Meet Kan Elroy Moses: Our high-profile personality of the week

Arguably, Kan Elroy Moses is today one of the most popular, one of the most venerated, one of the most inspiring and one of the most influential religious personalities in the North West region and – why not – all of Cameroon and even beyond. Humble, gentle, honest, altruistic and profoundly introspective and outgoing at the same time, this faithful General Overseer of the Bamenda-based Synagogue House of Prayer for All Nations (SHOPAN) has touched and continues to touch the lives of a multitude of Cameroonians and foreigners alike.

For a man who might not have originally planned to be a theologian to turn his back on the pleasures of material comfort and fully devote his life to Jesus Christ, as well as to the spiritual service of mankind, this is something unusual worthy of surpassing commendation. It is a clear indication of the fact that the highly criticized Cameroonian society does not suffer from total moral bankruptcy; that some of the children of this land are still attached to their Father and Creator and still care about the spiritual well-being of their brethren.

Peaceful separation with T. B. Joshua

The level-headed child of God certainly began living a prayerful life as a young man. But he intensified his Godly activities when he joined the healing ministry of the Nigerian born Prophet T. B. Joshua sometime in the late 1990s. Kan Elroy was so devoted and faithful to the teachings and works of God that his master gave him the go-ahead to set up a branch of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in Bamenda in 2000. A thing he did, naming the branch SCOAN Bamenda Fellowship. And not only were he and members of this branch paying tithes regularly to SCOAN Lagos, they also made huge financial contributions for the construction of the SCOAN Cathedral in Lagos.

Before long, the Almighty God gave Elroy anointing powers which he used and continues to use indiscriminately. But he was grossly taken aback when in 2010 T. B. Joshua claimed that he was not aware of the existence of SCOAN Bamenda Fellowship. The Lagos-based Man of God did not end there; he kept brandishing the Cameroon flag amongst those of other countries on Emmanuel TV, warning that SCOAN did not have any branch in these countries. What was worse, T. B. Joshua called Kan Elroy Moses and others who were running branches elsewhere dupes and fraudsters.

Others in Elroy’s shoes would have obviously taken T. B. Joshua’s behaviour unkindly and reacted in an equally unfriendly manner. But although scandalized, the gentle and urbane Elroy was not indignant. So he sought a peaceful solution to the problem. After consultations, he and other members of SCOAN Bamenda Fellowship unanimously elected that their branch should declare autonomy from SCOAN Lagos.

“Since the name SCOAN Bamenda Fellowship was the problem,” he told The Guardian Post, “we resolved to create SHOPAN. I want to make it clear that it is not the name that makes a church. No church first of all has a name in heaven…we moved into the bible and God directed us to Mark 11:17 where Jesus Christ said: ‘Is it not written that my House shall be called the House of Prayer for All Nations?’ The Synagogue in Hebrews history means a place of worship. Hence the name Synagogue House of Prayer for All Nations, SHOPAN, Cameroon…I am not complaining because it might be the will of God that things are happening this way…”

Miracle performances as witnessed nowhere else

Before and after this peaceful separation two years ago, Kan Elroy Moses did and has kept doing marvels for those who visit his church and even those who do not. With intense prayers and a mere touch of the hand, people suffering from all kinds of chronic and terminal diseases have seen their illnesses miraculously taken away from them.

He has totally discarded despair from the lives of despondent cancer patients by healing them, transformed those with HIV/AIDS into HIV negative persons and rendered barren couples pleasantly fecund. Similarly, couples who were long separated on account of what they considered intractable problems are once again reunited thanks to the prayers and counseling acumen of the genial Man of God, Kan Elroy Moses.

Demon-inhabited hearts have equally been exorcized and people who had signed pacts with the devil made to renew their faith in the Almighty by this God-sent evangelist. Every day in SHOPAN, witches and wizards are made to denounce the mystical idols by which they used to swear; and charlatans, wrapped anew by the spirit of God, are seen to burn and destroy their magical gadgets and instead take home copies of the bible and well-written prayers.

Elroy’s wonders pulling mammoth home crowds

As the pidgin saying goes, “Na fine market di sell e self.” The marvellous deeds and actions of Kan Elroy Moses actually need no publicity, as news about them keeps spreading like wild bushfire in the harmattan.  Everyday people stream into SHOPAN from all the nooks and crannies of the republic to receive healing. And hardly do they go back dissatisfied.

A 46-year-old lady from the East region called Christine who, on account of chronic fibroid had not been able to bear a child, but who suddenly saw the fibroid leave her body after Elroy prayed for her, gave the following testimony to The Guardian Post:

“At 46, I thought I would no longer be able to give birth to a child. For long years, I had been suffering from fibroid infection which prevented me from getting pregnant. Successive doctors had prescribed an operation, but I was never able to raise money for it. When I was told of the miracles that Pastor Kan Elroy Moses does, I decided to go to his church for prayers. I spent four days in Bamenda, and after the pastor had prayed for me on the fourth day, I went to my hotel and had a wonderful experience. The fibroid came out like magic! Today, close to eight months after, I am heavily pregnant! In fact, I don’t know how to thank the Man of God. I will obviously go back there after I put to bed. And whatever the sex of the child will be, I will name it Elroy!”

Foreigners too come in their numbers

Interestingly, not only nationals go to SHOPAN for worship. Foreigners too flood the Ngen Junction church for the same purpose. For the few times that reporters of The Guardian Post have visited the church, we have met citizens of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Russia, Portugal and even Burma there.

A Portuguese sailor whom we met in SHOPAN a few months ago was all tears when Kan Elroy made certain revelations to him. We later overheard him confiding in a Cameroonian friend that all what the pastor had said about his life and that of his family was true and that he was already feeling a very heavy burden being lifted from his shoulders.

Another foreigner, this time a Gabonese bourgeois named Mihindou Moussavou, who spoke passively to The Guardian Post, promised to relocate to Cameroon with his entire family so as to get complete healing from the hands of the Cameroonian pastor. For, as he put it, a demon had taken a seat into his family home and installed comfortably.

No delusions of grandeur

Being a true Man of God, Elroy’s great works do not make him filled with delusions of grandeur. Rather, they make him all the more humble. This humility pervades what he again told The Guardian Post in an interview. Said he:

“The strength of my healing power is God who I depend on for everything. God is my wisdom, my power, my understanding, my ability and my all. Every healing of mine is done by Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. I, Kan Elroy, have been crucified with Christ. No longer do I live but Christ lives in me. So if Christ lives in me and I stretch my hand on the sick even 30 metres away, the person falls under the anointing. I am not the healer. Jesus is the healer. I am merely an instrument in the hands of God.”           

Philanthropy that knows no bounds

 Philanthropy is another trademark of Elroy’s. Since he began his ministry, he has been using money contributed by members, himself inclusive, to take care of tens of thousands of widows, orphans, people with disability as well as older persons. He used a short period of time to build a hall for orphans and widows in Bangangte in the West region.

Still with money raised by members of SHOPAN, the loving and lovely pastor feeds and dresses a multitude of other needy people and provides scholarship every year to children from poor backgrounds. And being a financial expert of high standing, he puts a perfect mechanism in place to ensure the effective use of the money.

Bringing sanity to North West treasury

Talking about Kan Elroy Moses’ financial expertise, it should be recalled that this helped him in no small measure to bring sanity to the North West treasury while he served as the pay master general for the region. Prior to his appointment to that position in late 2008, the North West treasury was the laughing stock of the country because services there were like commodities which were offered only to the highest bidders. That treasury was indeed a preserved area for the rich or those who were ready to surrender 30% of their payments.

However, things suddenly changed when Elroy came, as the God-fearing man completely wiped out corruption through the use of the bible. He told everyone who came for their services that man, no matter how rich or poor, big or small, is the same in the eyes of God. Based on this strong and unshakable belief of his, the staff of that treasury were left with no other choice than to pay bills in their order of arrival. Highest bidders and bribe givers were asked to wait with their dirty money until the day Kan Elroy would no longer be at the helm of the North West treasury. It suddenly became a place where the poorest people could rub shoulders with billionaires.

In fact, the pastor had always been an apostle of anti-corruption and good governance even before President Paul Biya vulgarized the ideas. When he was sent to the treasury, he dispelled the misconception that treasurers were Shylocks who would always want a pound of flesh before they rendered any service.

The exemplary Man of God has served in various capacities in the ministry of finance, but what made him stand out in the madding crowd of treasurers was his ability to resist temptation and his humane but strict application of hierarchical directives. Described as Mr. Clean, he was able to instill order in the treasury administration wherever he served.

Elroy’s modus operandi was to teach by example. He educated his collaborators in the North West treasury on the functions of a treasury worker, which entailed nothing else but the strict verification of public expenditure and its proper payment with no strings attached. He brought sanity there by using the carrot and the whip; motivating those who worked accordingly and meting out disciplinary sanctions to those who desecrated the exacting task of finance officers.

Even though Elroy is no longer at the helm of the North West treasury, his legacy is still felt there. Punctuality and programmed payments are still the order of the day and the renovation works that he carried out are still visible. What an exemplary Man of God!