A literary vision and the compulsion to write have always been part of David Olagoke Olawoyin, the Initiator of the Canaan Literary Initiative. As a student at Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, where he had his New Birth experience in 1988, his literary and expository gifts were unmistakeable and were spoken of by his tutors. It was actually one of his English Language tutors who, around the time he was awarded a final year scholarship, made the observation before the whole class, that with little effort, he (Olawoyin) would make distinctions in all his subjects.
However, due to his more overt disposition and exceptional performance in Mathematics and the physical sciences (he eventually obtained A1 grades in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and also Economics), he went on to study Mechanical Engineering at the University of Lagos. Nevertheless, he tried to appease the literary pull with consolatory efforts at writing, posting and distributing Christian articles. He particularly cultivated the habit of writing messages on lecture room blackboards, especially at night, to welcome the students the following morning!
But the Lord expected more. So was it that after a brilliant start in the university, he started experiencing some unusual difficulties and it got to where he contemplated quitting. His reasoning was: Quit while the ovation is loudest. But that was not the message being conveyed to him. The Lord wanted him to graduate, and graduate well. Finally, he seemed to get it and engineering took the back burner, while he was still in school, as he delved into a deep study of the Scriptures and other Christian literature that would forever reshape his perspective and prepare him for the long literary journey ahead.
Yet he did not give up his secular pursuits. After his graduation in 1997, he sort for and was admitted into the prestigious Shell Intensive Training Programme for Graduates (Engineering Specialisation) conducted in Nigeria by the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Despite the high promises of the expected certification, however, he still had doubts about whether he really wanted to settle down to a career along those lines.
So immediately after the year-long programme, and further constrained by a hearing challenge he had started experiencing early in high school, he gave himself more fully to Christian writing under the banner of the BrookKidron Herald, now the Kingdom Herald, an email publication. Articles he has written include The Next Wave, Pound Wise, The Desire of All Nations, Thy Kingdom Come, The Horsemen Are Riding, Rapture in Surgery, The Original Purpose and The World in 2050 (actually written as an entry for the international Shell and The Economist Writing Contest in the year 2000).
He is also the author of the book We Shall Reign, an exceptionally reviewed work that presents a novel perspective of the future of our world in the context of the expected earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ – giving much needed hope and encouragement to Christians and the world at large in the midst of present troubles and uncertainties. The book was to be the first part of a trilogy, but He has since converted the three parts into a single book, which he is proposing for publication as Another Time: Another Look at the Promised Millennial Kingdom. He also wrote a short story Another Time, a fictional version of his coming book that he has a dream of developing into a novel under a different but similar title.
Somewhere along the way, however, he succumbed to family pressures and accepted the job of the pioneer Administrative Manager of a private school in Lagos, which resulted in a partial loss of his literary focus. And so the “still small voice” of “the call” returned. In devotion one morning, the Lord spoke to him through the Word: “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1Timothy 4:13). Having earlier identified his ministry – the teaching of the Word through the written word – he knew, although he tried to downplay it, that he had to devote himself to it. And like Timothy, to whom these words were originally written, he was also going to groom “gifted hands” for the same literary work (see II Timothy 2:2).
The call couldn’t have been louder when he noticed an increasing restlessness and discontentment with his secular work, coupled with a subtle dip in his spiritual life. And so, despite his lifelong interest in education and his accomplishments with his employer, he decided to take the step of faith. This he did by voluntarily resigning his appointment after exactly thirty months.
It wasn’t until after this act and his seeking the Lord for further direction that the vision of a Christian literary initiative that he had carried in his bosom for years was put in clearer perspective. This was through a series of events and experiences that he considers a testimony of divine guidance. By this time, he had self-published his book We Shall Reign. The self-publishing effort in 2005 was borne out of expediency, for his vision was, and still is, to have his work published by an established foreign publisher. He believes and has been encouraged to the effect that he has a global message, which would be best disseminated that way.
It was in the course of writing his book and searching for a publisher that he was exposed to, educated on, and became deeply acquainted with the intricacies of the literary and publishing industry, and the process of grooming aspiring writers. This involved extensive interactions with writers, writing groups, literary agents, editors and publishers, mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom, and led to the more cordial relationship he formed with Les Stobbe, an American Christian writer and literary agent who is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild.
So impressed by the Initiator’s literary ability was Less Stobbe that he remarked: “I have to confess that your English is the best I have seen from a Nigerian.” David Robbie, another American literary agent, added: “You show not only a scholarly approach, but a readable one… I am most impressed, however, by your clear writing and obvious skill at language.” Here in Nigeria, Innocent Ibhaluobe, Features Editor at the Success Attitude Development Centre (SADC) says: “There is no doubt you have an extremely good writing skill. However, you need to know where to channel it.” And as regards the concept of his proposed book, Another Time, Scott Hale, author or Broken People, says: “I am truly amazed at the scope of your [vision]. I cannot recall anyone speaking of Biblical Prophecy and the ‘Last Act’ – that is, the Millennium and the Ever-After that follows – in the manner that you have, nor attempting to view the Millennium with any skill, unless perhaps the grandmaster of allegory, C.S. Lewis.”
In retrospect, he realises that his informal but broad and intensive education in writing and publishing (which has spanned almost seven years), the computer skills and administrative experience he acquired during his postgraduate training and secular work, as well as his self-publishing experience, were grooming him for his definite life purpose. The winding and difficult route he had to follow in learning the ropes of the literary and publishing world, while also developing his career, have placed on him the burden of making things easier for Nigerian and other African Christian writers coming behind, as well as those who are already practising the craft but have not been privileged with his kind of exposure.
However, for over 15 months after he received the inspiration and first wrote this proposal, he took no definite step towards actualising the vision, partly out of caution not to miscarry it. But the Lord was gracious, and after a recurring and disturbing theme in his dreams, he picked up his Bible in the evening of Sunday, February 15, 2009, with a definite desire to hear again from God. He flipped it open and there before him was Joshua 18. Verse 3 reads: “And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?”
As a witness that this was of the Lord, not only had he used the metaphor of writers possessing their land in different parts of this proposal, but a very long time ago, he had also marked this Bible verse and the one preceding it and added the note, “slothfulness,” which was the very theme of the recurring dream that had been troubling him.
So, awakening to the fact that the Lord was waiting for him, he got up to “run” with the vision of the Canaan Literary Initiative – a name that has been chosen for obvious reasons.
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