Overcoming Giants

If you met Kenneth Adams today, you’d likely find it hard to believe that his friends once called him “Tupac” because of the lifestyle he led, embodying much of what the late rapper Tupac Shakur sang about in his songs.

Adams, a young man in Nigeria, has a calm demeanor and passion for making the world a better place that doesn’t leave much room for his “Tupac” side today.

He got the nickname at a young age, and he says much of his former lifestyle was a result of his upbringing—his mother had left his home when he was young, leaving Adams and his siblings under the care of their father, an alcoholic.

“I was the firstborn, so I felt I had to do something to provide for my younger siblings,” says Adams. “That eventually made me angry and brought me into a crowd that pushed me into drugs, smoking, and going to clubs.”

One day his lifestyle led him to an unexpected place. He was spending time with one of his friends when he heard someone speaking loud in the distance.

As they walked closer to this voice, he saw a crowd gathered around a man who was preaching—it was one of their fellow partiers with whom they had lost contact.

Curious about how someone could have made such a drastic change, Adams began listening to the preaching. “Right then, I repented and decided to give my life to God,” he said.

Soon Adams began attending church, and people were struck by the sudden change in him. Why was “Tupac” doing this? Soon others from his group of friends turned to Christ as well.

The Daniel Center

Years later, Adams  came to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, and spent some time with his friends who worked at the Daniel Center, a Christian Reformed World Missions partner ministry.

As Adams became a familiar face at the Daniel Center, Mike Ribbens, then director of the center and currently a CRWM missionary in South Africa, offered him a job as a security officer.

“We knew he wasn't the sort of tough-guy security-type,” recalls Ribbens. “Rather, we were drawn by his reliability and ability to adapt to different situations. He was thoughtful in his conversations and actions and had tremendous consistency. When he said he was going to do something, he did it, and did it well.”

While many of the security guards around Abuja don’t have much interaction with the people in the buildings they are guarding, the Daniel Center is much different. Adams quickly built relationships with the ministry leaders who came and went, and, through that, he learned about new ways he could help the youth in his community.

Trauma Healing

Adams admits that the first time he agreed to assist in a trauma healing workshop with the Daniel Center, he didn’t know exactly what it would entail.

“That was the first time I had heard the word trauma,” says Adams. “But I went to my dictionary and looked up the word. The definition I saw, along with what I later learned in the training, made me realize that everybody in my community was experiencing trauma.”

At the training event, Adams learned that trauma can have long-lasting effects and that there are ways to overcome it. He realized that many of his “Tupac” years were a result of trauma, and he knew that many of the young men and women in his community were experiencing the same struggles.

“I wanted my church leaders and community leaders to experience this change too,” says Adams.

In Tudun Wada

Although Adams spends up to two weeks each month working at the Daniel Center, he travels about five hours to his home community of Tudun Wada during his time off.

There he is taking classes in counseling, and he coaches a small group of young people to lead the fight against the community’s issues of ethnic conflict, drugs, and gangs. The group goes by the name Giant Overcomers.

“When our group met for the first time, we realized that we have many giants to overcome,” explained one of the group members. “We have single parents, alcoholics, and people without jobs . . . but we are focused on bringing people back to God.”

To further equip this group in overcoming their community’s giants, Adams organized a trauma healing training led by CRWM’s Sara Ahiome.

Not long afterward, the group members who attended had realizations similar to Adams’.

“After the trauma healing training, I realized that God still loves me,” said one of the members, adding that she had to deal with a lot of social stigma after becoming a single mother.

“It gave me peace and taught me how to show love to my daughter.”

The trauma healing also helped Adams overcome some of his personal struggles.

“Before the training, I was so bitter with my dad, and now I can go to him and talk to him and share anything with him.”

As Adams continues to work in his community and create a ministry bridge from the Daniel Center to his neighbors, pray that God will continue to use the Daniel Center to equip people in Abuja and throughout Nigeria.