family came back again. We are together again.” I was wondering and I asked the woman, “How did you manage to watch the movie because the way you are pronouncing the title made me understand that you are not a Yoruba person?” She said she was reading the “footnote,” that was how she put it that morning. “I was following the footnote and I got all the messages, and it has saved my family,” and she started praying for us. That alone made me light in my spirit again and know that God is on our side. A lot of testimonies like that have kept us going and anytime we shoot any movie and we make altar call and we see people trooping to accept Jesus Christ, or rededicating their lives, Oh! It is our greatest joy.
That is what keeps us moving.
Ropheka Interviewer: wow…
FA: Yes. Like I said the other time, I have been acting since I was in primary school and there is no other play we acted that was not a stage play. So, I have been on stage since then either right or wrong.
I have been mounting stage since when I was in primary school and when I became born again also, I have been on stage acting one play or the other. I wrote many, I directed many. That time,
I didn’t know I was directing anyway.
We were just doing our thing naturally.
So, I wrote many, directed many, and acted in many places before I became a drama minister. Joining the drama ministry, stage from one place to the other. We have been on stage going from one church to the other, one program to the other, acting plays, Christian plays like Unprofitable Servant, End-time Overcomer, and a lot of plays like that. So, I have acted on stage before.
Ropheka Interviewer: They say drama ministers get attacked. Have you been attacked before? If yes, how did you overcome it?
FA: Well, I don’t want to believe that it’s only drama ministry or drama ministers that gets attacked. We face challenges
in life either as a drama minister, a word minister, a preacher or an apostle, anybody. We all face challenges in life. If challenges come, we pray to God and God will create a way out of the challenges. It has happened many times that we will be faced with challenges and God will see us through and we continue again. So, I don’t want to believe that drama ministers are vulnerable to attacks. No. Come again with that
question please.
Ropheka Interview: They say drama ministers get attacked. Have you been attacked before? If yes, how did you overcome it?
FA: I don’t want to believe that drama ministers get attacked. Non-drama ministers also face challenges. I want to call it challenges. It’s just for those of us
that people know. If anything happens, they magnify it. There is nothing that has happened to any drama minister that has never happened to any other person. We are in the world; we are not of the world. The Bible says that in this world, we will face tribulations but we should be cheerful, because He has overcome the world. That is for all believers, not only drama ministers. We face challenges one way or the other but God is there to see us through and we move.
Ropheka Interviewer: Thank you, sir. The next question is you have acted as an herbalist in many movies, how did you get the incantations?.
FA: Incantations, we juxtapose words to suit every scene. So, I don’t need to go and begin to learn real incantations. What I’m trying to say in a nutshell is that if you lay hand on any script with incantations there, it’s either the writer has written the incantation there already or you manufacture your own incantations. All the incantation we are talking about is putting words together to sooth that occasion, not real incantation. So, if you ask me how we get our incantations, the incantation is very simple.
Even in the Bible, there are incantations there. What we call incantation is countering somebody. Somebody spoke a word to you and you are speaking back to the person. In a situation you are facing oppressors and you begin to quote the scripture to rescue yourself from the oppressors that is an incantation – spiritual incantation. When it comes to drama, when such a thing happens in any of the movies, you manufacture your incantations yourself. That is how we have been doing it. For instance, the incantation we are talking about, in the incantation “omo ori igba ko le ridi joko” the lid they are talking about cannot sit. God did not create it to sit comfortably on the floor. So that people will not say that you are saying the incantation of the world, you will change your own to “omori bale magun gege”.
You are saying the same thing. Omori bale magun gege simply means that the lid of the calabash sits uncomfortably on the ground. Simple! For all these things, we are playing with words. Juxtaposing words to sooth the occasion or to suit what we call incantation in our movies.
Ropheka Interviewer: The next question is, as a drama minister, what is the most challenging and difficult role you have been given before? Can you tell us how you were able to do it?
FA: To the glory of God, anytime I am asked this question…
That question is somehow. Let me answer it this way. There was this challenging role that I was given in this movie titled The Forgotten Ones. In The Forgotten Ones, I played the role of Baale. In that script I would be confronting my father in the Lord, Evangelist Mike Bamiloye. I would say some words to him. It was too tough for me when I read that script. I felt so terrible and asked myself “how can I do this?”. When I read the script, I was asking for the grace of God.
I was asking for wisdom. When we got on set, before we started acting that role, my father in the Lord called me.
He said “Bro Isaac, let’s do rehearsals” and we did rehearsal together. I thought he knew that I was not comfortable with the role because of the fact that I was going to confront him.
It was too difficult for me to talk to my leader anyhow, to my father in the Lord anyhow. It was too challenging to me, but he called me aside, he allayed the fear and we entered into the set and the Lord took control.
Another time came, this time around, Abejoye. I was to slap him. I remembered that day, he lied down and he was telling me jokingly. He said, “Bro Isaac, slap that face very well.” I told him that “I’ve had a muscle pull on my hand since yesterday, sir.” We all laughed and we did the thing the way we supposed to do it.
But I didn’t slap my father in the Lord at all. All you saw on that screen was film. I didn’t slap him.
Those roles were challenging to me. I think those were the two that have been the most challenging to me in all the films that I have acted.
Okay! There was another movie that was challenging to me. The reason it was so challenging was that I didn’t know I would take that role again.
I went to the location in Ibadan. They called me on that location to come and do the line producer. I was there, I read the script and did some work on the script, adding some little things, and we were there to shoot. After a day shoot, I saw the crew led by some elderly people. They came to me that I would pick up a role. That role was supposed to be a lead role and I didn’t prepare for it at all from home.
It was too… I didn’t know what to say, but deep down inside of me, something kept telling me that I shouldn’t say no.
I was trying to cajole them, I was trying to tell them the reasons I should not take up the role, but they insisted I was the one that would take up the role and I did it. The title of the movie is Enitaakanmogi, and the Lord helped me. The Lord helped me a lot. It was not my doings. The Lord helped me. I was shivering when I heard that I will take up the role eventually. After I even gave them my word that I would take it up, I couldn’t sleep. I was really shivering, but the Lord took control and we did it to the glory of God.
Ropheka Interviewer: Is it true you have millions in your account due to featuring in all these movies?
FA: “Millions in my account.” Well, to everybody that cares to know, I don’t have millions in my account. In fact, I have never gathered money into my account up to one million before. If you care to know. No. No. No. No. But God is faithful. I may not have millions of naira in my account but my children are going to school. The two of them are going to school, and God is providing. Though, several times while in secondary school, they would be chased away from school, and would be home for two weeks at times, but God is faithful. God is faithful.
Acting in all the movies here and there, I don’t have millions in my account. In fact, as I am talking to you now, God be praised.
Ropheka Interviewer: Can someone make millions out of Christian movies?
FA: I don’t know! It’s not a question that I will answer generally. I can’t say nobody can make millions in Christian drama. Why? Why will I say that?
Some people may be making millions of naira in Christian drama. Fine.
Good. If they are making millions of naira in Christian Drama that is giving me an assurance that one day I will also begin to make millions. But as I am now, I have not been making millions of naira in Christian drama.
But I have the confidence in me that I am doing the work of God, I am doing the will of God, and souls are coming to the kingdom of God through Christian Drama. I think that is more than millions.
If people are making millions of naira from Christian drama now, it’s an assurance for me that one day, I also will begin to make millions of naira.
Ropheka Interviewer: We realize you play and flow with everybody during location both young ministers and old ministers. Can you explain how you
maintain this humble life?
FA: Let me answer it this way, my father of blessed memory usually told us when we were small that you don’t underrate anybody. Anybody you meet in life, don’t underrate them, either old or young. He would always tell us that if you flow only with your counterparts that means you will not know
But if you flow with both young and old, you will have the knowledge of the old ones and gain from the knowledge of the younger ones also. I am growing up with that simple thing my father usually told us and I find it so easy for me to flow with anybody. Of course, I gain from both old and younger generations. That is the little I can say about that. Another thing is that there is nothing you do in this life that God will not be praised; there is nothing you received that is not of God. If people see that in me, it means God must have deposited that thing in me to flow with the old and young. As I’m hearing the question, I went through it over and again. I was wondering, am I flowing with both old and young? Am I humble? I was asking myself such questions. But to the glory of God, God has been helping.
If that virtue is in me, that means the Holy Spirit must have deposited the spirit in me.
Ropheka Interviewer: How do you encourage those thinking of opting out of the ministry to keep doing their work?
FA: I want to tell them that God is faithful. God is faithful. Instead of quitting what God want you to do for him, why can’t you forge ahead?
They should encourage themselves even in the Lord. One thing I know is that when we get to heaven, there is no situation and circumstances that you will say debars you from doing what the Lord has committed into your hand.
Knowing fully well that you are going to give an account to God one day, I want to encourage us to forge ahead, keep on keeping on and encourage ourselves always in the Lord and the Lord is going to help us in Jesus’ name.
Ropheka Interviewer: The last question is can anyone truly act?
Interviewee: It is not everybody that can act. In drama ministry, we have departments. Some are writers, who just write. Some are producers, some can direct and there are other things one can do in drama ministry. Drama tract is there, publication of drama tracts, drama book, and all that. If you are in drama ministry and you don’t know how to act, it’s not a problem. That means God wants to use you in another area of drama ministry. It is not everybody that is born to act. It is not everybody that can act in drama ministry.
I want to appreciate this ministry for the opportunity, for the honour accorded me to be part of this program. I want to sincerely say thank you very much, God bless you. God will move you from power to power, from strength to strength, from one level of grace to another higher level of grace in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank you very much, God bless you.
